Search - Ravel, Maazel, Fno :: L'Enfant Et Les Sortileges

A MORALITY PLAY

DAVID BRYSON | Glossop Derbyshire England | 05/02/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"As morality plays go, this must be one of the very best. The libretto is by none other than Mme Colette, and the story concerns the fairy-tale adventures of a spoiled but basically good-hearted child and how he learns the worth of what he finds around him. He learns, for instance, not to pin the living beauty of a dragonfly to the wall just as a trophy. He learns not to inflict casual damage on a tree. He learns, even, not to be destructive and wasteful of the simple everyday environment of his home, and he learns the value of learning itself. There is no heavy moralising in this story, no sanctimoniousness and no punishment, and even the little animals, which start fighting among themselves under the influence of his petulance, stop fighting when his own comportment changes for the better - this is a lovely touch.



Ravel was no musical revolutionary, but he was even less of a traditionalist. His search was always for freshness (rather than novelty as such) in musical ideas, and he had no interest in opera as that was practised by Meyerbeer, Wagner and Gounod. This beautiful and touching little tale brings out the best and most characteristic in him. The influence of American music is there as usual, but I don't hear much or any Spanish or Basque idiom this time. The orchestral scoring has all his typical lightness and vividness, the little harlequinade of characters has variety and wit in the music to correspond with the text, and it is all just the right length for what it is, fitting comfortably and conveniently on to a single cd.



The recording was originally done in 1960 or 1961, and it won a Gramophone prize in the remastered category in 1989. In 2006 I find that it still sounds well, although not quite the kind of marvel of sound-engineering that we have got used to these days. When I wondered briefly whether I could really give it 5 stars for sound, I reflected that to make any complaint under the circumstances would be to behave rather like the child in his unreconstructed days, so 5 stars it is. The performance is really very good indeed, with the right prominence for the solo voices as well. The singers capture the humour and tenderness of this little masterpiece, and their work is excellent technically - I was particularly thrilled by a really superb long trill on `Aa!...' from Sylvaine Gilma in one of her roles as the Nightingale. The translation is adequate, but the liner-note and the synopsis are really very good, and what a pleasure it is to be able to say that for a change.



The disc seems to be out of production, so if it appeals to you I should get hold of an available copy without delay. I hope you like it, because if you don't the teapot, the tree, the bat, the owl, the grandfather clock, the dragonfly, the frog and the squirrel will be sad again, and old Mr Arithmetic himself may start getting his sums wrong."

An astonishing triumph all around

Santa Fe Listener | Santa Fe, NM USA | 09/18/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Snap up used copies of this cherished recording while you can--it isn't in print so far as I know. (Note: Not long after writing this review I noticed to my delight that both of Mazzel's classic recordings of Ravel operas, this one and the equally delightful L'heure espagnol, have been reissued as a 2-CD set in DG's Originals series.) Maazel recorded Ravel's enchanting chamber opera with all-French forces in 1960, and everything works magically. The sonics are perfectly bright and detailed, the singing is dramatic and committed, the pacing is perfect.



It's hard to believe that Mazzel could produce such witty yet touching conducting. We are ever so delicately poised in Ravel's shadings of childhood melancholy, adult sophistication, comic pantomime and solemn whimsy. If you have heard other versions of Ravel's little masterpiece, you may dismiss it as slsightly twee and precious, but here the travails and come-uppance of a spoiled brat are treated with seriousness and empathy, not preciousness. This performance is very touching and lovely to listen to at every moment."

One of the All -time great Opera recordings

Joe Garza | GA, USA | 06/14/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I fell in love with this magnificent recording, of what is to me, THE most enchanting, magical work ever written for the operatic stage over twenty years ago.In terms of sheer musical beauty,this work has few rivals in the entire repertoire. Each episode or vignette is surpassed by the next, until the very last miraculous bars, which never fail to move me to tears. I am, of course a great lover of Mozart and Verdi, but if given only one desert island pick, I would select this opera and recording to take with me. All 43 minutes of it! As for the recording itself, I feel , as others have stated, it is one of the all time classics, to rank with the 1953 EMI Callas Tosca,or the 1954 Decca Der Rosenkavalier,or maybe the 1964 Kempe Lohengrin just to name three examples. The cast, who incidently double many roles as per Ravel's instructions and orchestra are perfect, as is Loren Maazel's brilliant conducting. The recorded sounded still impresses even after 49 years.Even better in the 1990 digitally remastered version.To sum it up , this is one of the most glorious opera recordings ever made,stunning in every way possible."