For Robert Planquette fate was a great provider.
Born in Paris on 31 July 1848, and of Norman origin, this son of a singer
was privileged to be in Duprato's class at the Paris Conservatoire.
He did not get much out of his studies, not least because he did not
finish them, preferring to exploit his talents as a café pianist
and tenor. A few romances brought less fame than did his song, Sambre
et Meuse, first sung in 1867 by Lucien Fougère, who went
on to be the glory of French opera stages. Before Les Cloches de
Corneville, Planquette had never before composed a full musical
score: for a first attempt it is nothing less than brilliant. The score
just flowed with sparkling melodies, variety of rhythm, novel orchestral
texture and bright colour. Throughout lovely motifs like the one representing
the Bells weave in and out of the music. It is said that Planquette
farmed out the orchestration to more competent musicians than himself.
If so, they made a good team: the chorus part-writing is particularly
fine in places. The style of composition changes considerably throughout
the piece and Planquette freely borrows from other composers. Listen
to the sumptuous Italianate chorus number ‘Silent Heroes’ (CD2
tk4), or Delibian barcarolle (CD1 tk.7) and duet (CD2 tk.8). (Delibes
had composed Coppélia seven years earlier and Sylvia
the year before this operetta.) Planquette’s skill in making melodies
blend and flow can be heard in the Act 1 finale (CD1 tk.20, first 4
mins) with its inventive rhythms and brilliant colour.
In 1876, the director of the Folies Dramatiques, a
fantastic talent-spotter, gave Planquette a commission to compose an
operetta which had originally been intended for Hervé on a libretto
by Louis Clairville and Charles Gabet, after a play by the latter. Les
Cloches de Corneville followed Offenbach's La Foire Saint-Laurent;
the first of his works to be given at the Folies-Dramatiques which had
a luke warm reception. Just as sad was the failure at the Bouffes-Parisiens
in November of Emmanuel Chabrier's L'Étoile, a true masterpiece,
which nevertheless never managed to find its public. This was hardly
the case with Les Cloches de Corneville when it was premièred
on 17 April 1877. The sprightly and sparkling music coupled with interesting
characterisations caused the piece to run for a generous 580 performances
and when translated into English and performed in London upstaged HMS
Pinafore by chalking up a staggering 708 performances. Its opening
production was carried by excellent performances from Ernest Vois (Henri
de Corneville), Milher (Gaspard), Simon Max (Grenicheux), Conchita Gélabert
(Germaine), and the very young Juliette Girard (Serpolette), who under
the name of Simone Girard went on to have a brilliant career. Later,
when records came in, famous comic actors like Fernand Ledoux and Daniel
Sorano were quick to cut a disc or two by taking up the character of
Gaspard.
Les Cloches de Corneville’s reputation
has survived, crossing several generations without difficulty, and it
was probably the most popular French operetta of all time. The story
has been criticised for being "plagiarized from ‘La Dame blanche’
and ‘Martha’ " (as Clement and 'Larousse's Dictionnaire des Operas'
deplores "the debased character of this work, which reflects exactly
the amount of wit, taste and art of the greater part of the French public
as formed, trained, modeled and perverted by the operetta.")
The plot and theatrical devices work well enough– a
supposedly haunted castle; an heir who comes back incognito; a young
girl abandoned in a field, who thinks she is a princess; a fake ghost
who is in fact a real old miser trying to profit from the riches of
his aged employer; a niece who isn't a niece but is an aristocrat –so
what more could a plot want? Add to that a dash of Gallic levity and
vibrant, well-crafted music and the pretty and undemanding essay in
counterpoint in the first-act finale (CD1 tk.20). Many of the songs
have long since passed into the common memory from Va petit mousse
to the Cider Song, by way of the Legend of the Bells and
the Marquis's waltz "I've been three times around the world".
Act 1 opens on a market day (or ‘fair day’ in the English
edition) in Corneville, a sedate town dominated by a castle whose owners,
having gone abroad, have never since shown any sign of life. Serpolette
acts as maid to Gaspard, an old skinflint who found her as a child abandoned
in a field of wild thyme–serpolets, hence her name. She is enamoured
of the fisherman, Grenicheux. Gaspard's niece, Germaine, whom Grenicheux
saved from drowning, has vowed to marry him, while her uncle intends
her to marry the Bailli. A stranger arrives, whom Germaine attempts
to turn away from the castle, saying it is haunted, and that its bells
will only ring the day its owner's heir returns. (The stranger is in
fact Henri de Corneville, the Marquis, who recalls his childhood and
a young girl who fell into the sea. He pulled her out and never saw
her again.) The market is now at its busiest. Henri takes Germaine,
Serpolette and Grenicheux into his service.
In Act 2, within the great hall of the castle, Henri
de Corneville, in the company of his retainers and villagers, discovers
a letter. It mentions that the Vicomtesse de Lucenay was at one time
in danger and so was entrusted to Gaspard to be brought up under a false
name. Everyone thinks this must be Serpolette. To Grenicheux, hiding
in a suit of armour, fails to resolve the mystery of the ghosts. He
ends up catching Gaspard, who thought up the hoax to frighten off strangers
in search of the riches of his former masters. The shock drives the
old man mad.
At the commencement of Act 3, the bells have
rung and Henri has been recognized as heir to the Castle of Corneville.
Grenicheux has become valet to the Vicomtesse Serpolette. But Henri's
memories have been stirred: the young girl who escaped death thanks
to him is Germaine. Grenicheux is nothing but a liar. Recovering his
senses, Gaspard declares that his pretended niece is in fact the true
Vicomtesse de Lucenay. Germaine will marry Marquis Henri, Serpolette
will rebuff Grenicheux, and from now the bells can ring whenever they
like.
This is a strong cast headed by Mady Mesplé
who with her characteristically light soprano voice and rapid vibrato
seems right for Germaine. She is well supported by the other soloists.
Christiane Stutzmann as Serpolette is a somewhat brittle soprano with
good diction. Her Rondeau (CD1 tk.5) is sung in a rather jerky staccato
fashion which sounds forced: although the accompaniment is marked staccato
this isn’t marked so in the singer’s line. Both Charles Burles (Grenicheux),
Bernard Sinclair (Henri de Corneville, the heir) give good support.
Burles gives a good performance in the charming and haunting barcarolle,
‘On billow rocking’ (CD1 tk.7) yet is slightly behind the beat
in the duet with Mesplé which follows (CD1 tk.9). Jean Giraudeau
(Le Bailli) sings his buffo song with good humour (CD2 tk.2). The baritone,
Jean-Christophe Beniot who has recorded in a number of this EMI series,
with pleasant timbre competently sings Gaspard, a key part. The orchestra
is pleasantly balanced and allows one to pick up the full colour and
nuances of the score. On the strength of this work it would have been
nice to hear how Planquette got on with a later equally good operetta,
Rip Van Winkle (1882) written for the London stage and later
translated into French as Rip. By all accounts it was highly
successful and well received. A 1961 recording of it does exist on Musidisc
(Harmonia Mundi) CD no. 20160-2 and should be well worth trying.
Of the EMI twelve reissues in this series, this set
carries the worst track indexing and listing. The speech often runs
over the initial or final bars of a number. This must have caused a
problem knowing where to place an index marker but things do not need
to be so bad. Sometimes a piece can even have its first few bars laid
on the previous track. Since clearly the dubbing of dialogue was done
after the music speech overhangs at the start of a number could have
been avoided (at the end of a number this doesn’t matter so much though
I think many listeners would prefer to hear the music uninterrupted).
With this mid-price issue, interesting brief notes
by Michel Parouty in French and English are included. The track listing
is in parts incomplete: tracks 26 and 27 on CD1 do not exist in the
booklet.
Raymond Walker
Further reading: "Operetta", Traubner (Oxford 1883); ‘Musicals",
Ganzl (Carlton 1995)
Pic. Poster taken from "Musicals" (Carlton 1995)
Mady Mesplé (Germaine),
Christiane Stutzmann (Serpolette), Charles Burles (Grenicheux), Bernard
Sinclair (Henri de Corneville), Jean Giraudeau (Le Bailli), Jean-Christophe
Beniot (Gaspard)