Composer: Kurt Weill
Performer: Comédie-Française, Chœur Passerelles, Le Balcon
Conductor: Maxime Pascal
Format: FLAC (tracks)
Label: Alpha
Catalogue: ALPHA1015
Release: 2023
Size: 1.37 GB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: yes
L’opéra de quat’sous
Act I
01. “Vous allez entendre”
02. Ouverture
03. “Une foire à Soho”
04. La complaite de Mac-la Lame
05. “Pour répondre à l”endurcissement croissant”
06. Choral matinal de Peachum
07. “Pendant qu’elle raccomode les guenilles”
08. Pauv’ Madame Peachum
09. “Madame Peachum apprend à Monsieur Peachum”
10. Rien à faire !
11. Thème de la complainte jouée piano
12. “Nous voilà transportés”
13. Chant nuptial
14. “Mac n’est pas satisfait”
15. Jenny-la-Flibuste
16. “C”est alors qu’apparaît Brown”
17. Chanson des canons
18. “Mais Tiger Brown se hâte de quitter les lieux”
19. Love song
20. Chanson des canons pour orchestre
21. “Nous revoici dans le vestiaire à gueux”
22. Chanson de Barbara
23. “Monsieur et Madame Peachum déconseillent à leur fille”
24. Premier finale de quat’sous
Act II
25. “Jonathan Jeremiah Peachum a une riche idée”
26. Mélodrame
27. Chanson de Polly
28. Love song pour orchestre
29. “Premier interlude”
30. Ballade de l’obsession sexuelle
31. “Mac-la-Lame ne s’est pas réfugié dans la lande de Highgate”
32. Tango-ballade / ballade du Mac
33. Tango-ballade / ballade du Mac pour orchestre
34. “Pendant que Macheath chantait”
35. Ballade de la vie à l”aise
36. “Mais le ciel des jeunes mariés s”assombrit déjà”
37. Duo de la jalousie
38. Thème de la complainte sur un rythme de valse
39. “Madame Peachum fait irruption dans la prison”
40. Deuxième finale de quat’sous
Act III
41. “Cette nuit-là, Peachum se prépare à lancer sa grande offensive”
42. Chanson de la parfaite inutilité de l’effort humain
43. “Deuxième interlude”
44. Chanson de Salomon
45. “Lutte pour la propriété”
46. Air de Lucy
47. “Peachum s’est mis le chef de la police dans la poche”
48. Appel de Macheath à ses amis
49. “Vendredi, cinq heures”
50. Épitaphe
51. “Le policier Smith mène Macheath à la potence”
52. Marche au supplice
53. “Mais contrairement aux évènements de la vie rélle”
54. “Monsieur Peachum a quelque chose à vous dire”
55. Troisième finale de quat’sous
56. Chanson de Salomon (Alternate Version)
57. Lutte pour la propriété pour orchestre
This album presents the songs from The Threepenny Opera in a new French translation by Alexandre Pateau. The recording was made at the 2023 Festival d’Aix-en-Provence during the run of the new production of the legendary work by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill in collaboration with Elisabeth Hauptmann, which features the troupe of the Comedie-Francaise and the musicians of Le Balcon, conducted by Maxime Pascal with Thomas Ostermeier as stage director. In this parody of an opera, the songs are the driving force behind the action and the characters ape the bourgeois lifestyle of the audience, the better to denounce the period of moral confusion they are going through. With Maxime Pascal at the helm of a dozen multi-instrumentalists from Le Balcon, we hear a version based on that of the first performance – hard-hitting and as close as possible to the tremendous creative energy deployed by the two creators of the work in the summer of 1928 – acted and sung by the troupe of the Comedie-Francaise, who rise to all its challenges with brio. Other special features of this album are a previously unrecorded song on a text by Yvette Guilbert and the linking texts between the songs read in French by Ostermeier himself. As Diapason wrote of this production, ‘Almost a century after its premiere, The Threepenny Opera has lost none of its subversive power.’
L’opéra de quat’sous (“The Four Penny Opera”) is nothing more or less than Die Dreigroschenoper (“The Threepenny Opera”) of Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill. The Threepenny Opera was a hit from the beginning and was almost immediately translated into French, among other languages (even Hungarian), after its 1928 premiere, but here, it is sung in a new translation by Alexandre Pateau. To these imperfectly francophone ears, the translation seems fluent and sharp. The original opera, of course, was based on an English original and featured some adapted French poetry, so a translation into French is less of an experiment than one might think. This was a live recording from the summer of 2023, and although the production featured English and German supertitles, there are no translations in the booklet here. In other ways, too, the production might have fared better live than it does on a recording. The singers are mostly untrained stage actors who ham up the characters in a way that probably worked in person but doesn’t come across in audio. (The exceptions here are Claïna Clavaron, who turns in an arresting Mack the Knife at the beginning, Véronique Vella’s Celia Peachum, and Marie Oppert as Polly Peachum.) The most important thing to note for listeners who think they are getting simply a French Dreigroschenoper is that the music and text are reinterpreted and reworked. There are some cuts, some added material, spoken descriptions, and, from director Thomas Ostermeier and conductor Maxime Pascal, a percussion-heavy setting that emphasizes every bit of popular-music influence in the score. None of this is necessarily untrue to the spirit of the work, but listeners should sample well and see whether their minds fill in the various blanks here. Alpha’s live recording is clear and not marred by stage and production noises.