Leo Delibes (1836-1891)
Lakmé (1882) [168]
Sabine Devieilhe (soprano) – Lakmé
Frédéric Antoun (tenor) – Gérald
Stéphane Degout (baritone) – Nilakantha
Ambroisine Bré (mezzo-soprano) – Malika
Pygmalion/Raphaël Pichon
Laurent Pelly (stage and costume designer)
rec. 2021, Opéra Comique, Paris
Naxos 2.110765 DVD [168]
Delibes’s Lakmé has maintained its position on the fringes of the repertory for over a century almost entirely as a result of two highlights which have found favour with coloratura sopranos: the Bell Song from Act Two, and overtaking it in popularity in recent years the Act One Flower Duet which bids fair to surpass the Offenbach Baccarole from the Tales of Hoffman as a favoured recital duet for soprano and mezzo. In fact the plot of the opera is basically very simple: a young Hindi princess has fallen in love with a British officer in the Indian Raj (the two are already established on close terms before the action begins), much to the fury of her father who arranges for the Englishman to be killed, and although the latter recovers thanks to Lakmé’s attentions she herself anticipates her father’s desire for an ‘honour killing’ by committing suicide. The music is mainly exotic and decorative, with only occasional eruptions of drama and sinister undertones; in musical terms the Indian characters are generally treated more generously than the English ones, who frequently lapse into spoken dialogue in the tradition of the French opéra-comique.
The opera has fared surprisingly well on record, frequently espoused by coloratura sopranos from the days of 78s onwards. For most listeners of my generation the Bell Song in particular is associated with Dame Joan Sutherland, who recorded it as part of her very first recital album and made a mark with it as a ‘single’ release in the early 1960s. In fact she is somewhat of an exception in the role, giving a large-scale and enthusiastic performance of a part that is more often taken by more delicate voices – as can be heard not only on her complete Decca recording (now on CD) but also on a long-deleted Australian video in a traditionally conventional production. Both those recordings employed a later revision of the score where Delibes added recitatives to replace spoken dialogue, but this edition restores the original. The extensive ballet music was however cut, and some of the militaristic music at the beginning of Act Two was also excised.
In fact the production here by Laurent Pelly also takes a fairly traditional view of the drama, if it can be described as such. The elaborate sets in the Australian production are substituted with rather attractive paper hangings, and Lakmé is for much of the first part of the drama confined to a cage as if to emphasise the sternly paternalistic discipline of her misogynistically repulsive father. She is seen as very much a victim in this production, not even seeking to rebel against her father’s blatant bullying and aggression, but meekly submitting to her fate. But she compensates for this essentially insipid characterisation by an innocence of dramatic approach and a delicacy of singing tone that raise the whole above such a mundane suspicion. Her soft sustained high notes – and there are plenty of them – are absolutely heavenly, and the end of the Bell Song for example achieves a rapt ecstasy that is miles removed from any suspicion of mere coloratura display. The audience will not be denied its roar of applause at that moment; but elsewhere she seems to have them in the palm of her hand and the music moves inexorably on towards its fatal conclusion without any unwanted interruption. This is indeed something very special indeed.
As that implacable father Stéphane Degout, a baritone rather than the usual bass, begins in a somewhat laid-back fashion with a lyrical expansiveness of tone, but he soon comes to grips with the intolerable nature of the character and his violent denunciations of his daughter and her mysterious lover are totally believable. It is clear from the nature of the music that he provided for them that Delibes had very little time for the representatives of the British Raj or their womenfolk – even when the dithering Gérald is persuaded to undertake his patriotic duty in Act Three the scene is set entirely in spoken dialogue – and the generally uninspired writing for them provides no real profile even for the love-smitten officer. Mind Perhaps there is an element here of French revenge for their ejection from India at the hands of the British a century earlier. At all events the singing cast here does little to salvage matters, since Frédéric Antoun sits persistently on the flat side of the note especially when rising to any moments of lyricism or stress, and Philippe Estèphe, Elisabeth Boudreault and Marielou Jacquard as his fellow-officer and their girl-friends, are all dutifully ‘English’ without registering any character at all – a situation not aided by the Gilbert-and-Sullivan syncopated poses they are asked to adopt. The only really substantial role is that of the elderly governess, which can produce quite an effect in the right hands; but the veteran Mireille Delunsch totally fails to rise to the heights of the formidable dragon portrayed by Monica Sinclair in the Sutherland CD set. The only really sympathetic character in the opera, François Rougier as the bespectacled servant Hadji, might perhaps have protested about the treatment of Lakmé by her father (which would have added a welcome degree of subtlety to the plot), but his declaration that he will “die for her” doesn’t really provide much practical help; Ambroisine Bré provides a delicate counterpoint to her mistress in the Flower duet, but is otherwise given little to do by the composer.
The generally rather abstract stage designs by Camille Dugas work well, and successfully manage to achieve the sense of a crowded market in Act Two even when the stage is dangerously under-populated, with marching banners suggesting stalls and tents. The final scene is laid on a field of flowers, and there are some beautifully touching elements during the duet between Gérard and the dying Lakmé with the anticipate clasping of their hands interrupted by a timpani beat in the orchestra – a moving moment generated by the music but not specified by the composer. The chorus, although not large enough to really suggest a milling market crowd in Act Two (the attempted killing of Gérard is not really convincing), are excellent and boldly declaimed in their not insignificant parts even though some of Delibes’s writing is otherwise conventional.
But a real plus for this performance is the playing of the orchestra on period instruments, including a listed ophicleide, which lends the whole sound of the opera a rapturous feel under the enthusiastic direction of the lithe Raphaël Pichon. Particularly noticeable in the observation of Delibes’s technique in doubling the solo voice with a woodwind instrument in the octave below or above, which is beautifully observed in the manner in which Lakmé in Act Three is first shadowed by the bassoon and then gilded by the flute. This standard of playing is simply streets ahead of either of the Sutherland recordings either on CD or video (the latter in any event being cut, as indeed was a later Australian Opera video in 2011), and would lead me to recommend this production fervently to any purchaser who wishes to possess Lakmé in the visual medium. They will have to be prepared to overlook the more unsavoury aspects of the story – ‘honour killing’ is unfortunately still with us – but are unlikely to find the musical results better served elsewhere.
Paul Corfield Godfrey
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Additional information
Philippe Estèphe (baritone) – Fréderic
Elisabeth Boudreault (soprano) – Ellen
Marielou Jacquard (mezzo-soprano) – Rose
Mireille Delunsch (mezzo-soprano) – Mistress Bentson
François Rougier (tenor) – Hadji
Camille Dugas (set designer)
Joël Adam (lighting designer)
Subtitles: French, English, German, Japanese, Korean
NTSC 16.9: PCM stereo and DTS 5.1
All regions
