Bonynge: Meyerbeer – Les Huguenots (4 CD FLAC)

Composer: Giacomo Meyerbeer
Performer: Joan Sutherland, Martina Arroyo, Huguette Tourangeau
Orchestra: New Philharmonia Orchestra
Conductor: Richard Bonynge
Audio CD
Number of Discs: 4
Format: FLAC (image+cue)
Label: Decca
Size: 925 MB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: yes

Giacomo Meyerbeer

Les Huguenots

Marguerite de Valois – Joan Sutherland
Valentine de Saint-Bris – Martina Arroyo
Urbain – Huguette Tourangeau
Raoul de Nangis – Anastasios Vrenios
Compte de Nevers – Dominic Cossa
Compte de Saint-Bris – Gabriel Bacquier
Marcel – Nicola Ghiuselev
Bois-Rosé – John Wakefield
De Tavannes – John Wakefield
De Cossé – Joseph Ward
De Thoré – John Noble
De Retz – Glynne Thomas
De Meru – John Gibbs
Maurevert – Clifford Grant
Leonard – Janet Coster
Dame d’Honneur 1 – Kiri Te Kanawa
Dame d’Honneur 2 – Josephte Clement
Girl 1 – Kiri Te Kanawa
Girl 2 – Josephte Clement
Night Watchman – John Noble
Monk 1 – John Wakefield
Monk 2 – Alan Opie
Monk 3 – Clifford Grant

Conductor – Richard Bonynge
Orchestra – New Philharmonia Orchestra
Chorus – Ambrosian Opera Chorus

CD 01
01. Overture0

Act 1
02. Des beaux jours de la jeunesse
03. De ces lieux enchanteurs
04. Sous ce beau ciel de la Touraine
05. Bonheur de la table
06. Versez de nouveaux vins!
07. Non loin des vieiles tours…Plus blanche que la
08. Quelle étrange figure…Seigneur, rempart et seul
09. Eh! mais – plus je le vois … Piff, paff
10. Au maître de ces lieux
11. L’aventure est singulière
12. Il faut rompre l’hymen … Honneur au conquérant
13. En ce chateau … Nobles seigneurs, salut!
14. Trop de mérite aussi quelquefois importune

CD 02
Act 2
01. O beau pays de la Touraine
02. Que notre reine est belle
03. Jeunes beautés, sous ce feuillage
04. Non, non, non, vous n’avais jamais
05. C’est Raoul de Nangis … Le voici, du silence
06. Pareille loyauté vaut son prix … Beauté divine
07. Madame! … Allons, toujours le page!
08. Par l’honneur, par le nom
09. Et maintenant je dois offrir

CD 03
Act 3
01. C’est le jour du dimanche
02. Vierge Marie, soyez bénie
03. Venez, venez, venez, venez! (Gipsy Dance)
04. Pour remplir un voeu solennel
05. Rentrez, habitants de Paris
06. O terreur! Je tressaille au seul bruit
07. T m’as compris; adieu
08. Un danger le menace, et j’ignore lequel
09. En mon bon droit j’ai confiance
10. Arrêtez! Respectez la reine de Navarre
11. Au banquet où le ciel leur apprête

CD 04
Act 4
01. Je suis seule chez moi!
02. Juste ciel! est-ce lui
03. Oui, l’ordre de la reine … des troubles renaissants
04. Gloire, gloire au grand Dieu vengeur!
05. O ciel! Où courez-vous?
06. Entends-tu ces sons funèbres

Act 5
07. Entr’acte & Ball
08. Aux armes, mes amis!
09. C’est toi, mon vieux Marcel
10. Savez-vous qu’en joignant
11. Abjurez, huguenots, le ciel l’ordonne!
12. Ah! voyez, le ciel s’ouvre
13. Par le fer et par l’incendie

A hundred years ago, Meyerbeer’s operas were among the bread-and-butter staple of the world’s most famous opera houses. Nowadays, all of them are rarities. There are various theories as to why these operas have disappeared from the repertoire–the difficulty of the music, the rise of Wagnerism, and so forth. Fortunately, the beautiful arias Meyerbeer wrote for these operas have at least kept the names of the works themselves in the mind of the public, and so the occasional performances that these operas receive are important and well publicized events in the music world.
Of the half-dozen or so mature Meyerbeer operas that are still revived (the youthful works are mostly footnotes in the music history books), Les Huguenots is probably the most popular. Its several big arias have received many recordings and some have even made it to the cinema. Jeanette MacDonald’s performance of the page’s aria in the 1937 film Maytime is a classic, but not everybody knows that Marion Talley had beaten her to the punch by singing this same aria in her single film called Follow Your Heart, made in 1936 (she also performed part of the Act IV duet with tenor Michael Bartlett in the same film).
Fans of this opera have mostly had to rely on private recordings, and fortunately there have been some very good ones, such as the 1962 La Scala and the 1971 Vienna performances, both of which however are cut. But Les Huguenots lovers have true reason to rejoice at the reissue of this recording originally released at the beginning of 1970, and which reunites the cast and conductor of the 1968 Covent Garden concert performance of the opera.
I think the true star of this recording is conductor Richard Bonynge. Although his conducting can sometimes be less than incisive, I find him to be darn near perfect here, with the scene of the Blessing of the Swords being a particular standout.
Among the singers, the most famous is easily Joan Sutherland as Queen Marguerite de Valois. Sutherland and her husband Bonynge were particular champions of the music of Meyerbeer, having recorded several of his arias in their two-LP set of French arias made around the same time as this recording. Fortunately, that French set and this Huguenots were made when Sutherland was at the top of her very considerable form. The only disappointing aspect is that Marguerite’s role is not larger than it is. Of the opera’s five acts, the Queen is only onstage for Act II and for a brief appearance at the end of Act III (her silent return at the very end of the opera does not matter for our purposes here). But this recording is a must for all Sutherland fans.
Martina Arroyo has very good credentials for this kind of music, having, among other things, also appeared in the same composer’s L’africaine in Vienna in 1977, of which there is a good-sounding private recording, and recorded Verdi’s French grand opera Les vepres siciliennes in its standard Italian translation as I vespri siciliani for RCA Victor earlier in the decade. She is in very good form as Valentine, and the nearly complete recording fortunately reinstates her Act IV aria which is usually omitted in live performances, including the two I mentioned above. The principal contribution of Huguette Tourangeau as the page Urbain is another often-cut piece, the second-act aria “Non, non, non, vous n’avais jamais, je gage.” Meyerbeer added this low-lying aria for Covent Garden contralto Marietta Alboni, whose voice was so deep that she sang the baritone role of Carlo at the first Covent Garden performance of Ernani, after the two men the company first invited to sing the role turned it down. Tourangeau’s upper range is not that strong, and she and Sutherland sometimes trade lines in their Act II ensembles, but she is still very enjoyable.
Perhaps the most controversial casting in this set is that of tenor Anastasios Vrenios as Raoul. Raoul is a pivotal role, being the only one of the seven leads to sing in each of the five acts, and is also a very difficult part for one tenor to encompass. For the first act and most of the second act, the role requires a lyric tenor suited to Donizetti’s Don Pasquale; the second-act finale and the rest of the opera require a dramatic tenor of the kind who would be successful in Verdi’s Il trovatore. Vrenios is definitely the former, and so he sensitively sings Raoul’s first-aria “Plus blanche,” and admirably partners Sutherland in the second-act duet “Beaute divine,” which is often trimmed so much as to become almost a soprano solo. Vrenios doesn’t really have enough voice to cope with the heavier music of the rest of the opera, although his enthusiasm is always in evidence. Both he and Arroyo are somewhat cavalier in their treatment of the French text.
Nicola Ghiuselev displays a gruff Slavic bass which is more than appropriate for the crusty old retainer Marcel. In the less showy parts of Saint-Bris and Nevers, Gabriel Bacquier and Dominic Cossa are always adequate.
There are some very minor cuts in the opera, mostly in the third act. Interestingly, the legendary Mapleson cylinder of the third-act finale made live from the stage of the Metropolitan Opera at the turn of the last century contains a little extra music that is not in this recording.
Each recording of Les Huguenots that I have heard has something to add to my enjoyment and appreciation of the opera. Still, this recording is my first choice. Highly recommended.