Search - Charles Gounod, Julius Rudel, Sylvain Cambreling :: Gounod: Sapho

L'intégrale à ne pas rater

Constantin Declercq | 12/13/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"De «Sapho», à la fois premier et dernier opéra de Gounod, on connaît surtout le très bel air «Ô ma lyre immortelle» de la fin du troisième acte. Cet enregistrement, un concert de Radio-France de 1979, est une des rares intégrales de l'opéra et il s'agit de la version d'origine de 1851. Sapho est chantée par la mezzo nord-américaine Katherine Ciesinski au beau timbre expressif. Phaon est chanté par le ténor Alain Vanzo. Tous les chanteurs sont français sauf Ciesinski mais cette dernière a une bonne diction. Le chef d'orchestre est Cambreling, alors à ses débuts.

Comme toujours avec le label Gala, on a des bonus un peu étonnants. Dans ce cas il s'agit de 25 minutes extraites du quatrième acte de «Faust» enregistré en 1968 à New York avec des chanteurs nord-américains (Beverly Sills, Norman Treigle et Michele Molese).

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Mildly interesting work in acceptable performances

G.D. | Norway | 02/13/2009

(3 out of 5 stars)

"Sapho was Gounod's first opera, and it reveals a fresh and interesting musical voice, very competent if a little cautious, at least when it comes to formal structure; Gounod goes for the safe option and constructs his opera more as a dramatic cantata than letting the reins loose in order to create something with real dramatic impact - he also seems to hold too much back when it comes to moments that cry out for some real dramatic writing. That said, there is some truly beautiful music here and the whole opera is indeed delightfully charming. The characters are hardly developed as much as one could wish for; Pytheas, in particular, is unnecessarily anodyne and one is left with some confusions as to what motivations the various characters are actually supposed to be acting upon - it is all a little four-square and algorithmic with some crucial variables left unsaturated. On the other hand, Sapho's final aria (which is generally the only part of the work that has been performed these last hundred-and-fifty years) is superb and throughout Gounod is pretty adept at creating musical depths out of rather sparse materials.



Sound quality is acceptable, clear and with little intrusion from stage noises but strangely variable in balance (for the most part the balance is rather off). The soloists also leave something to be desired. Meunier is decent but sings to flatly; Ciesinski is better; technically adept but with a small expressive range. Vanzo is probably the best one and he gives a very sympathetic portrayal of Phaon (who, it should be mentioned, is probably the best developed character anyway). The orchestral contributions are good (were it not for the rather poor recording balance), and Cambreling manages to convey the breadth and depth of the lyrical parts although underplaying the dramatic parts (partially Gounod has to bear the blame here as well, though). In the end, this can be recommended for the curious - there is nothing really bad here performance-wise, but it is far from perfect either, and the music is fine if a little bland at times."