Donizetti went to Paris at Rossini’s invitation in 1835 to present his
opera
Marino Faliero at the Théâtre Italien where his great
predecessor was intendant. This visit also introduced him to the ‘Grand
Opera’ style of Meyerbeer and Halévy at The Opéra, the
Académi
e Impériale de Musique, Paris. He also discovered,
as Rossini and other Italian predecessors had done before him, the
significantly higher musical and theatrical standards that existed in Paris
compared with their own country. That applied even in Naples with its
professional orchestra and in Milan. Also appealing to a composer, who often
had to write and present three or four new works each year to maintain a
decent living, was the superior financial remuneration available in Paris as
well as the safeguarding of performance rights.
Donizetti’s
Marino Faliero was premiered on 12 March 1835 and
followed Bellini’s
I Puritani that rather overshadowed Donizetti’s
creation. Both operas featured four of the greatest singers of the day in
Giulia Grisi, Giovanna Battista Rubini, Antonio Tamburini and Luigi
Lablache. With
Marino Faliero neither a failure nor a raging
success in Paris, Donizetti returned to Italy and presented
Lucia di
Lammermoor in Naples on 26 September. This was a huge and immediate
success. To this day it remains the composer’s most popular opera and is
widely considered a foundation-stone of Italian romanticism. With the
premature death of Bellini in the same month as
Lucia’s premiere,
and Rossini’s retirement from operatic composition, Donizetti was elevated
to a pre-eminent position among his contemporaries. Given this status his
return to Paris was inevitable and in 1838 he presented a French version
Lucia at the Théâtre de Renaissance. He followed this with three
operas in Paris in 1840:
La Fille du Régiment at the Opéra Comique
(11 February),
Les Martyrs (10 April) and
La Favorite on 2
December - both the latter at The Opéra. In his contemporaneous writings,
Berlioz was caustic about what he considered the domination of the Paris
theatres by the Italian.
La Favorite started off as
L’ange de Nisida and was
scheduled for performance at the Théâtre de Renaissance. However, when that
theatre went bankrupt, Alphonse Royer and Gustave Vaëz’s libretto was
expanded by Scribe with Donizetti concluding act two with a ballet, de
rigueur at The Opéra, but omitted in this Toulouse performance. To the new
act four he added the lovely tenor aria for Fernand,
Ange si pur
(CH.34) known to all tenors of the Italian school as
Spirto Gentil.
When the opera was first performed in Italy, in translation, it was titled
Leonora di Guzman relating to the title of the origin of the
earlier libretto. It became known by its Italian title of
La
favorita when given at La Scala in 1843. Over the next seventy years
over seven hundred performances of the work were given at the Paris
Opéra.
The story is set in fourteenth century Spain. Fernand, a young novice
monk, refuses to take his vows as he is in love with a young woman who comes
to the church to pray and who returns his love. He considers himself her
social inferior and volunteers to fight in the army and returns an acclaimed
hero. The King offers him any reward and he asks for her hand. She is in
fact Léonor de Guzman, the King's mistress who confesses her shame.
Bereft, Fernand returns to the monastery where the woman joins him to seek
his forgiveness and dies.
La Favorite, as can be heard on the recently issued CD of
Les
Martyrs (
review) not only marks Donizetti’s command of
the Grand Opera style demanded by the Paris Opéra, but also a marrying of
that style with
bel canto. The latter had been the hallmark of much
of the composer’s previous work in Italy.
La Favorite also marks a
significant move towards romanticism, a quality that is also present in the
operas he composed later for the Vienna Kärntnertor theatre,
Linda di
Chamounix (1842
review) and
Maria di Rohan (1843) and
elsewhere. In the thirteen hundred seat Capitole Theatre, Toulouse, there is
not enough stage space for a grandstanding production as might have been the
case at The Opéra, be that either the theatre of Donizetti’s day or at the
Bastille or Palais Garnier today.
In Toulouse, Vincent Lemaire’s set of simplistic arches suffices for both
the monastery and Alcazar with lighting and mirrors creating mood and
distance. The only other sets are chairs and the odd stuffed peacock. The
costumes seem a mélange of period and contemporary. The coloured lighting
effects are complemented by Christian Lacroix’s colourful costumes of the
ladies of Alphonso’s Court. The overall effect is a little nebulous and
dependent too much on the flaccid direction of Vincent Boussard, and on the
acting ability of the singers, to bring the whole to life. Antonello
Allemandi in the pit does his best to inject some drama into the
proceedings. I suspect the latter presented an additional problem with the
changes to the cast. These included Kate Aldrich, at least competent in
French and the Chinese tenor, Yijie Shi as late replacements. Yijie Shi’s
achievement in mastering French, and learning the role in less than three
months, as indicated in the bonus interviews, is quite magnificent.
Although the acting at times seems somewhat limited and stylised, the
singing of the three principals is more than adequate. Native French speaker
Ludovic Tézier is now the baritone of choice in lyric roles in particular in
the French and Italian repertoire. Sonorous, expressive and with clear
articulated diction, his singing stands out although his acted commitment
lacks some vitality. As Léonor, Kate Aldrich is good most of the time with
just the odd loss of pitch. If her acting is not up to the histrionic
standard of Cossotto on the Italian language DVD, at least she does not
overdo the histrionics. Yijie Shi is a pleasant revelation with a clear
high-lying tenor well up to the demands that Donizetti wrote for his
original tenor, Duprez. He phrases Donizetti’s graceful lines with feeling
and a fair legato. He meets the high notes in
Une ange, une femme
inconnue (tr. 2) and elsewhere, without strain or tightening. Likewise
his
Ange si pur (CH.34) is well phrased and a pleasure to hear.
Even after allowing for the small size of the Capitole Théatre, I do not
doubt we will hear and see more of him on the international stage in the
bel canto tenor repertoire, at least as long as he does not give
his vocal all in larger theatres, that is.
In the lesser roles, Giovanni Furlanetto as Balthazar, abbot of the
monastery, lacks true lower notes and is therefore restricted in
interpretation and impact After a dodgy start Bénédicte Souquet portrays a
well thought through and well acted portrayal of Inès.
The booklet essay by Hugo Shirley is adequate whilst the act-by-act
synopsis is rather brief. The booklet presentation lacks a list of the
tracks and identification of who is singing. This is a deficiency that Opus
Arte does little about despite premium pricing and critical comments.
Likewise Opus Arte fails to get its act together in respect of disc
timings.
Until recently most collectors have come to know this opera in the Italian
version through Decca’s 1974 recording with Pavarotti as Fernando and
Fiorenza Cossotto as Leonora (Decca 430 038-2 DM3). Also sung in Italian
there's a dated DVD featuring Fiorenza Cossotto and Alfredo Kraus. A
very famous recording of the French version, made in 1912 based on a Paris
Opera production, is really only for avid collectors. More recently RCA
issued a slightly shortened French version, to fit on two CDs, featuring
Vesselina Kasarova and Ramon Vargas.
Robert J Farr
