Chan 3010 bookcover.qxd 25/7/08 12:11 pm Page 1 Chan 3010 reat Operatic CHANDOS O PERA I N G ARIAS ENGLISH Diana Montague PETE MOOES FOUNDATION CHAN 3010 BOOK.qxd 25/7/08 12:16 pm Page 2 Great Operatic Arias with Diana Montague Diana Montague as Andromaca in the Glyndebourne Festival production of Rossini’s Ermione 2 3 CHAN 3010 BOOK.qxd 25/7/08 12:16 pm Page 4 Camille Saint-Saëns (1835–1921) Gaetano Donizetti (1797–1848) from Samson and Delilah from La favorite 1 Delilah’s and Samson’s Duet – ‘Softly awakes my heart…’ 6:00 Leonora’s Recitative, Aria and Cabaletta 8:54 (Mon cœur s’ouvre à ta voix) (O mon Fernand) with Bruce Ford tenor 6 ‘Can I believe it?…’ – ‘O my beloved…’ – 5:34 Charles Gounod (1818–1893) 7 ‘I submit to heav’nly powers…’ 3:20 from Faust 2 Siebel’s Flower Song – ‘Summer flowers so fair…’ 2:59 Hector Berlioz (1803–1868) (Faites lui mes aveux) from The Damnation of Faust 8 Marguérite’s Romance – ‘The fire of love inside me…’ 9:12 Léo Delibes (1836–1891) (D’amour l’ardente flamme) from Lakmé 3 Lakmé’s and Mallika’s duet – ‘Come, Mallika! See the vines all in flow’r…’ 6:45 Christoph Willibald Gluck (1714–1787) (Viens, Mallika) from Orpheus and Eurydice with Mary Plazas soprano 9 Orpheus’s Aria – ‘What is life to me without thee…’ 4:09 (Che farò senza Euridice?) Camille Saint-Saëns from Samson and Delilah Gioachino Rossini (1792–1868) Delilah’s Recitative and Aria from Count Ory 4 ‘Tonight, seeking hither my presence…’ – Trio: Count, Isolier and Countess – ‘Night lends her aid…’ 9:23 ‘O love! From thy pow’r let me borrow!…’ 4:46 (A la faveur) (Amour! Viens aider ma faiblesse) 10 ‘Night lends her aid…’ – 2:54 5 Delilah’s Aria – ‘Fair spring is returning…’ 6:06 11 ‘With love and tender yearning…’ 6:29 (Printemps qui commence) with Mary Plazas soprano . Bruce Ford tenor 4 5 CHAN 3010 BOOK.qxd 25/7/08 12:16 pm Page 6 Ambroise Thomas (1811–1896) from Mignon 12 Frédéric’s Rondo-Gavotte – ‘Here am I in her boudoir…’ 2:23 (Me voici dans son boudoir) Richard H. Smith Richard Jacques Offenbach (1819–1880) from La Périchole 13 Périchole’s Griserie – ‘I’ve dined so well, I feel divine…’ 1:56 14 Périchole’s Letter Song – ‘Oh my dearest, from my heart I swear it…’ 3:01 15 Périchole’s Aria – ‘You don’t have looks, you don’t have cash…’ 2:54 (Couplet des aveux) Ambroise Thomas from Mignon 16 Mignon’s Romance – ‘Have you heard of the land…’ 6:19 (Connais-tu le pays?) TT 75:30 Diana Montague mezzo-soprano Philharmonia Orchestra David Parry Diana Montague as Iphigénie in Welsh National Opera’s production of Gluck’s Iphigénie en Tauride 6 7 CHAN 3010 BOOK.qxd 25/7/08 12:16 pm Page 8 beauty, is rather too oratorio-orientated, Rossini’s triumph, Donizetti wrote, in a Great Operatic Arias too heavy for the music’s good. very different vein, for the French Montague’s more boy-like timbre and capital with his romantic tragedy her urgent yet never effusive manner La favorite (1840). Although most often Diana Montague’s recital is as good beloved Eurydice. The role of Orpheus ideally fulfils Gluck’s intentions. heard throughout its history in Italian evidence as one could want for the was created in the middle of the Next in the chronology of mezzo translation with powerful Amneris-like virtues of singing opera in the eighteenth century for a castrato, but roles undertaken there comes the page voices as the unhappy heroine Leonora, vernacular. She deploys a trim, flexible Gluck had to re-compose it for a tenor Isolier’s wooing of Countess Adèle in the role really calls for the kind of more voice in projecting the English text with to cater for Parisian taste, which would Rossini’s late comedy Count Ory contained, less voluminous voice that a full understanding of how to inflect not tolerate castratos. It has been a (1828). The role was taken in 1997 and Montague possesses. She brings to words with maximum effect. She allies favourite with mezzos ever since Pauline 1998 at Glyndebourne by Montague ‘O mon Fernand’ (Oh my beloved) just that virtue to a truly kaleidoscopic Viardot adopted the role in the middle with the agility and quick wit it calls the right touch of longing as Leonora choice of pieces from the French of the nineteenth century in an edition for. Isolier is in love with the Countess sings of her love for the ill-fated repertory, still not as popular as it by Berlioz, specially arranged for her, only to find his master Ory also has his Fernand, then goes on to the should be in this country. This may which, until recently was the one eye – and not only his eye – on her. determined cabaletta often omitted in partly be blamed on the fact that singers regularly performed on stage and This naughty trio has the libidinous separate recordings of the aria. all too often tackle French opera as record. Count (here amusingly characterized by Six years on, in 1846, Paris was the though it were Italian, missing the The aria itself became even more Bruce Ford), hilariously disguised as a scene of the first performance of yet subtlety and lightness of touch it popular in Britain when Kathleen nun, attempting to get into bed with another, and again very different work, requires. It is something that Diana Ferrier made a best-selling 78rpm disc, the lovely Countess while his own page this was Berlioz’s The Damnation of Montague has realized and thereby in English, back in the 1940s. It is a is also wooing her. The mellifluous, Faust. At its very centre lies Marguérite’s mastered. tribute to the power of singing the aria nocturnal mood of Rossini’s sensuous great lament with its long-breathed, sad Gluck’s Orpheus and Eurydice in the vernacular that this record writing in this delicious trio is among main section, where the grieving girl (Orfeo ed Euridice or Orphée) was became an immediate favourite with the the glories of Rossinian – and French – expresses all the sorrow in her soul, written in Italian for Vienna, rewritten public, repeated again and again on the opera. followed by a middle section where in French for Paris. In Orpheus’s closing wireless and loved by a new generation All composers at this period sought Berlioz so graphically catches aria he eloquently laments the loss of his today. But Ferrier’s voice, for all its success in Paris, and twelve years after Marguérite’s urgent musings on Faust’s 8 9 CHAN 3010 BOOK.qxd 25/7/08 12:16 pm Page 10 touch and kiss before the original innate theatricality making it a surefire form, is an outburst of longing for the in English-speaking opera circles as melody with its sinuous cor anglais solo success from its inception. The boy South where Mignon is said to have ‘Softly awakes my heart’, (track 1), we returns, its sense of loss even further Siebel, Marguérite’s lover until Faust come from. Thomas wrote a headily hear Delilah actually carrying out her enhanced. The music, as so often with appears, is characterized in his sensuous song for his much-loved plan as at night she lures Samson Berlioz, extends the boundaries of delightfully insouciant Flower Song. It character, calling for suave, velvet tone. (Bruce Ford) into her lair against his musical expression. This is a piece is typical of the sort of piece Gounod Not as complex as its German counter- better judgment. It owns surely one of needing a voice, such as Montague’s, dropped into his serious operas to parts, it catches as well, if not better the most glorious and memorable hovering between mezzo and soprano, lighten the mood – and they’re usually than they, Mignon’s mysterious nature. melodies in all French opera, fully which the French call a ‘Falcon’, after a assigned to mezzos in trousers as was Saint-Saëns’s bible-based, hieratical justifying its renown, but the other two singer of that name. the tradition then, and it is a genre in opera Samson and Delilah (1877) is also exhibit the composer’s gift for With Gounod’s very different which Montague is particularly adept. another work that achieved immense creating the most grateful line for his rendition of the same Goethe-inspired Mignon (1866), though seldom and well-deserved popularity in and heroine to sing. plot, we reach the high noon of French encountered now in the opera house, outside France. It is notable both for its In Lakmé (1883), Delibes proved no opera in Paris during the Second was almost as popular as Faust in its day clever characterization, sense of slouch in writing catchy tunes. It is Empire and the period that immediately and shared with its predecessor as stagecraft and, above all, memorable common knowledge that the duet succeeded it, encompassing the inspiration a work by Goethe, in this melodies. These gifts are all evinced in recorded here has become a hot remainder of the works represented case the novel Wilhelm Meister. Diana the three grand-scale, carefully crafted favourite with the public after it was here. Opera in those days was at the Montague here essays two roles, in the arias the composer lavished on his used as a backing to a BA commercial.