Le Maître de la Scène

Fondée au début du xvie siècle, La Havane s’est très vite imposée comme une cité stratégique, vivant du passage des flottes, du travail des esclaves et du commerce du sucre et du tabac. Sa désignation comme capitale de Cuba en 1607, l’envol de la production de sucre après la révolution haïtienne de 1791, la fin de la présence coloniale espagnole en 1898 et les occupations militaires du début du xxe siècle comptent parmi les événements clés qui marquent son devenir. …

After Polyeucte (1878), Gounod tackled the operatic genre for the last time in 1881 with what is probably his most ambitious work, Le Tribut de Zamora. The action takes place in ninth-century Spain – from Act Two onwards, on ‘a picturesque site on the banks of the Guadalquivir before Córdoba’. Here Gounod – finally noted more for his neoclassical pastiches (Le Médecin malgré lui and Cinq-Mars) and his ardent Romanticism (Faust and Roméo et Juliette) – was given an opportunity to display his talents as an orchestrator and colourist in an exotic setting. He produced an epic in the tradition of French grand opéra, with numerous ensembles and showpiece airs.

La jacquerie is a four-act opera commenced by Édouard Lalo in 1889 to a libretto by Édouard Blau and Simone Arnaud. The opera was unfinished when Lalo died in 1892, and it was completed by Arthur Coquard. The first performance was at the Opéra de Monte-Carlo on March 9, 1895.

I know of no Rameau work more colourful, more melodious, more replete with inventive vitality, wrote Gramophone in reviewing this 1973 premiere recording of the French Baroque masters 1735 heroic ballet Les Indes galantes. There is immense enthusiasm and spirit in this performance [and] some excellent singing Among the array of sopranos I was specially impressed by the full, bright ring of Rachel Yakar Anne-Marie Rodde: a good stylist and a clean, accurate voice, coping well with Rameaus florid detail The tenor Bruce Brewer is a real find for the lyrical French roles: his voice is very smooth and graceful In all, a set which no Rameau admirer should miss. Conducted by Rameau specialist Jean-Claude Malgoire, it is now being issued for the first time on CD.

Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme was the eleventh comedie-ballet of Moliere (regarded as France's Shakespeare) and Lully (the first major French opera composer, although he was of Italian origin) and was first performed in 1670. It is regarded as the culmination of their co-operation. This production is claimed to be the first for some centuries to present the work as it would have been seen by King Louis XIV and his court. English speaking audiences familiar with Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme know it as a play. Those of us who are French opera buffs may also be acquainted with the Leonhardt CD of the musical component of the play.
By Mr. Geoffrey Lehmann