Thaïs suffers from an undeservedly low reputation in
some critical circles, viewed as a piece of sentimental melodrama. This is
really most unfair. The original novel by Anatole France on which the opera
is based is a rather subtle psychological study of the nature of religious
belief and fanaticism. And the librettist Louis Gallet avoided the
temptation to turn it into anything more conventional, constructing a prose
text rather than the traditional verse customary in French opera (thus
predating Debussy and Maeterlinck’s
Pelléas et
Mélisande by some years) and not shirking the horrific
transformation that the heroine’s conversion to Christianity wreaks
upon the tortured monk who realises too late that his successful evangelism
has robbed him of the one thing in life that he really desires.
Thaïs has not been a very fortunate opera on disc. Apart from
the ubiquitous
Meditation so beloved of violinists and some performances
of the
Mirror Aria included in recital discs, recordings have
generally suffered from considerable drawbacks. The first sets in the
1950s were all heavily cut (among other things, one whole scene regularly
went missing), the 1977 EMI set with Beverley Sills featured a leading
soprano somewhat past her best, and an earlier RCA set with Anna Moffo
was ruled out of court by a heroine whose voice had painfully deserted
her altogether; it disappeared from the catalogue very quickly, and
never appears to have resurfaced on CD. It was not until Decca’s
2000 set with Renée Fleming and Thomas Hampson that we had a
performance and recording that did full justice to the work. That set
remains available, and is also included in a box of Decca’s Massenet
recordings at a reduced price; and the CDs here, drawn from live performances
(it has already appeared on DVD), must inevitably be compared with that.
And despite many virtues, this version must be found wanting in several
key aspects.
In the first place, it is nothing like complete. There is a
pointless excision of a dozen bars or so at the end of Act One; and the
offstage chorus parts which Massenet later added to the
Meditation -
which we were given in the Moffo and Fleming sets - are omitted. They are
not included in the published vocal score, but they add a sense of awe to
the music which raises it from the level of the
salon, and we need to
have them in a complete recording. We are also robbed of the first five and
the seventh movements of the ballet in the Second Act. Massenet does allow
for this truncation in the vocal score, but he rewrites the music which
precedes it to provide a smooth transition. Here it is simply cut; we retain
the vocal sixth movement, but the rather cautious singing of Anna Smiech
does not make its inclusion particularly worthwhile. In the final orchestral
interlude before Thaïs’s death, Massenet makes provision for its
abridgement, but what we are given here is not his suggested cut, which is
actually retained, but a massive omission of some hundred bars or so earlier
on.
In the second place, neither of the two leading singers in this set
rise to the level of Fleming and Hampson. The role of Thaïs was
originally written for Massenet’s muse (one of many) the American
soprano Sybil Sanderson, for whom he had previously written his
Esclarmonde. The part demands an incredible range both of emotion and
tessituta, with repeated passages in the death scene that range over
two-and-a-bit octaves, and one can only regret that Joan Sutherland did not
follow her successful resurrection of
Esclarmonde with a recording of
the later Sanderson role. Eva Mei sounds slightly insecure in her opening
phrase, although she soon settles down, and it is nice to hear a voice in
its prime; but she sounds strained on her very highest notes, and her
laughter just before the
Meditation is of the wrong sort, sounding
more hag-ridden than despairing.
Michele Pertusi is surprising casting as the tortured monk; he is
better known for his bass roles, but he has all the high notes required and
it is only the actual colour of the voice itself which lets him down,
sounding at times brusque rather than fanatical. He brings plenty of
expression to his words, however, and produces a real sense of character.
The only other substantial role, that of the playboy Nicias, is well taken
by William Joyner - Nicolai Gedda in the Sills set sounded far too old - but
he lacks the required volume to override the chorus - who are very good -
when it is needed.
In the third place the recorded balance, inevitably in a live
recording with some distinctly intrusive stage noises, is not ideal. The
orchestra play well, although the violins are slightly underpowered in
places, and the internal balances match those in the 2000 Decca set -
annoyingly enough the best playing of all came on the RCA LPs, an early
experiment in surround sound. Time and again important figures in the
orchestra are smothered by the voices, which are placed decidedly forwardly
in the sound picture - probably the result of the original DVD balance.
By comparison with the other complete recordings of the opera, this
must be rated as the second best and quite decidedly superior to anything
recorded before 2000; but it is also quite definitely a second best to the
Fleming and Hampson set under Yves Abel. Those same two protagonists also
recorded their roles for DVD in a Metropolitan opera production under Jesus
López-Cobos, but unless you are particularly attracted by the visual
element - not particularly worthwhile - the Abel set is worth the additional
expense. It gives us every note that Massenet wrote. It also includes the
complete French text and translation; the booklet notes and synopsis here
are in Italian and English only.
Paul Corfield Godfrey
