Camille Erlanger (1863-1919)
La sorcière, Opera in 4 Acts
Zoraya – Andreea Soare (soprano)
Don Enrique – Jean-François Borras (tenor)
Ximénès – Lionel Lhote (baritone)
Chœur de la Haute école de musique de Genève
Orchestre de la Haute école de musique de Genève/Guillaume Tourniaire
rec. live, December 2023, Victoria Hall, Geneva, Switzerland
B Records LBM068 [3 CDs: 145]
I must confess that when I requested this issue to review I had never heard of the opera, and had assumed that it was by Baron Frédéric d’Erlanger, another minor French composer who was born five years after Camille but outlived him by almost 25 years. In fact, as the booklet tells us, there was no connection at all between the two men. Camille composed ten operas, of which the most famous (if any of them can really be so described) were Le juif polonais and Aphrodite, and another, La Forfaiture of 1915, was the first opera ever to be based on a film scenario, The Cheat, a film directed by Cecil B. De Mille.
The last couple of decades have seen a remarkable series of exhumations of almost completely forgotten French operas by French labels, of which Palazzo Bru Zane is the most important. Unsurprisingly, the musical quality of these pieces has been variable, but I have found almost every one to be of value, and several to be very good indeed. The label of the present issue, B Records, has previously issued a fine recording of Saint-Saëns’ Ascanio, and has clearly based itself on Bru Zane, to the extent of mirroring their hardback book format and inclusion of several excellent essays about the piece and its context with a complete libretto with English translation. I have mixed feelings about this format; it is excellent in many ways, but it is very irritating that it will not fit on the shelves with the other CD sets. There is a further small irritation in that B Records uses a different size of book (15 x 9.5cms, as opposed to Bru Zane’s 21 x 13.5), so the two series don’t even fit together well on the shelf and can’t be mixed together if, for example, you organise your CDs in alphabetical order of composer. One definite complaint I do have is about the text colour. Whoever decided to put much of the booklet text in light orange needs to receive a written warning. Ludicrous! Still, these are trivial matters, and the whole is of exceptionally fine quality. We can only hope that B Records will continue this series of such recordings, hopefully staying with this slightly different repertoire from that of Bru Zane – the French equivalent to verismo. It would be wonderful to have, for example, recordings of the operas of Bruneau (especially L’attaque du moulin) and Charpentier’s Julien and L’amour au faubourg, for example.
To move specifically to this issue, La sorcière cannot be called verismo in the strictest sense as it is set in Renaissance Spain and is not fundamentally concerned with working class characters as such. It would take far too long to summarise the plot, I will just say that it is set in Toledo in 1503 and involves a soldier and a witch (who are, of course, in love) and the Spanish Inquisition, which should give you a sense of it. Indeed, when I read the plot summary before listening to any of the music, my reaction was that it was just a typical piece of melodramatic operatic fustian. In fact, although the basic bones of the plot are exactly that, the musical treatment raises them far above that level.
The opera was written in 1911, and many of the musical trends of the time are to be found in it. Harmonically, especially in the first act, the music is quite advanced, with distinct echoes of Debussy and even of Strauss and the Schoenberg of Verkärte Nacht and Gurrelieder. Other parts, such as the third act (which is amusingly, to English eyes at least, set on “Le patio”) is much closer to Massenet. There is little extended lyricism in the opera, or anything that could remotely be described as an aria. This lack of anything ‘excerptable’ items certainly will not have helped keep the opera in the repertoire, though much of the music has a lyrical character. I searched to see if the original singer of Soraya, Marthe Chenal, had recorded a fragment of the opera for Pathé after the 1912 premiere, but was not too surprised to find that she had not. Erlanger does, however, have the ability to create drama, and Acts 4 and 5 in particular are truly gripping and build up an impressive head of steam.
The principal character of Zoraya (the eponymous witch) is sung by the Franco-Romanian soprano Andreea Soare. She has an attractive voice with a good line and well-controlled vibrato. Her dramatic instincts are also good, and my only real complaint is one I have regularly had to make about French singers in these recent resurrections of forgotten operas. Her diction is really not good enough. I have a simple test of this: when I look away for a moment, for example in order to make a note of some point I want to include in a review, if I cannot quickly find my place again in the libretto, then the singer’s diction is not adequate. Mlle. Soare regularly failed this test. What many of these singers need is an extended course of listening to the records of singers from the turn of the 20th century to the 1960s in order to hear how it can, and should, be done. This was always one of the glories of French singing – you could take down every word of the text from their performances.
The role of Enrique, the archer, is taken by the Grenoble-born tenor Jean-François Borras, who is sufficiently highly-regarded to have substituted for Jonas Kaufmann in Werther at the New York Met in 2014. He has a fine lyrical voice with a good top and excellent legato, and has much better diction than Soare. He also uses dynamic variety to fine effect. My only disappointment is that he does quite have the heft to be ideal for the role. Enrique is, after all, the leader of the archers who form the Toledo city guard, so rather more ‘beef’ is really needed.
The principal baritone role of the nasty Inquisitor, Ximénès, is taken by the Belgian Lionel Lhote. His is an attractive voice and he has good dramatic instincts, and my only reservation is that the voice is a little soft-grained; ideally it needs more blade for a role like this.
As you can see from the cast list, there are a large number of smaller roles in the opera – it would be unnecessarily lengthy to deal with all of them, so all that I will say is that every one of them makes a fine job of his or her role. There really is not a single inadequate performance in any part of this recording.
The excellent vocal side is more than matched by the orchestral and choral side. Both chorus and orchestra are first rate, and in the conductor, Guillaume Tourniaire, we have a superb advocate for this music. He clearly has absolute belief in the piece, and both the passion and the lyricism to present it in its best light. It is difficult to imagine a performance which could be in any substantial way an improvement.
The recording, which from the booklet details seems to have been made at a single live performance in Geneva in 2023 is first rate. There is power and detail, a wide dynamic range, and great clarity. The rehearsals must have been recorded as well, as there is barely a hint of audience presence anywhere until the very end, when, after a moment’s silence, the audience goes wild. They have obviously been completely convinced by the work and the performance, and I’m wholeheartedly on their side. I expected to play these CDs, write the review, and put them on the shelf never to be taken down again, but I have enjoyed this more than I could ever have imagined. If you have any enjoyment of music of the French fin de siècle, I can’t believe that you won’t too.
Paul Steinson
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Other cast
Padilla – Alexandre Duhamel (baritone); Afrida – Marie-Ève Munger (soprano); Manuela – Sofie Garcia (soprano); Joana – Servane Brochard (soprano); Aisha – Carine Séchaye (mezzo-soprano); Fatoum – Léa Fusaro (mezzo-soprano); Ramiro – Joé Bertili (bass); Arias – Maxence Billiemaz (tenor); Zaguir – Oscar Esmerode (tenor); Cardenos and Oliveira – Joshua Morris (bass); Ibarra – Alban Legos (baritone); Molina – Pierre Arpin (tenor); Calabazas – Ivan Thirion (baritone); Torillo – Manuel Pollinger (bass)
