Search - Massenet :: Cleopatra

A lovely surprise

Charlus | NYC | 12/01/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Massenet's later operas have never had a good press. His style was said to have become much too etiolated ["To become blanched or whitened, as when grown without sunlight. To appear pale and sickly: 'a face that was etiolated from years in prison'",] overrefined, rarefied, tenuous, semioccasional... W. H. Henderson, the most influential and best-remembered of the Old Guard NY critics from the 1870s until his suicide in 1936 (he was said by Irving Kolodin to have been "present at the Creation"!) described Cléopâtre as consisting mostly of "vapid arioso".



We Massenet fans are a defensive breed of special pleaders, and we tend to like etiolation, I fear (Amadis gives that word a whole new dimension!) but I would not call Cléopâtre anything but shamelessly colourful and wonderfully C. B. DeMille-ish. In the throats of great singing actors with total command of French déclamation and an appropriately over-the-top production, this expertly constructed exotic flower would be dynamite! The orchestration is beyond the beyonds. I love it, so there. And I would certainly pay good money so see and hear the likes of Denyse Graves clad-or, as it happens, unclad- in the come-hither gossamers of the asp-loving late Queen of Egypt.



Cléopâtre was created at Monte-Carlo in 1914-bad year-with the lovely Russo-French soprano Marie Kousnetzoff in the title part and the noted singing-actor Alfred Maguenat as Marc Antony. An even more famous acting bass-baritone, Vanni Marcoux, sang Antony when the Chicago Opera tried Cléopâtre in NYC (upon which occasion Henderson gave forth the quip for which the opera is sadly remembered.) MARY GARDEN was the Cléo then...!



Nothing quite so intoxicating is in evidence in this excellent live recording from the Massenet Festival in Saint-Etienne (near Lyons and, as it happens, old Jules' home town,) but the opera is given a fine, authentic, loving, respectful performance, with the usual superb conducting by Patrick Fournillier, to whom Massenet lovers owe so much.



The American mezzo Kathryn Harries as Cleopatra has a smooth, dark, smoky, slightly throaty voice and excellent French: one can hardly imagine the part better sung, except perhaps by the likes of Régine Crespin. The Antony, French baritone Didier Henry, has a good dark voice and if his legato could certainly be smoother, he nevertheless is always "in the part", and never sounds feeble. He's more than ok +, but TOO BAD IT WASN'T JOSE VAN DAM!!! The supporting cast is fine, even if Jean-Luc Maurette is often off-mike as the rejected Spakos (a part created by René Rousselière, a noted Wagnerian tenor.) When he gets close to the mike, he sounds very good indeed.



This recording is much more than a stopgap and should be reissued. The same source's Grisélidis has actually been re-issued on Brilliant Classics so here's to hoping. Meanwhile, if Amazon offers any used copies.....grab it!!"

A forgotten gem

Ralph Moore | Bishop's Stortford, UK | 03/16/2008

(4 out of 5 stars)

"This set has been long deleted and is difficult to find unless you are prepared to pay too much for a used copy; I was cursing myself for not having bought it when it first appeared in 1992 when I found one from David Schwartz at CDs Unlimited in London, my trusty small supplier of rarities.



It was certainly worth the wait. While the cast might not live up to that of its 1914 premier and subsequent Chicago revival (since when, owing to some rather vicious and prejudiced reviews by contemporary critics, it virtually disappeared until this Massenet festival performance in 1990), they are all, with the exception of Kathryn Harries, Francophones with beautiful voices. Harries sings in excellent French in her lustrous, smokey mezzo, and does all she can to bring the fascinating Cleopatre alive - even if Massenet's death scene cannot rival Berlioz' more dramatic version; Massenet's, by contrast, is a sort of dreamlike lullabye, whereby Cleopatre drifts of into death to otherworldly strains reminiscent, as the excellent booklet notes point out, of the Adagio of Mahler's Tenth.



Massenet makes a telling contrast between the virile, martial music of the Romans and the languorous, exotic music of Cleopatre's court, with its harmonic sideshifts and unexpected modulations. Dull this music isn't, despite Henderson's swipe at the opera as "vapid arioso"; we are certainly, at times, in the familiar world of "Thais" but this is no mere half-hearted re-visiting. I was certainly pleasantly surprised by Massenet's invention in this late piece, when all inspiration was supposed to have left him. There are a couple of arias perhaps already familiar to the more seasoned opera fan, especially the lovely, haunting, "J'ai verse le poison" (featured in Renee Fleming's recent "Homage" album) but also much unfamiliar music worth getting to know. It is, perhaps, as a whole, a little short on drama but it has a literate, well constructed libretto, includes a telling meeting between Cleopatre and Octavia in Mark Antony's presence, and invents an Egyptian slave lover of Cleopatre, Spakos, who is very well characterised and sung by a tenor previously unknown to me, Jean Luc Maurette.



The live recording is excellent; hardly a cough and the voices are mostly on mike. The orchestra and conductor, while hardly household names, are first class. I hope that it is re-issued for Massenet lovers before too long; meanwhile look for a second-hand copy - you won't be disappointed if you are susceptible to Massenet's delicate, Gallic charms."