Charpentier Louise
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: Gustave Charpentier
Genre:
Opera
Label: Philips
Magazine Review Date: 9/1994
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 163
Mastering:
ADD
Catalogue Number: 442 082-2PM3
Tracks:
| Composition | Artist Credit |
|---|---|
| Louise |
Gustave Charpentier, Composer
André Laroze, Julien Berthe Monmart, Louise Gustave Charpentier, Composer Jean Fournet, Conductor Jean Fournet, Conductor Louis Musy, Father Louis Rialland, Noctambulist, Tenor Paris Opéra-Comique Chorus Paris Opéra-Comique Orchestra Pierre Giannotti, King of Fools Solange Michel, Mother, Soprano |
Author: Patrick O'Connor
The charms of La vie parisienne, Manon and La boheme notwithstanding, Louise is the essential opera set in, and about, Paris. Anyone who has seen the room furnished with Charpentier's belongings and looked out through the vine-planted terraced garden of the Musee de Montmartre, must recognize how faithfully he depicted his milieu in the opera. This recording has the air of authority and authenticity throughout. All the principals were members of the company at the Opera-Comique during the 1950s, when Jean Fournet was its Music Director. For the fiftieth anniversary of its premiere, Louis Musy who sings the Father, staged a new production of Louise, with decor by Utrillo, in February 1950.
The appropriately-named Berthe Monmart who sings the title-role may not be the soprano of one's dreams, but she fulfils all the role's requirements, and on the evidence of this had quite a big voice (her other roles in the early 1950s included Ariadne and Santuzza). She is the only French singer to have recorded the role since Ninon Vallin, in the abridged version supervised by the composer in the 1930s (conducted by Eugene Bigot, available on Nimbus). Her singing is full of charm, and she manages moments such as the leap to a soft high G at ''des petales de roses'' in the opening love duet without apparent strain. Of course, every prima donna has recorded ''Depuis le jour'' (Melba, Callas, Price, Caballe, Sutherland, the list is endless) and it is useless to suggest that Monmart has such vocal allure, but she achieves complete conviction. All the singers have well-nigh perfect diction—essential in this supreme example of French verismo.
What genius Charpentier mustered for this one work. When the Father makes his entrance in Act 1, to his 'tired' music and asks if the soup is ready, the psychological portrait is completed—mother/father/daughter, caught in this early picture of youth in rebellion. Musy's career had begun in the 1920s, and he had sung the entire baritone repertory at the Opera-Comique before becoming its director of productions.
Andre Laroze does not have the reserves of stentorian tone that Georges Thill brought to Julien's music on disc and film (Abel Gance, director, with Grace Moore, in 1938), but he is the real thing—a French tenor. In the duet that follows ''Depuis le jour'' he and Monmart get up steam in fine ecstatic fashion. The rather ungrateful role of the Mother, whom Charpentier does not mock in his music, is also a sympathetic character in her way despite all the nagging, and is taken by Solange Michel, another veteran of the rue Favart. In the many small roles are several well-known names, among them Andres Guiot and Jacques Mars.
Fournet's pacing of the score achieves excitement at the climactic moments, the lovers' duets, Louise's almost hysterical apostrophe to Paris in the closing scene, while making the faintly mystical opening of Act 2 a miniature poem, with its street cries and little ripples of chanson.
For the Pretre performance with Cotrubas and Domingo, LS was somewhat reserved in his praise (10/76), and much less enthusiastic for Cambreling (Erato, 11/83—nla); in between came the Rudel version with Sills and Gedda, which got the thumbs-down from JBS (EMI, 3/78—nla), so it seems fair to say that this 38-year-old recording is the one to have. The mono sound is amazingly vivid—I was completely swept along by its fresh sense of theatricality and by the trueopera-comique style of all concerned.'
The appropriately-named Berthe Monmart who sings the title-role may not be the soprano of one's dreams, but she fulfils all the role's requirements, and on the evidence of this had quite a big voice (her other roles in the early 1950s included Ariadne and Santuzza). She is the only French singer to have recorded the role since Ninon Vallin, in the abridged version supervised by the composer in the 1930s (conducted by Eugene Bigot, available on Nimbus). Her singing is full of charm, and she manages moments such as the leap to a soft high G at ''des petales de roses'' in the opening love duet without apparent strain. Of course, every prima donna has recorded ''Depuis le jour'' (Melba, Callas, Price, Caballe, Sutherland, the list is endless) and it is useless to suggest that Monmart has such vocal allure, but she achieves complete conviction. All the singers have well-nigh perfect diction—essential in this supreme example of French verismo.
What genius Charpentier mustered for this one work. When the Father makes his entrance in Act 1, to his 'tired' music and asks if the soup is ready, the psychological portrait is completed—mother/father/daughter, caught in this early picture of youth in rebellion. Musy's career had begun in the 1920s, and he had sung the entire baritone repertory at the Opera-Comique before becoming its director of productions.
Andre Laroze does not have the reserves of stentorian tone that Georges Thill brought to Julien's music on disc and film (Abel Gance, director, with Grace Moore, in 1938), but he is the real thing—a French tenor. In the duet that follows ''Depuis le jour'' he and Monmart get up steam in fine ecstatic fashion. The rather ungrateful role of the Mother, whom Charpentier does not mock in his music, is also a sympathetic character in her way despite all the nagging, and is taken by Solange Michel, another veteran of the rue Favart. In the many small roles are several well-known names, among them Andres Guiot and Jacques Mars.
Fournet's pacing of the score achieves excitement at the climactic moments, the lovers' duets, Louise's almost hysterical apostrophe to Paris in the closing scene, while making the faintly mystical opening of Act 2 a miniature poem, with its street cries and little ripples of chanson.
For the Pretre performance with Cotrubas and Domingo, LS was somewhat reserved in his praise (10/76), and much less enthusiastic for Cambreling (Erato, 11/83—nla); in between came the Rudel version with Sills and Gedda, which got the thumbs-down from JBS (EMI, 3/78—nla), so it seems fair to say that this 38-year-old recording is the one to have. The mono sound is amazingly vivid—I was completely swept along by its fresh sense of theatricality and by the true
Charpentier Louise
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