It is now almost obligatory to preface any review of “Manon” with
Sir Thomas Beecham’s celebrated bon mot: "I would give the whole of the Brandenburg
Concertos for Massenet's Manon, and would think I had vastly profited
by the exchange". Like many things that Beecham said, I’m
not sure that he really meant it. I equally doubt whether it tells
us anything much about the comparative quality of either work,
but it is true that “Manon” is, with “Werther”, representative
of Massenet’s best music. It has remained perenially popular,
although performances have been slightly more scarce of late,
perhaps for dearth of suitable singers. Malcolm Walker’s excellent
liner-notes tell us that by the time of the composer’s death in
1912 it had notched up seven hundred performances at the Opéra
Comique and by 1950 that number had risen to 2000. Many of the
slightly older among us cherish memories of the superb ENO performances
headed by Valerie Masterson in the 1970s and 1980s but it really
needs to be sung in French by a French cast to feel entirely comme
il faut.
Meanwhile, the authentic performing idiom of this quintessentially
French opera has been gradually diluted by the influence of
the more homogenised, “international” style which inevitably
characterises modern opera. That is all the more reason to cherish
this immaculate transfer of a performance wholly representative
of the Opéra Comique in the mid-1950s. Much ink has been expended
extolling the virtues of this recording, so I do not propose
to go over old ground: it is as close to perfect as the technology
and performing practice of the era would permit. I do not pretend
to maintain an unqualified admiration for everything Victoria
de los Angeles recorded; indeed, I have never quite “got” the
adulation accorded her by the generation previous to mine. In
some quarters, to criticise her is to invite the same kind of
opprobium vented by fanatical fans of Callas whenever you say
a word to suggest that La Divina occasionally had feet
of clay, but just as Callas was unbeatable in certain rôles,
de los Angeles is here at her peak, in her best rôle as the
delectable tart-with-a-heart Manon. Her French is excellent,
her affect perfect and her ability to caress Massenet’s sinuous
melodies unparalleled. The plaintive, girlish quality of her
tone, which I sometimes find sentimental, is here ideal. Her
coloratura is more than serviceable and the top D in the Cours
la Reine scene is pretty impressive, too, for a singer who never
used it in a live performance. Henri Legay is the kind of French
tenor whose last representative was the late Alain Vanzo. There
is no reason, when he sings as elegantly as this, to regret
his lack of heft – nor the fact that no less a tenor than Jussi
Björling turned down the invitation to record Des Grieux. He
is certainly passionate when required even if the outburts of
the St Sulpice scene push him to his vocal limits. The tenderness
of his conversations with Manon is entirely convincing; he is
always the callow, slightly ineffectual romantic, out of his
depth in Lescaut’s world of gambling, roistering and intrigue.
There is an essential rightness about Monteux’s expert handling
of the score – everything is perfectly paced, even if he does
permit a small cut at the end of the first act, which allows
the act to end with the lovers’ duet but obscures the sense
of the plot. The French cast knows exactly how to inflect and
time the quick-fire exchanges. The sharpness of their enunciation
is a delight; what a pleasure it is to hear perfect French when
so many more modern recordings of French operas are compromised
by singers unable to encompass the subtleties of its pronunciation.
The clean mono sound is oddly atmospheric; it is almost as if
too lush or rich a stereo sound would rob the performance of
its period charm – yet no detail is lost in Mark Obert-Thorn’s
superbly engineered restoration.
Recordings of “Manon” have, by and large, been many and
successful. If you want a modern stereo recording, the EMI set
with Gheorghiu, Alagna and José van Dam, ably conducted by Pappano,
is very satisfactory. However, this one is special: it’s a slice
of history which demands almost no forbearance on the part of
the listener with regard to sound quality. By contrast previous
historical recordings inevitably sound … well, historical. No
libretto is provided but the synopsis is clear, and clearer
still is the diction of the cast, so if you have some French
you will not be lost.
I returned to this set after an interval of many years
and was delighted to discover that it was even better than I
had remembered it from my LPs. A lovely little bonus this time
around is the inclusion of a brief spoken introduction by the
octogenerian conductor Pierre Monteux, winningly delivered in
charmingly accented English.
To complete a set which comes as close to perfection
as humanly possible, Naxos generously provides two more de los Angeles classics in the form of her 1955 recordings
of Berlioz’s Les Nuits d’Été and Debussy’s La Demoiselle
Élue, both with the Boston Symphony conducted by Charles
Munch. The latter is an interesting, perfumed piece frequently
echoing Debussy’s contemporary Chausson. De los Angeles’ sensitive
and sensuous account of Berlioz song-cycle, while not erasing
memories of Eleanor Steber or Janet Baker, again finds her in
melting voice. At super-bargain price, these three discs are
a steal.
Ralph
Moore
see
also Review
by Robert Hugill
Manon Lescaut – Victoria de los Angeles
(soprano) (1) 
