Ghost of Sunday Classics: The poet Hoffmann and the legend of Kleinzach

"Le nom de la première était Olympia"




Nicolai Gedda, tenor; Paris Conservatory Orchestra, André Cluytens, cond. EMI, recorded 1964

Richard Tucker, tenor; Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Pierre Monteux, cond. Live performance, Dec. 3, 1955

Léopold Simoneau, tenor; Orchestra of the Concerts de Paris, Pierre-Michel Le Conte, cond. Philips-Epic, recorded 1958

Plácido Domingo, tenor; Orchestre National de France, Seiji Ozawa, cond. DG, recorded 1986

Francisco Araiza, tenor; Staatskapelle Dresden, Jeffrey Tate, cond. Philips, recorded 1987-89

by Ken

I don't think I have, but it may be that you've heard music more hauntingly beautiful than this tiny bit -- the final half-minute of the Prologue to Jacques Offenbach's Tales of Hoffmann, as the drunken poet Hoffmann offers a tavern's worth of adoring students, hanging on his every word, his promised account of the first of his promised three "mad loves." I've gathered five distinctly different performances, plain and fancy, but all, I think, decently haunting. (Any preferences?)

I've painted myself into a corner here. For a good part of this week it was seeming like the time for the giving up the Sunday Classics ghost. However, while we already had, goodness knows, lots of loose ends that will be left dangling, one that I added just last week is strikes too close to home for me. I explained that last week's assortment of operatic (mostly) drinking songs touches me too personally. (There are times when Hoffmann is my favorite opera.)


I THOUGHT POSSIBLY I COULD SIMPLY
THROW OUT HOFFMANN'S DRINKING SONG

THE TALES OF HOFFMANN POSTS

"The poet Hoffmann and the legend of Kleinzach" (Sept. 14)
Preview, "The name of the first was Olympia" (Sept. 19)
"Hoffmann just can't get over is 'three mistresses'" (Sept. 21)
Preview, "Our Frantz knows it's all a matter of technique" (Sept. 27)
"Who is the author of Hoffmann's misfortunes?" (Sept. 28)

Starting by going just up to the point where something clearly goes wrong with the song.

Ghost of Sunday Classics: A Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Waste Dept. -- Two operatic heroines, part 1

In Act II of Verdi's La Forza del destino, Leonora (Jennifer Maines) meets the kindly Padre Guardiano (Marek M. Gasztecki), at Innsbruck's Landestheater, September 2013.

by Ken
Another ghost-of-a-post idea, and one that may require some eventual fleshing-out. It was born of conjoined images from two different operas that suddenly started playing together in my head. And the "ghost" theme is actually appropriate, since it happens that both of the operatic heroines of our post title is that both have been seeing, er, fantastmi, as our Heroine No. 1, Verdi's Donna Leonora di Vargas from La Forza del destino, puts it.

HEROINE NO. !: VERDI'S LEONORA DI VARGAS
(LA FORZA DEL DESTINO)

We've actually heard this before, at some length. in the May 2011 post "Verdi's Forza demonstrates from start to finish what only opera can do." Donna Leonora, held responsible for the death of her father, the Marquis of Calatrava, the night she attempted to elope with her beloved Don Alvaro, has fled her home in Seville, eventually winding up at the mountain monastery of Hornachuelos, where she throws herself at the mercy of its superior, the kindly Padre Guardiano. When he finds out who she is, he recoils at first, then shows her the first human kindness she has received since her father's death, and what we hear from her in this release of pent-up tension rather terrifies me.

VERDI: La Forza del destino, Act II, Scene 2: Leonora, "Più tranquillo l'alma sento" ("I feel my soul more tranquil")

LEONORA: I feel my soul more tranquil
since I tread this ground.
The fearful phantasms
I no longer feel making war against me.
No longer does my father's shade
rise bleeding before me,
nor do I hear him, terrible,
cursing his daughter.

Maria Caniglia (s), Donna Leonora di Vargas; EIAR Turin Symphony Orchestra, Gino Marinuzzi, cond. Fonit Cetra, broadcast performance, 1941

Renata Tebaldi (s), Donna Leonora di Vargas; Orchestra of the Accademia di Santa Cecilia (Rome), Francesco Molinari-Pradelli, cond. Decca, recorded summer 1955

Leontyne Price (s), Donna Leonora di Vargas; Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Francesco Molinari-Pradelli, cond. Live performance, March 9, 1968

Preview: The other operatic "Story of the Chévalier des Grieux and Manon Lescaut"

DES GRIEUX: Gentle lady, accept my prayer:
let those sweet lips tell me your name.
MANON: Manon Lescaut is my name.

(1) Jussi Bjoerling (t), des Grieux; Licia Albanese (s), Manon; Rome Opera Orchestra, Jonel Perlea, cond. RCA/BMG, recorded July 1954
(2) Giuseppe di Stefano (t), des Grieux; Maria Callas (s), Manon; Orchestra of the Teatro alla Scala, Tullio Serafin, cond. EMI, recorded July 1957
(3) Richard Tucker (t), des Grieux; Renata Tebaldi (s), Manon; Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Fausto Cleva, cond. Live performance, Jan. 17, 1959

by Ken

We've already begun poking around the operafication of one of the literature's most commanding "love at first stories," that of the Chévalier des Grieux and Manon Lescaut, as set forth originally novelistically by the Abbé Prévost. So far we've focused on the good times, the falling-madly-in-love times, as realized in music by Jules Massenet in his Manon. The young Puccini, having as yet no reputation to speak of, had the temerity to undertake another operatic Manon, and for him it was the breakthrough work. Manon Lescaut has its musicodramatic shortcomings, but it also contains large quantities of great music, and great dramatic music.

Just as in Massenet, Manon and des Grieux meet outside that inn in Amiens, after she has been deposited there by coach for transshipment to a convent -- though here the relation exercising such lack supervision is not her cousin but her brother. After the click-through we'll hear a full version of this compact scene. For now I want to focus first on those first words exchanged by the young people, and then jump a few minutes to the impact the encounter has on des Grieux.

PUCCINI: Manon Lescaut: Act I, des Grieux, "Donna non vidi mai"

DES GRIEUX: Never have I beheld a woman like this!
To tell her "I love you"
awakened my spirit to new life.
"Manon Lescaut is my name."
How those fragrant words
wander in my spirit
and caress my quivering heart.
O gentle murmur, ah! may it never cease!
"Manon Lescaut is my name."
Gentle murmur, ah! may it never cease!

Giuseppe di Stefano (t), des Grieux; Orchestra of the Teatro alla Scala, Tullio Serafin, cond. EMI, recorded July 1957

Richard Tucker (t), des Grieux; Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Fausto Cleva, cond. Live performance, Jan. 17, 1959

Not to worry, we are going to hear Bjoerling's "Donna non vidi mai," but for now I thought we'd hark back to the master, who recorded the aria only once, but I think once was all he needed.


Enrico Caruso, tenor; A. Regis Rossini, harp; Victor Orchestra. Victor, recorded in New York, Feb. 24, 1913