Berlioz Les Troyens, Paris - How to kill an opera

Hector Berlioz Les Troyens with Philippe Jordan conducting the Opéra National de Paris.  Since Les Troyens headlined the inauguration of Opéra Bastille 30 years ago, we might have expected something special of this new production. It should have been a triumph, with such a good conductor and some of the best singers in the business. But it wasn't.  Anyone can trot out superficial clichés  about so-called modern productions, but it's far more important to understand why a production works, or doesn't.

The starting point as always is the opera, and the ideas behind it.  Berlioz captured the expansive, extravagant spirit of his time. France was resurgent, colonizing Africa and Asia, obliterating the  defeat of Napoleon with new confidence. Paris was being rebuilt on a grand scale.  Yet Berlioz, never a shrinking violet, intuited the hubris that comes with imperial glory.  Les Troyens is flamboyant, but its backdrop is catastrophe.  Empires are annihilated, nations forced into exile. Berlioz's orchestration reflects this turbulence, with blazing highs and apocalyptic darkness. Though Didon and Enée enjoy an interlude of heady bliss, that happiness is doomed.  That idea of glory cursed by hubris remians powerfully potent today - perhaps even more so now, given what's happening in the world.   Perhaps audiences don't want to be reminded about war in Syria (and Lebanon, where Tyre was) and of the hundreds of thousands of refugees in the Mediterranean, many escaping from the area that was Carthage. Fair enough.  There's no more reason that a production should be set in period costume. In any case, Berlioz wasn't doing history enactment, and the audiences of his time were conditioned to the past as allegory, Classical Antiquity rather than Antiquity Realism. Berlioz's music was audacious, possibly the most advanced and adventurous of its time.  Shock and awe were part of his aesthetic. Les Troyens doesn't have to be pretty - cosiness is decidedly not its message - but at least it should engage the mind.

Dmitri Tcherniakov productions don't generally appeal to me because he tends to decorate rather than engage with what ideas might be in an opera. His Glinka Ruslan and Lyudmila  for the Bolshoi was as inert as a Fabergé egg, (read more here), his Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk for ENO put Shostakovich on mute (more here), his La Traviata for La Scala died in the womb (here) and his Rimsky-Korsakov's Invisible City of Kitezh missed the magic so fundamental to the opera (please read Amsterdam's invisible, risible Kitezh here).   But I loved his Bizet Carmen at the Aix-en-Provence Festival in 2017.   The drama in Carmen isn't the kitsch surface so much as the way the characters act out their motivations to extremes.  Thus Carmen as transaction analysis is not only feasible, but full of insight. Perhaps Tcherniakov was trying to recap that Carmen with Les Troyens, but frankly, he needs to work with a good dramaturge. 

Tcherniakov sets the Troy part of Les Troyens as a fairly typical tin-pot dictatorship, which is not wrong in principle, but there is a lot more to Berlioz's Troy than this. Cassandre is the central character, not Priam and his court, and she is cursed because she can prophesy the future. Stéphanie d'Oustrac was stunning, stealing the show by her vocal presence and instinctive feel for creating character.  I was riveted : she's a force of nature.  But all Tcherniakov had to offer her was a yellow suit , standing out from the blue shades around her, and when the Greeks burst in they hardly seem to figure.  Anyone who didn't get the Horse in David McVicar's Les Troyens for the Royal Opera House should be forced to watch Tcherniakov til they squirm. There is no reason to assume, like the Trojans and Tcherniakov do, that the impending disaster is all in Cassandre's mind. 

D'Oustrac's Cassandre was matched by Stéphane Degout's equally impressive Chorèbe, sung with such depth and conviction that he made the role come alive, so vivid and human :  what a pity that Chorèbe has to die in the First Act !  Luxury casting : D'Oustrac and Dégout interacted so  well, and with such verve that their performance would be memorable on its own terms. 

Carthage here is an anonymous office space, which worked fine in Tcherniakov's Carmen, because it evoked the displaced ennui behind the desperation of Carmen and her companions.  But as the libretto makes clear,  Didon's Carthage is a happy place, where people have built constructive lives.  Didon is a much loved success : she's given others asylum, she's not "in" an asylum, needing help.  Unless you think that being kind to refugees is madness. Had the performances of Brandon Jovanovich and Ekaterina Sementchuk  been on the same level as D'Oustrac and Dégout, one might forgive the banal staging,. Jovanovich and Sementchuk weren't bad, but didn't quite rise to the heights, either.  A rather depressing Royal Hunt and Storm, saved by Jordan's incisive conducting, splendidly luminous in the love scene, and demonic in the storm.  So rewarding, in fact, you could enjoy this Les Troyens as an orchestral exercise.  

Very well cast minor roles -  Véronique Gens as Hécube and Paata Burchulzade as Priam, who can still create character, Thomas Dear as The Ghost of Hector, Aude Extrémo as Anna, Cyrille Dubois as Iopas,Michèle Losier as a very fetching Ascagne, Christian van Horn as Narbal.   At the end D'Oustrac, Dégout, Gens, Burchulzade and Dear return as ghosts, raising the staging from the grave.   With this conductor, this orchestra and most of this cast, this Les Troyens could have been brilliant, but  let's hope we won't have to wait another 30 years for a better production. This staging might be fine in some provincial house,  but Paris is not the place for it.

Véronique Gens Wigmore Hall, Gounod, Massenet, Duparc, Hahn, Offenbach

Véronique Gens is a much-loved regular at the Wigmore Hall, generally focusing there on Mélodie and Chanson, despite her formidable reputaion in more esoteric French repertoire.  Will London ever be ready for full  Belle Époque opera ?  Or even full Baroque opera ?  In France she's the doyenne of French style.  Gens starred in Niobe, regina di Tebe and La Calisto at the Royasl Opera hopuse but we don't really get enough of her live.  (Thank goodness for recordings !)   So we're lucky to have her at the Wigmore Hall with regular pianist Susan Manoff.  Gens is sounding as fresh and lustrous as ever : a gorgeous recital, perfect balm for a sticky summer evening. 





Gens and Manoff began with Gounod, whose 200th birthday is celebrated this year, with lots of new performances and material.  Listen specially to the opera Dante (more here) sponsored by Palazzetto Bru Zane, and for a briefer sample of her opera tableaux, listen to her wonderful collection Visions (HERE) and its companion Néère, with familiar Duparc, Hahn, and Chausson mélodies.   Gens and Manoff began with a spirit of adventure, the breezy Gounod Où voulez-vous aller? the last lines lit with coloratura ebullience. Subdued refinement in Le Soir, quietly fading to silence, and  lovely piano line in O ma belle rebelle.  In Gounod Sérénade the piano line ripples while the voice creates decorative trills evoking the sound of possibly Alpine calls.  "Ah! Dormez, dormez ma belle... dormez dormez toujours!" It's a berceuse, setting a text by Victor Hugo, the music cradling the lines in gentle,rocking motion.  Gosh, how I love this song, which is, fortunately,  a Gens staple which she's done many times. A poised Mignon and an exuberant Viens, les gazons sont verts, almost literally breathing fresh air. 

Another serenade, in Lamento by Edmund, Prince du Polignac was sensual, like a serenade on a lute, with the air of something alien and exotic, possibly a guitar, evoking romantic Southern climes. The last line, though is the punchline, the timbre suddenly dropping on the words "un ange amoreux". It's a love song for someone dead, in "la blanche tombe,

Où flotte avec un son plaintif

L'ombre d'un if ?" The text is Théophile Gautier.  Massenet's Chant provençal describes a girl so pure she doesn't know her charms.  The piano part protectively with its tinkling brightness shields Gens's delicate vocal line. True innocence is harder to portray than extravagance but Massenet makes it sound effortless.  And thus to Massenet's Élégie, where simplicity gives way to almost operatic declamation.   Good programming : the songs in this section heard together form a coherent arc, complemented by Massenet's Nuit d'Espagne, which picks up the idea of lute/guitar serenade. 

After the interval, Henri Duparc and Reynaldo Hahn, representing a generation later than Gounod and Massenet,. Duparc's Chanson triste, La vie antérieure and Extase all beautifully expressed by Gens and Manoff who have performed them together many times.  But in the context of this evening's recital, what stood out was Lamento, where Duparc sets the same Gauthier text that inspired Edmund Polignac, but chooses different stanzas.  Duparc doesn't need mock guitar serenade, since he focuses more on the mournful meaning of the poem.  Gens declaimed with elegant dignity, Manoff  creating the dark, rumbling piano lines.  Good programming is important! Someone recently told me that he hated concerts because he couldn't concentrate solely on what he wanted to hear, but yow ! That's the whole point of a recital, putting things together in a way that enhances them all.   

Three songs from Reynaldo Hahn Le rossignol des lilas, Mai, and Les cygnes, ideally suited to the innate purity of Gen's style, With Infidélité and Rêverie she could display more depth and richness of tone.  As always fidelity to meaning makes all, the difference. Gens understands why the emotions in the poem (Gautier) are understated rather than overt.  A change of mood to conclude, with  songs from Offenbach's Six Fables of La Fontaine, La laitière et le pot au lait, Le rat de ville et le rat des champs, La cigale et la fourmi and for the first encore, Le corbeau et le renard.  Offenbach  replicates la Fontaine's long almost prose like lines, lively phrasing bringing out the sting in their tales.  Gen's gift for precise diction and clarity paid off handsomely.  For a second encore,  Gabriel Fauré's Le rose d'Ispahan, one of the loveliest songs in the entire canon, deliciously fragrant in this performance.  A third encore : Reynaldo Hahn's Néère. 


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Véronique Gens Visions from Grand Opéra

Ravishing : Visions, Véronique Gens in a glorious new recording of French operatic gems, with Hervé Niquet conducting the Münchener Rundfunkorchester.  This disc is a companion piece to Néère, where Gens sang familiar Duparc, Hahn, and Chausson mélodies. Here Gens presents extracts from Grand Opéra, reflecting her Tragodienne series of operatic arias.  Visions is a stunner, rich and so rewarding that you want to rush out and hear each opera as a whole.  This might be easier said than done, for some of the operas here aren't well known. Thus, all the more reason to get this recording because some real gems are included which  you've almost certainly not heard done as well as they are done here. Véronique Gens is a great pioneer of French repertoire. So intoxicating is this recording that if you come to it as a taster, you could end up addicted.

Visions - visions of ecstasy, religious or romantic, exotic dreams and horrifying nightmares, virgins, nuns and heroines, plenty of variety, yet each piece a work of theatrical imagination  Alfred Bruneau's Geneviève (1881) for example, from the cantata the young Bruneau dedicated to Massenet.  The piece begins with a dizzying evocation of a storm. If this sounds Wagnerian, the scène lyrique that rises from it is decidedly French. "Seigneur ! Est-ce bien moi que vous avez choisi?", for she is just a shepherdess tending a flock.  But the nation needs her, and  she must put her mission above herself. From César Franck's Les Béatitudes (1879),  a moment of quietude interrupted by the fierce scream that introduces the récit et air de Leonore from Louis Neidermeyer's Stradella (1837), its rhythms influenced by Rossini, enhanced by florid vocal frills.  Benjamin Godard's Les Guelfes (1882) is represented by an orchestral prelude  introducing a song describing Jeanne d'Arc's journey to Paris, her way lit by angelic harps.  

From history to fantasy, Félicien David's Lalla Rookh (1862).  French orientalism gloried in exotic images. This song is exquisite, its delicate perfumes warmed by the beauty of Gens' clear, pure expression.  It also evokes the aesthetic of the Belle Époque. Thus a song from Henry Février's Gismonda (1919) a reverie with tolling bells where a solo violin shadows the voice.The protagonist is a nun, but longs, without much hope, for sensual love. Camille Saint-Saëns's arrangement of Étienne Marcel's Béatrix is altogether stronger stuff . Cello rather than violin, and mournful winds and a resolute vocal line. Béatrix knows that the love she knew will never return. "O Beaux Rêves évanouis ! Éspérances tant caressées!". This song is reasonably well known, and Gens does it beautifully.

This selection from Jules Massenet's La Vierge (1880) begins with an orchestral interlude. The Virgin Mary is about to die. The mood is subdued.  But the Gates of Heaven open showing the Virgin a vision of Paradise.  "Rêve infini, divine extase, l'éther scintille et s'embrase!" Gens voice glows, illuminated by rapture. After that explosive high, we return to the relative sedate Blanche from Fromental Halévy's La Magicienne (1885)  who chooses the cloister, and to the prayer of Clothilde from Georges Bizet's Clovis et Clothilde (1857). Another song whose loveliness lies in its simplicity, again ideally suited to Gens's clear, pure timbre.  .To conclude, L'archange from César Franck's Rédemption (1874) a vision of the End of Time.  "L'homme rebelle n'obéit pas", and God, in anger chastises him.  "Mais que faut-il pour son pardon? Après des siècles d'abandon , une heure de prière!"  A rousing and rather cheerful end to a very good recording.

Dante the opera, Palazzetto Bru Zane

Benjamin Godard's opera Dante rarely heard but causing quite a sensation.  In January this year, it was heard at the Prinzregententheater, Munich, and later at the Opéra Royal de Versailles, Paris, and broadcast throughout Europe.  What a delight!  This was the first performance odf a modern edition of the orchestral score, produced by the  Palazetto Bru Zane.

Godard (1849-1895), like many French composers, resisted Wagner and the cult of Bayreuth.  Dante (1890) is lyrical drama in the French tradition,  a fin de siècle descendant of Massenet, Thomas  and Gounod, though not  a precursor of Debussy, whose Pelléas et Mélisande was to premiere only seven years after Godard's early death 12 years later.   Dante and The Divine Comedy are so well known, there's no point rehashing them here. Godard's Dante , though,  is also interesting because it suggests a connection between Dante and Goethe's Faust.  In this Dante we can hear echoes of Gounod's Faust, of Berlioz's The Damnation of Faust and even of Boito's Mefistofele: All are part of an interest in the Gothic Imagination and its fascination for the demonic and macabre beneath-surface lushness.  One might also consider Baudelaire Les Fleurs du Mal and the etchings of Gustav Doré, which I've used here.

While Godard certainly can whip up a beautiful storm, helped by the exceptionally good performance,  Véronique Gens is easily the finest specialist in late French Romantic repertoire,and brings the very tricky role of Béatrice to life with the lustrous timbre of her voice, and the poise with which she negotiates the range in the part.  No wonder Dante would go through hell for her!  Béatrice (and Gens) so dominate this opera that it would be hard to imagine a performance without the beauty of Gens's singing.  The rest of the cast is superb too. Edgaras Montvidas sings Dante, Rachel Frankel sings Gemma (Béatrice's friend), and Andrew Foster Williams sings the Shade of Virgil.  Ulf Schirmer conducts the Bavarian Radio Orchestra. All too often rarities like Dante are spoiled by mediocre, lacklustre performances  by conductors who rely on the fact that audiences don't have a point of reference, and fall for the safe and bland, which doesn't do the music justice. Godard isn't a genius, which is all the more why this performance is so good. Ulf Schirmer isn't the kind of conductor who gets away with things because he has no competition.  Everything I've heard him conduct is geared towards the specifics that make a composer individual.  Not all that many condutors have that gift. Palazzetto Bru Zane is to be congratulated on going for the best, without compromise.  This Godard Dante is being released on CD, An essential purchase, I think.

Please read the notes prepared by the Palazzetto Bru Zane, HERE. probably the best source so far on the composer and on the opera. I quote "Godard’s opera, composed in 1890, skilfully juxtaposes political developments – crowd scenes in Florence and the feud between Guelphs and Ghibellines – and the expression of medieval courtly love. In the opera Gemma, a young girl married to the protagonist out of duty and then abandoned, becomes the close friend of the beloved woman, Beatrice, of whom she is also the secret rival. The most remarkable aspect of this opera, though, is the insertion of a ‘Vision’, a kind of synthesis of the Divine Comedy set to music. Act three thus ranges between an imaginary Hell and Paradise, with sections bearing titles such as Apparition de Virgile Chœur des Damnés, Tourbillon infernal, Divine Clarté, and Apothéose de Béatrice . Godard here appears at the peak of his melodic inspiration and his overall compositional mastery, in a style that swings between Gounod and Massenet. The vocal quintet called for in the opera perfectly captures all the heroic and expressive potential of singers well-versed in Wagner and Verdi."

Divine Véronique Gens Wigmore Hall

Véronique Gens's recital  at the Wigmore Hall was an almost ideal distillation of of the belle époque.in song. Over the years we've heard many specialists in French song at the Wigmore Hall, but Gens perhaps outshines them all.  With her background in baroque, lucid purity comes naturally, but she sings with exceptional intelligence. It's hard to explain why she's so distinctive, but her final encore (of three) might suggest an answer. Roses, jasmine and orange blossom infuse Gabriel Fauré's Les roses d'Ispahan. The vocal line moves gently like the breeze in the text. Yet the song is not about flowers but lost love. It's all the more poignant because it's so subtle. Gens doesn't dramatize, but lets the perfumed elegance convey depth of emotion. 

Last December, Gens created an esoteric selection of relatively little known  songs by Massenet, Gounod and Reynaldo Hahn. Read about it here. Now she chose a more familiar programme: Fauré, Chausson, Debussy, Duparc and more Hahn.  Fauré's Au bord de L'eau (op8/1 1875)  and Après un rêve (op7/1 1877) were poised, but Gens created even greater interest with Lydia (op 4/2 1870) to a poem by Leconte de Lisle. "Je t'aime et meurs, ô mes amours. Mon âme en baisers m'est ravie!" Love and death so intertwined that we can't be sure that Lydia is alive at all.

Henri Duparc's L'invitation du voyage (1870)  is so famous that it's true meaning can be missed.The poet is Baudelaire, after all.  The piano part (Susan Manoff) is limpid and delicate. These rippling waters might suggest Schubert, but the idiom is entirely different. No "gothic" histrionics here. The passion is cool but sinister. Similarly, Duparc's Romance de Mignon (1869) is decidedly un-German though it's based on Goethe's Mignon song Kennst du das Land.? The drama's more muted, though the feelings are just as deep. These days it's fashionable to disregard idiom but for me that's bad taste. What's the point of performing different composers in the same way? Musically-informed is much more literate. Gens and Manoff show how Duparc's Mignon springs from a different aesthetic. Gens followed with Debussy's Fleur des Blés (1881) and Nuit d'etoiles (1880) which are almost her signature tunes. Her recording of Debussy, Fauré and Poulenc with Roger Vignoles (2000) is very good indeed. 

Normally I don't describe what a singer wears, but Gens returned after the interval in a remarkable dress slit up to her midriff, but discreetly held together with tulle. Strikingly elegant, raising gasps of admiration from the audience. She seemed inspired, her performance in the second part of the programme quite divine. Like the hummingbird in Ernest Chausson's Le colibri (op2/7 1882) Gens glistened "comme un frais rayon s'échappé dans l'air". Her Les papillions (op 2/3 1880) hinted at erotic secrets in a refined manner. The sorrow in Les temps de lilas (op 19 1886) was expressed with elegant dignity. Gens and Manoff concluded with seven songs by Reynaldo Hahn. Hahn imbibes from exotic sources, so idiosyncrasic and so over the top. In three songs from Études latines (1900) Lydé, Tyndaris, Pholoé), he gets carried away with Leconte de Lisle's elaborate fanstasies of fake Antiquity. Gens and Manoff catch Hahn's effusive high spirits.  These put the famous A Chloris (1916) into context. Hahn's hamming up again, this time with Bach. Beautiful as the song is, it's mischief in music. Appropriately, Gens and Manoff concluded this evening of songs ostensibly about flowers and birds with Hahn's Le printemps (1899). Hahn's ebullient, exuberant and exhilirating - banished are the "flowers of evil". "Te voilà, rire du Printemps!", sang Gens, with a glorious flourish.

Coming up in May

"Kabul. Baghdad. London. Three places to avoid this summer". Please take time to read this article by Simon Jenkins in the Guardian. He says things that need to be said, but no-one dares say but many feel. No-one's done a cost benefit analysis of the Olympics.Or factored in the wider costs to the community. As for the "cultural" Olympics, they're taking credit for things liker the Proms which would have happened anyway. So all the more reason to cherish what we have this month before the frenzy. Already the Embankment and surrounding roads (London's traffic nexus)  have been closed off simply so that team buses can drive unimpeded on the wrong side of the road!

At the Barbican tonight, Philip Glass Einstein on the Beach starts a short run. Review to follow. Over at the ENO. another revival of Madam Butterfly, but even more interesting, starting 25/5, the first London staging of Detlev Glanert's Caligula. This is important. Do not panic because its modern or German. What matters is whether something's good or bad, and that's subjective. The main thing is what you learn from the experience. Glanert isn't scary. He was one of Hans Werner Henze's few students, so his opera credentials are solidly mainstream. Although Henze's Elegy for Young Lovers was badly misunderstood at the Young Vic, the music didn't upset anyone. So give Glanert a chance, whatever the production might be. 

The Glyndebourne season starts on 20th May with Janáček, The Cunning Little Vixen. Since Vladimir Jurowski is conducting, expect rapturous beauty in the orchestra. Since the production is by Melly Still, the opera might be defanged. Sorry, Vixen Sharp Ears! Watch it in cinemas and online.

At the Royal Opera, La Boheme, Salome and Verdi Falstaff. Good casts, which make revivals worthwhile.  Every production is unique, because the people doing it change, and balances shift. If an opera is any good, there'll always be something to pick up. A test of sensitivity and learning.

These days I don't do nearly as much chamber music and song as I used to, but several red letter days at the Wigmore Hall (where there's nearly always something interesting). Véronique Gens this week, unmissably good ! Read about her recent Massenet programme here. This time, she's singing Fauré, Hahn, Chausson etc. Should be divine. Fêtes Galantes with Graham Johnson, Sophie Daneman and Ian Bostridge, who's due more respect because he isn't bland or generic. The Jerusalem Quartet, Mitsuko Uchida and Kozena, Bavouzet,  Janine Jensen, and much else. But the ones I'm interested are a bit more esoteric, like The Cardinal's Musik feature on William Byrd The Hidden Catholic (17th),  Florilegium's focus on music at the court of Frederick the Great (24/5) and the Wigmore Hall debut of the Phoenix Piano Trio on the 13th. The name may be new, but they're good. The players are  highly experienced members of other ensembles, dedicated to the more esoteric repertoire for piano trio. In this case, Beethoven, Dunhill and John Ireland.

Next week, at the Barbican Peter Eötvös conducts Szymanowski's Third Symphony : second of three different performances this year. Read about Jurowski's version here and about last week's concert with Christian Tetzlaff here. Gergiev, Jansons, Haitink too, but the wild card may be Ned Rorem's  Our Town (GSMD) from 29th to 6th June. GMSD productions are always lively and Rorem isn't common fare.

On the South Bank, which is increasingly becoming a place for anything but music, there's a major celebration of George Benjamin, "meticulous" and "craftsmanlike" as the info says, but not boring. Later in the month, the Chelsea Opera Group returns with Donizetti's Maria Padilla, and the Venice Baroque Orchestra brings "The Olympoics in Opera". So we can't escape, even though the music is legit baroque and the musicians are period specialists.

Véronique Gens Wigmore Hall Massenet Gounod Hahn

Véronique Gens is one of the reasons French music is now in a new golden age. Her core repertoire is baroque, so that lucid aesthetic informs her approach, ideally suited to the intelligence of French song. All week I've been enjoying Véronique Gens's recital at the Wigmore Hall still accessible on BBC Radio3  til Xmas Eve. Please listen - it's lovely.

It's unusual too, focussing on songs by Jules Massenet and Charles Gounod, better known outside France for their operas, contrasted with songs by Reynaldo Hahn. It's a good combination because it presents French song in context, and also suggests why French opera is so distinctive.

Massenet's Chant provençal describes a girl so pure she doesn't know her charms. Charlotte or Sophie? The piano part (Susan Manoff) protectively shields Gens's delicate vocal line. True innocence is harder to portray than extravagance. The trite poetry of L'âme des oiseaux is rescued by legato into which Gens breathes, suggesting flight and movement. Altogether more sophisticated is  the justly famous La mort de la cigale. It's an observation from nature, hushed in wonder. Only when the cicada is dead can the voice break out in protest. The cicada's life is too short. As is ours. 

Soleil couchant is based on a poem by Victor Hugo, who builds inner phrases into each line, creating an inner  rhythm which Massenet respects in the range with which he sets each line. Gens is a soprano, but with such depth that she could be a falcon. Nothing simple about this sunset, for night will turn to day, just as rivers flow from mountains to the ocean.  "Mais moi, sous chaque jour courbant plus bas ma tête, Je passe et, refroidi sous ce soleil joyeux, Je m'en irai bientôt, au milieu de la fête, Sans que rien manque au monde immense et radieux!" Listen to how Gens shapes the rolling phrases and then breathes expansively into the last three words so they glow, and Manoff's piano cries in affirmation.

Gounod was a generation older than Massenet, and his songs reflect a different sensibilty. Gens sings them elegantly, beautifully decorating the trills in Sérénade. Exquisite singing, reminding me of the "alpine" lines in   Schubert Der Hirt auf dem Felsen. This poem is Victor Hugo again, from his drama Mary Tudor. Gounod sets it as a lilting berceuse. It's charming, but we'd best forget what happened to Mary!  Including the Lamento by Edmond, Prince de Polignac among the Gounod songs was a good idea. The Lamento is sensual, like a serenade on a lute, but has the air of something alien and and exotic. It connects the mood of Massenet's Nuit d'Espagne and even the open-spirited lyricism of Gounod's Ou voulez-vous aller? with the world of Reynaldo Hahn. One belle époque leading to the next.

Reynaldo Hahn's music evokes for me the luxury of salons graced by such as the Prince de Polignac and his widow Winaretta Singer, friend of Nadia Boulanger and Hugues Cuénod. Hahn's music is highly perfumed but its refinement is by no means merely decorative. A Chloris, for example, the song everyone loves, is based on renaissance court poetry and Bach's Air on the G String, reimagined through the prism of Paris in 1913.  Hahn and his circle were fully aware of what Debussy, Stravinsky and others were doing. A Chloris is an exotic hybrid, a hothouse flowering  that survived because it catches the imagination. For Véronique Gens, it's a link between her baroque background and her championship of later French repertoire.

Véronique Gens - Héroïnes romantiques

Véronique Gens is singing Massanet, Gounod and Reynaldo Hahn on Monday 12th at the Wigmore Hall. Don't miss this, for Gens is divine in this repertoire (and nearly everything else). She is one of the great things to happen to French repertoire in decades - part of a whole renaissance in French music. I'll write about the Wigmore Hall concert later. But in the meantime, please listen to the Arte-7 broadcast of a concert she gave on 10th November at the Palazzetto Bru Zane in Venice. "Tragédiennes : Héroïnes romantiques". Christophe Rousset conducts LesTalens Lyriques.

First heroine is Ina, daughter of the King of Scotland in Etienne Méhul's 1799 drama Ariodant. She's on trial for illicit sex. Gens makes every word ring out true and clear, so you know, even if you don't understand French, that the accusations can't be true. Rousset follows this tour de force with the overture from Méhul's Stratonice, extending the mood. Gluck, Gosset, Salieri, Kreutzer, Cherubini,  and then "Ah, mon fils" from Meyerbeer's Le prophète. What range ! Then Didon's tragic lament from Berlioz Les Troyennes, "Ah! Ah! Je vais mourir!". Gens's style is so lucid that her voice cuts right through the image of Berlioz as molasses. Then "Toi qui sus le néant" from Verdi’s Don Carlos, better known in Italian, of course, but no less dramatic in French.

Véronique Gens's range is huge but completely unforced, so it flows naturally even though she sings such a variety of extreme personalities.  There is a new CD in her series of grand Tragédiennes with Rousset and Les Talens Lyriques from Virgin Classics. (photo : Alexandre Weinberger, Virgin Classics). Most of the pieces in this concert can be found on Volume 3 in the series.

However, enjoy the Arte TV film, because it's made in the Palazzetto Bru Zane in Venice, the Centre de Musique Romantique Française. The building is medieval, and features in John Ruskin's The Stones of Venice. It's been restored in ornate luxury, carvings on the walls, mosaics on the floors. The huge lanterns that light the music salon are striking. Perhaps the composers whose music Gens sings would have known the building and recognize the style.