This
double set gives us the complete recordings of soprano
Marie Delna and an auspicious selection of discs made
by fellow soprano Jeanne Marié de l’Isle.
Delna was born Marie Ledant in Paris in 1875 and made
her debut at sixteen as Dido in Les Troyens à Carthage,
something of an event. Verdi admired her Quickly in Falstaff,
a role in which he supervised her and she soon made international
debuts. Marriage in 1903 took her away from the stage
but she was back a few years later. Her Met debut came
in 1910 in Gluck’s Orfeo with Gadski – Toscanini
conducting – the second of which performance led to a
celebrated run-in with the conductor. Her career wound
down at the end of the First World War and she turned
later to teaching. She died in 1932.
Delna
sang in a number of premieres and was an important front
rank singer of the French school. Her recordings began
in London in 1903 of which sequence her Carmen does sound
just a touch stentorian – though she was only twenty-eight.
Curiously when she came to record again in her home city
again for Pathé the voice sounds lighter and the Air
des cartes – Carmen was a famous role of hers – suits
her essential seriousness of purpose very well. Godard’s Viens
avec nous petit from La Vivandière is
a revolutionary rabble-rouser and full of brio – the
piano part is hilariously done and the studio applause
sounds part contrived but part genuine! In the extract
from her debut work, Les Troyens, we can hear
the actual timbre of the voice sounds almost counter-tenor
like, the aria sitting in that part of her voice that
is the most ‘male’ sounding; unconvincing upright piano.
Clérice’s La Vierge à la crèche is accompanied
at the piano by the composer in 1905 and is a cherishable
example of her singing - scaled-down in size,
splendidly deployed. Her collaboration with Albert Alvarez
in Meyerbeer and Donizetti proves equally impressive;
Alvarez has a particularly fine voice and his strong,
vibrant tenor signifies an impressive talent.
I
think the 1907 recording of J’ai perdu mon Eurydice and
the later 1910 Edison cylinder of Che farò show
why Toscanini took against her in Orfeo. She progressively
slows down, which must have infuriated the conductor.
Rather better, indeed splendid, are the two Samson
et Dalila extracts; Mon Coeur is in fact one
of her most famous recordings and justifiably so, though
I prefer the New York Edison remake of 1910. In the context
the 1907 Pathé of di Capua’s O sole mio does sound
rather incongruous; a peculiarity, though not an unwelcome
one, in her discography. Disc 2 gives us some London-made
Edison remakes and these were very favourable recording
circumstances.
We
are fortunate to be in a position to survey all her recordings
in this way as she was an important artist. The companion
singer is represented by a selection of her records.
Jeanne Marié de l’Isle (1872-1926) was not only
a contemporary but like Delna born in Paris. Her debut
was rather later than Delna’s, in 1896, and she was soon
making regular appearances with leading singers – Van
Dyck, Clément, Beyle and the like. She sang frequently
at the Opéra-Comique and took her three favourite roles – Carmen,
Mignon, Charlotte - to many of the provincial houses
as well. Unlike Delna her career wasn’t international – though
she did venture to Bucharest and Sofia in 1910. Rather
like Delna though her careered coincided with the end
of the Great War.
Hers
was something of a light mezzo voice and very beautiful.
She gives us the tongue-twisting Maillart aria Espoir
charmant! from Les Dragons de Villars – her
first ever role on stage and it’s a pure delight. So
too, despite the slightly noisy shellac, is her Mignon
where the voice is fortunately forward and we can appreciate
the refined purity of her singing. There’s a long sequence
of arias from Carmen - where Leon Beyle proves a stylish
light tenor colleague. These are wholly admirable sides.
She has personality too. And her Berlioz example shows
the youthful quality of the voice - though this extract
is subject to the inevitable truncations of the time.
She shows equally stylistic flair and surety in the songs
by Gounod, Hahn, and Chaminade.
It
goes without saying that Marston’s booklet is exemplary – full
of biographical and musical information, full matrix
and release and dating details. The photographs have
been well produced – as ever. And the transfers are first
class as ever.
Jonathan
Woolf
Details
CD 1 [79:39]
Marie Delna (soprano)
Pathé, London, 1903
Giacomo MEYERBEER (1791-1864)
Le Prophète - Ah, mon fils [2:34]
Georges BIZET (1838-1875)
Carmen - opéra-comique in four acts (1875) - Près des remparts de Séville [Séguedille][2:02]
Carmen - opéra-comique in four acts (1875) - L’amour est un oiseau rebelle
[Habanera] [2:23]
Pathé, Paris, 1903–1904
Georges BIZET
Carmen - opéra-comique in four acts (1875) - En vain pour éviter
[Air des cartes]
[2:26]
Benjamin GODARD (1849-1895)
La Vivandière - Viens avec nous, petit [2:02]
Jules MASSENET (1842
- 1912)
Werther (1893) - Va, laisse couler mes larmes [2:28]
Hector BERLIOZ (1803 – 1869)
Les Troyens à Carthage (1856-9) - Chers Tyriens, tant de nobles
travaux [2:24]
Benjamin GODARD (1849-1895)
Jocelyn (1888) - Cachés dans cet asile [Berceuse] [2:26]
Jules MASSENET (1842
- 1912)
Les enfants [2:25]
Justin CLÉRICE
La Vierge à la crèche [2:29]
Accompanied by the composer
Pathé, Paris, 1905
Giacomo MEYERBEER
Le Prophète - A la voix de ta mère [3:17]
With Albert Alvarez, tenor
Gaetano DONIZETTI (1797-1848)
La Favorite (1840) - Leonor…Viens, je cède éperdu
[3:17]
With Albert Alvarez, tenor
Pathé, Paris, 1907
Christoph Willibald GLUCK (1714-1787)
Orfeo ed Euridice (1762) - J’ai perdu mon Eurydice [2:39]
Gaetano DONIZETTI (1797-1848)
La Favorite (1840) - O mon Fernand [3:20]
Jules MASSENET (1842 -
1912)
Werther (1893) - Je vous écris de ma petite chambre [Air
des lettres]
[3:10]
Camille SAINT-SAËNS (1835-1921)
Samson et Dalila (1877) - Printemps qui commence [3:15]
Samson et Dalila (1877) - Mon cœur s’ouvre à ta voix [3:17]
Benjamin GODARD
La Vivandière - Liberté, rayonnant aux cieux, écoute
ma prière ardente [2:48]
Alfred BRUNEAU (1857-1934)
L’Attaque du Moulin (1893) - Ah, la guerre, l’horrible
guerre [2:18]
Alexandre GEORGES (1850-1938)
Miarka (1905) - Soleil qui flambes, soleil d’or rouge
[1:39]
Pietro MASCAGNI (1863-1945)
Cavalleria Rusticana (1889) - Vous le savez, ma mère
[3:12]
Eduardo di CAPUA (1864-1917)
O sole mio [3:11]
Edison Cylinders, New York, 1910
Christoph Willibald GLUCK (1714-1787)
Orfeo ed Euridice (1762) - Che farò senza Euridice?
[3:55]
Gaetano DONIZETTI (1797-1848)
La Favorita (1840)
- O mio Fernando [4:09]
Giacomo MEYERBEER
Le Prophète - Ah, mon fils [4:17]
Camille SAINT-SAËNS (1835-1921)
Samson et Dalila (1877) - Mon cœur s’ouvre à ta voix [4:20]
Amilcare PONCHIELLI (1834-1886)
La Gioconda - Lyric drama in four acts (1876) - Voce di donna [3:41]
CD 2 [79:48]
Edison Diamond Discs, London, 1913
Giacomo MEYERBEER
Le Prophète - Ah, mon fils [4:40]
Camille SAINT-SAËNS (1835-1921)
Samson et Dalila (1877) - Mon cœur s’ouvre à ta voix [4:53]
Benjamin GODARD (1849-1895)
Jocelyn (1888) - Cachés dans cet asile [Berceuse] [4:47]
Pathé Paris, 1918
Claude ROHAND
Carillon de guerre [3:40]
Espérance [3:24]
Jeanne Marié de L’Isle (soprano)
Selected recordings; French Odeon 1905 and Gramophone
Company 1904–1906
Louis-Aime MAILLART (1817-1871)
Les Dragons de Villars (1856) - Espoir charmant! [3:00]
Ambroise THOMAS (1811-1896)
Mignon (1866) - Connais-tu le pays? [2:53]
Mignon (1866) - Je connais un pauvre enfant [Styrienne] [3:03]
Mignon (1866) - Je suis heureuse [3:25]
With Leon Beyle, tenor
Mignon (1866) - O vierge Marie [Prière] [2:26]
Georges BIZET (1838-1875)
Carmen - opéra-comique in four acts (1875) – L’amour
est un oiseau rebelle [Habanera]
[3:11]
Carmen - opéra-comique in four acts (1875) - Près des remparts de Séville
[Séguedille] [1:45]
Carmen - opéra-comique in four acts (1875) - Les tringles
des sistres [Chanson bohème] [2:55]
Carmen - opéra-comique in four acts (1875) - Je vais
danser en votre honneur [3:20]
Carmen - opéra-comique in four acts (1875) - En vain
pour éviter [Air des cartes] [3:12]
Carmen - opéra-comique in four acts (1875) - Si tu m’aimes,
Carmen [2:44]
With Hector Dufranne, baritone
Carmen - opéra-comique in four acts (1875) - C’est toi,
c’est moi [Fragment from act 4 duet] [3:24]
With Leon Beyle, tenor
Jules MASSENET (1842
- 1912)
Werther (1893) - Vous avez dit vrai [3:02]
Werther (1893) - Va, laisse couler mes larmes [2:40]
Hector BERLIOZ (1803-1869)
La Damnation de Faust (1846)
- Autrefois un roi de Thulé [3:08]
Charles GOUNOD (1818-1893)
Sérénade [3:07]
Jules MASSENET
Les enfants [3:19]
Reynaldo HAHN (1874-1947)
Si mes vers avaient des ailes [2:10]
Cécile CHAMINADE (1857-1944)
L’anneau d’argent [2:26]
Umberto GIORDANO (1867–1948)
Crépuscule triste [3:02]
Marie Delna (soprano)
Jeanne Marié de l’Isle (soprano)
CD 1:
Accompaniments: Tracks [1–12] accompanied by piano; Tracks
[13–27]
accompanied by orchestra
Languages: French [1–21, 25–26]; Italian [22–24, 27]
CD 2:
Accompaniments: Tracks [1–3, 8–10, 15–16, 19–25] accompanied
by orchestra;
Tracks [4–7, 11–14, 17–18] accompanied by piano
Languages: All sung in French
Marie Delna (soprano) Jeanne Marié de
l’Isle (soprano) 
