Recovering, restoring, recording and performing the forgotten operatic heritage of the 19th century GOUNOD LA COLOMBE Slipcase, digipack, CD faces and booklet cover: design by Caroll & Co ORC53 Tis recording has been made possible through the generous support of Glenn Hurstfeld and Edward Gasson 1 Charles Gounod LA COLOMBE Opéra-comique in two acts Libretto by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré Sylvie, a wealthy countess Erin Morley Horace, a young Florentine Javier Camarena Mazet, manservant to Horace Michèle Losier Maître Jean, majordomo of the countess Laurent Naouri Hallé Paul Barritt, leader Sir Mark Elder, conductor 2 Producer Introductory essay, synopsis Michael Haas and libretto translation Hugh Macdonald Opera Rara production management Dialogue editing Kim Panter Rodney Milnes and Agathe Mélinand Assistant conductor Recording engineers Jamie Phillips Classic Sound: Jonathan Stokes and Neil Hutchinson Répétiteur Jef Cohen Editing Michael Haas, Jamie Phillips French coach Sir Mark Elder Nicole Tibbels Recorded at Hallé St Peter’s, Ancoats, Recording company manager Manchester, June 2015 Ruth Mulholland Te scores and parts for this Session photography recording were created for Opera Rara Russell Duncan by Ian Schofeld 3 Te Hallé First violins Violas Flutes Percussion Paul Barritt Timothy Pooley Katherine Baker David Hext Sarah Ewins Piero Gasparini Charlotte Ashton Ric Parmigiani Tiberiu Buta Robert Criswell Oboes Harp Ian Watson Chris Emerson Stephane Rancourt Marie Leenhardt Zoe Colman Sue Baker Virginia Shaw Alison Hunt Martin Schäfer Cor anglais Helen Bridges Jayne Coyle Tom Davey Nicola Clark Katrina Brown Clarinets Victor Hayes Matthew Compton Lynsey Marsh Michelle Marsh Cellos Rosa Campos- Anya Muston Nicholas Trygstad Fernandez Steven Proctor Simon Turner Bassoons Peter Liang Dale Culliford Ben Hudson Second violins David Petri Richard Ion Eva Torarinsdottir Jane Hallett Horns Philippa Heys Paul Grennan Laurence Rogers Paulette Bayley Jonathan Pether Tom Redmond Julia Hanson Rebecca Harney Julian Plummer Caroline Abbott Double basses Richard Bourn Grania Royce Roberto Carrillo- Andrew Maher Elizabeth Bosworth Garcia Trumpets John Purton Daniel Storer Gareth Small Hannah Smith Yi Xin Salvage Kenneth Brown Sian Goodwin Beatrice Schirmer Timpani Robert Adlard Natasha Armstrong Erika Öhman Susan Voss Rachel Meerloo 4 CONTENTS Te Making of La Colombe Page 8 Te Story Page 19 Argument Page 22 Die Handlung Page 26 La trama Page 30 Libretto Page 34 5 CD1 40’48 Dialogue tracks indicated by blue text ACT I Duration Page [1] Introduction 3’41 35 Romance – Mazet [2] ‘Sylvie, Sylvie! Venez-là ma mignonne !...’ 2’53 35 [3] ‘Voilà qui est fait’ 3’51 36 Romance et Trio – Mazet, Horace, Maître Jean [4] ‘Qu’il garde son argent !’ 5’49 41 [5] ‘Voyons, seigneur, écoutez un moment la raison…’ 0’32 44 Ariette – Maître Jean [6] ‘Les amoureux’ 3’17 46 [7] ‘Allons retrouver madame la comtesse’ 2’12 47 Air et Couplets – Sylvie, Mazet [8] ‘Je veux interroger ce jeune homme’ 5’59 50 [9] ‘Ah ! Les femmes ! Les femmes’ 2’51 53 [10] ‘Et ton maître partage’ 1’05 54 Terzetto – Sylvie, Mazet, Horace [11] ‘O vision enchanteresse !’ 3’32 57 [12] ‘Bref, cher seigneur, je suis tout à fait ravie’ 1’03 58 Finale Quartet – Sylvie, Mazet, Horace, Maître Jean [13] ‘O douce joie !’ 3’59 59 6 CD2 39’11 ACT II Duration Page [1] Entr’acte 2’47 65 Air – Maître Jean [2] ‘Le grand art de cuisine’ 4’02 65 [3] ‘Les fournisseurs refusent’ 1’20 66 Duo – Mazet, Horace [4] ‘Il faut d’abord dresser la table !’ 9’30 70 Mélodrame – Sylvie [5] ‘Me voilà retombée dans une étrange rêverie !’ 1’24 76 Romance – Sylvie [6] ‘Que de rêves charmants emportés sans retour !’ 3’23 76 [7] ‘Je vous cherche depuis une heure’ 1’22 77 Madrigal – Horace [8] ‘Ces attraits que chacun admire’ 2’30 79 [9] ‘La déesse aujourd’hui se nomme Amynte’ 1’05 80 [10] ‘Mais non, quand nous aurons dîné’ 3’18 81 Duo – Sylvie, Horace [11] ‘Hélas, seigneur, pardonnez-moi’ 5’41 85 Final – Sylvie, Mazet, Horace, Maître Jean [12] ‘Apaisez, blanche colombe’ 2’48 88 7 THE MAKING OF LA COLOMBE apart, but their repertoires were entirely separate. At the Opéra one usually heard Opéra-comique great singing in a long, spectacular show of Gounod’s La Colombe is a classic and unparalleled extravagance, including ballet, charming example of opéra-comique, with all the latest scenic technology and a kind of opera very popular in France the deaths of both tenor and soprano at the throughout the 19th century, although end. At the Opéra-Comique it was family relatively few are staged with any frequency entertainment, where the music was light today. Favourite works of the period, and tuneful, the settings traditional and adored by Parisians and visitors alike, the happy outcome predictable. Dialogue included Boieldieu’s La Dame blanche between musical numbers was mandatory (1825), Auber’s Fra Diavolo (1830), and usually very long; these were as much Hérold’s Le Pré aux clercs (1832) and plays with music as operas with dialogue. Zampa (1831), Adam’s Le Postillon de Te word ‘comique’ does not translate Longjumeau (1836) and Halévy’s L’Éclair directly as ‘comic’; it derives from the (1835). Tese each flled an evening, but words for ‘play’ and ‘actor’ (‘comédie’ and the bulk of the repertoire was made up of ‘comédien’), so that opéra-comique is half one-act operas in double and triple bills. opera, half play. With his passion for organising and Successful works at the Opéra-Comique categorising things, Napoleon ordained remained on the afche for ever, or that high and low forms of opera should so it seemed to the young Bizet, who be kept distinct, with diferent rules and complained bitterly that La Dame blanche diferent theatres. Tus it was that the was playing for the thousandth time while French public learned to regard what they he and his fellow aspirants found it hard saw at the Opéra as quite diferent from to get a single work accepted. Bizet’s friend what they saw at the Opéra-Comique. Te Delibes even wrote a one-act opera in 1869 two theatres were only a hundred yards about a Frenchman who takes pride in 8 having seen La Dame blanche 666 times. in each case by their composers’ more Gounod contributed three works to this successful full-scale operas for the big repertoire: Le Médecin malgré lui, Philémon stage. Chabrier’s L’ E t o i l e is a solitary et Baucis and La Colombe, all written example of an opéra-comique that has been within a period of four years, 1857-60. revived and has won a solid place in today’s Tey all conformed to its general rules, repertoire. with extensive dialogue, an entertaining story and a happy end, even though none Barbier and Carré of them, as it happened, was performed at Gounod was loyally served by his the Opéra-Comique itself. Tis is because librettists, Jules Barbier and Michel Carré, Napoleon’s strictures, being overdue for the leading partner-librettists of the day, reform by the 1850s, were easily fouted who provided the texts for all fve of his by upstart companies, one of which, operas mentioned above, all (with the the Téâtre-Lyrique, sprang up with an exception of La Colombe, as we shall see) adventurous manager, Léon Carvalho, originally staged at the Téâtre-Lyrique. At who was ready to take risks with untried frst writing for the spoken theatre, Barbier composers. Gounod, with two works and Carré were prolifc generators of plots already played at the Opéra, was not and writers of verse and soon became the untried by any means. Carvalho had faith most sought-afer librettists in Paris. Te in him and was eventually rewarded since earliest versions of both Faust and Les both Faust and Roméo et Juliette came Contes d’Hofmann were plays from the from his stable. early 1850s. Bizet (Djamileh), Saint-Saëns (La Tere are certain recurrent features in Princesse jaune), Tomas (Mignon) and their librettos: doctors, especially quacks Massenet (Don César de Bazan) all wrote of the sinister, manipulative kind; devils, opéras-comiques. Tey are all worth or mysterious characters with supernatural reviving, but have been overshadowed powers who control others usually for 9 malefcent reasons; animals; humans that importantly to it). Te prolifc Barbier and transform themselves into other people or Carré provided librettos also for Halévy, other creatures; and scenic devices such Meyerbeer and many others; Carré, with as the play-within-a-play, a stage-set seen Cormon, was the librettist of Bizet’s Les from the back, dissolving prosceniums, and Pêcheurs de perles, and Barbier on his own so on. Teir favourite sources were Ovid, wrote lyrical verse set by many as songs. La Fontaine and Hofmann. Te leading character in Le Médecin Gounod and Opera malgré lui (based on Molière) is a fake Te central focus of Gounod’s thoughts doctor; in Philémon et Baucis (based on and ambitions was the church, and he Ovid), the principal couple are given composed a vast quantity of sacred music. back their youthfulness and later restored His secondary passion was the theatre, to their original selves through the and it may have been a sense of confict intervention of Jupiter; in La Colombe between these two spheres – the constant (based on La Fontaine) the story revolves pulling between God and mammon – that around a dove. In Faust the central caused his occasional periods of mental character falls into the clutches of the devil illness for which he attended a well-known in the person of Mephistopheles. Barbier Paris clinic. He himself nevertheless found and Carré wrote a libretto for Saint- no contradiction in his attention to two Saëns (Le Timbre d’argent) in which the kinds of music and produced both in a hero is manipulated by a sinister doctor steady fow throughout his life, along who assumes multiple personalities, and with a quantity of chamber and orchestral in Ofenbach’s Les Contes d’Hofmann music.