Giacomo Meyerbeer (1791-1864)
Le prophète, grand opera in five acts (1849)
Jean de Leyde – John Osborn (tenor)
Fidès – Elizabeth DeShong (mezzo)
Berthe – Mané Galoyan (soprano)
Le Comte Oberthal – Edwin Crossley-Mercer (bass baritone)
Zacharie, Anabaptist – James Platt (bass)
Mathisen, Anabaptist – Guilhem Worms (bass baritone)
Jonas, Anabaptist – Valerio Contaldo (tenor)
Lyon Opera Chorus, Maîtrise des Bouches-du-Rhône
London Symphony Orchestra, members of the Mediterranean Youth Orchestra/Sir Mark Elder
rec. live, 15 July, 2023, Grand Théâtre de Provence, Arles, France (Festival d’Aix-en-Provence)
Booklet with articles and libretto with English translation included
LSO Live LSO0894 SACD [3 discs: 166]
This is the third commercial recording of Meyerbeer’s thirteenth opera that has come my way over the last 40 years. Considering how popular it was during the 19th and early 20th centuries, this seems to be surprisingly few when there are exactly the same number of recordings of Berlioz’s Les Troyens, an opera with nowhere near the track record of performances that Meyerbeer’s opera has had.
This latest set comes from a co-production between the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence and the Palazetto Bru Zane, along with the London Symphony Orchestra, and was performed in concert last summer in Arles. A concert staging is a very sensible solution to the problem of trying to cope with reviving one of Meyerbeer’s massive pageant-like operas; would that there were more opportunities like this to become acquainted with Meyerbeer.
This recording uses the new critical edition of the score published by Ricordi that was also used on the Oehms recording of a series of performances in Essen from 2017 (review). It includes much music that was cut from the score before the 1849 premiere that was discovered in the composer’s autograph manuscript. The Oehms set was the first to include much of that music and here LSO Live adds to the list of novelties by presenting some music that doesn’t appear on the Oehms CDs. The entrance aria for Berthe is a good example. In the traditional Brandus edition of the score it is the Allegretto “Mon coeur s’élance” which was the piece used at the opera’s premiere; on this set we get to encounter the premiere recording of the discarded andantino “Voici l’heure où sans alarmes” which only appears in the autograph score. The piece is les showy but more in keeping with the gentle nature of Berthe’s character.
The cast is of this recording is fairly decent overall. Mané Galoyan is a sweet-sounding Berthe who immediately gains the listener’s sympathy. She brings a true French timbre and excellent diction to the role. She is quite good at conveying Berthe’s gradually increasing agitation and mental instability to the listener. Her rivals are Lynette Tapia on the Ohems recording (she is the sweetest-toned of all the Berthes), and the intensely dramatic Renata Scotto on the CBS/Sony.
This recording allows John Osborn a second chance to commit his portrayal of John of Leyden to disc. He gave a marvelous, committed performance for Giuliano Carella on the Oehms set and he is no less committed here. However, on this occasion his upper voice is definitely showing a lack of quality that wasn’t apparent in 2017, often sounding muted and cautious. He seems to spend the Second Act trying to save his voice for the challenges of the Third and Fourth Acts. Several cuts have been restored to Jean’s music, but they were also restored on the Oehms set where his singing is much freer and is generally more satisfying.
Elizabeth DeShong shows that she can encompass all of the notes of Fidès in her vocal armoury; that in itself is a considerable achievement. However, aside from the beautiful singing, she doesn’t get into portraying the character with anything like the authoritative stage presence that Marilyn Horne conveys on the Sony recording.
The Three Anabaptists are very well sung here and James Platt, the Zacharie, makes a success of the brief aria which fleshes out his character a bit more than the other two Anabaptists. Edwin Crossley-Mercer is a full-voiced Count Oberthal whose tone occasionally reminds me of Jules Bastin in his best years.
Sir Mark Elder receives wonderful support from the London Symphony Orchestra who are fine throughout. The two French choruses bring real authority to their music, not to mention their impeccable pronunciation and diction. Elder has the measure of Meyerbeer’s grand pageant style well in hand, although his tempo for Fidès’ aria “Donnez pour une pauvre âme” is so slow that the aria practically falls apart. He also inserts a couple of off-putting ritards into the marvelous duet for Fidès and Berthe which interferes with some of its momentum. In general the purely orchestral pieces such as the Skaters’ Ballet and the famous Coronation March come off quite well.
The sound of this hybrid SACD is extremely good. I have sampled both the hybrid CD layer and the two-channel SACD. Invariably the 192 KHz of the SACD presents the sound field more fully than the hybrid version. The orchestra registers with some spatial bloom around it, with the voices presented more forwardly in the sound field. There are a few impressive moments that are conveyed extremely well, such as the wonderful offstage call and response music of the brass fanfares that open Act Three.
So which version of Le prophète leads the pack? Certainly this one has some good things going for it but I don’t think it is a total success. The Oehms recording is generally preferable to this mainly because John Osborne’s Jean registers much more confidently with the full vocal powers to do it justice. Giuliano Carella’s conducting of the piece also comes out ahead of Elder’s in virtually every scene. The sound, too, is better at conveying a more natural ambience of an opera house. However on Oehms, one must put up with Marianne Cornetti’s singing which is more attractive in the contralto range than in her squally upper register. It also has the advantage of having almost as many of the restored numbers of the Ricordi edition as this one does. Then there is the CBS/Sony version which had the field practically to itself for so many years. It presents the traditional Brandus performing version of the score. James McCracken’s huge tenor is more in keeping with the performance tradition of the big-voiced tenors who owned this role for decades(Leo Slezak, Giovanni Martinelli and Paul Franz, to name three of the famous Otellos who also sang Jean regularly). McCracken’s obvious tremolo was what gave his voice its strength and power and it is on full display in Le prophète. Personally, I find his singing exhilarating and am not bothered as some are by the tremulous sound. Renata Scotto gives Berthe the full tragedienne treatment worthy of Eleanora Duse or Sarah Bernhardt. In Scotto’s portrayal Berthe fully emerges, not as a pale lyric soprano but more like an Elettra (or perhaps even Elektra). Against that commanding characterization and stage presence one has to accept the strained (to the point of screechy) sound of her upper voice. I will gladly put up with it for the full-meal-deal she makes of the role. Yet above all of that is Marilyn Horne’s magisterial performance of Fidès. She is simply magnificent in a role that could have been written with her in mind. Her vocal acting and stage presence go a long way to make hearing this opera a rewarding experience. Listening to the great Act Four duet between Berthe and Fidès on both the LSO and Sony sets one gets the impression that they are two entirely different operas. The performance temperature on the Sony is so much higher than on the LSO. The negative side of the Sony recording is Henry Lewis’ impatient and hard-driven way with Meyerbeer’s score. Also the sound on Sony has an echo with an aggressive edge, particularly where the brass are concerned. This seems to have more to do with the acoustic of the recording venue than any fault of the engineers. No…While I won’t part with the Sony set despite its flaws, I can at least recommend this new recording with only a few reservations.
If I am permitted one final word regarding the booklet that accompanies this set, I would draw attention to the fact that although there is an article about the opera, it really tells one very little about it or its compositional process. The booklet which accompanied the Oehms was far more informative. Curiously, there we are provided the reasons why Jean’s role was so heavily cut before the premiere. The domineering wife of singer Gustave Roger (the first Jean) was to blame because she felt the role was making too many demands of her husband, and surprisingly, her demands were conceded to. This interesting fact is not mentioned in the LSO booklet, nor is it mentioned in Robert Letellier’s otherwise informative tome about the opera, Meyerbeer’s Le prophète published in 2018 by Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
Mike Parr
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Other cast
Maxime Melnik
David Sánchez
Hugo Santos
