As is well known, after the success of the premiere
of Rigoletto in March 1851 Verdi had Il Trovatore, premiered on
19th January 1853, and La Traviata, premiered six weeks
later on 6th March, contemporaneously on the compositional
drawing board. A few years later Gounod was to follow a similar
path when, after the successful and acclaimed first night of Faust
on March 19th 1859, he followed up with ‘Philémon
and Baucis’ on February 18th 1860 and ‘La Colombe’
on August 3rd the same year. Performance history tells
us of a very different outcome than that ultimately enjoyed by
Verdi’s great middle period triumvirate. La Colombe was very different
than Faust being very much in the ‘comique’ tradition of music
interspersed with spoken dialogue. It was a triumph at its premiere
in Baden-Baden but took six years to attain a Paris performance
and was quickly withdrawn. The opera emerged again in the French
capital with greater success in 1912 and in 1923 it was performed
in Diagelev’s Monte-Carlo season but with scored recitatives by
the then young Francis Poulenc. Again it disappeared, emerging
in 1982 when it was presented at the Spoleta festival (Italy).
This recording of the sung parts of the opera
gives a mere 38 minutes of pleasant light operetta type light
music as support to a trite plot. Compared with the ‘zing’ that
Paris was getting from Offenbach at the time of its Paris premiere
it is no wonder that it had so little success. The lack of musical
depth and inspiration is obvious when comparing the Juliette’s
and Mireille’s waltzes, of 1867 and 1864 respectively, which are
included in Janine Micheau’s arias on the second part of the disc
trs.10 and 13. Gounod was fulfilling a promise with minimum effort
and is said to have composed the work in two weeks! It is a musical
miniature that is only interesting for its connection with the
composer. That said, this is a well sung performance presented
with rather recessed sound.
Janine Micheau was a light lyric coloratura who
made a number of 78s for the Decca label in the late 1940s. Her
coloratura is pin-point if a little breathy, whilst the middle
of the voice is not distinguished by a very wide palette of colours
or tonal depth. Her Mireille (tr.13) is not in the same league
as Freni in the complete opera (EMI). Similar comparisons of her
Juliette (tr.10) with later singers on complete recordings (Freni
again and Gheorghiu, both EMI) add further confirmation. Surface
noise is evident on some tracks.
The leaflet is brief to the point of paucity.
There are no indications of the Act from which the items from
La Colombe derive. The English translation of the brief notes
is idiosyncratic. If it were not for the name of Gounod, La Colombe
would be instantly forgettable, whilst Janine Micheau’s singing
shows the weakness of much French singing talent at that time.
Robert J Farr
Orchestra Radio-lyrique.
Conducted Tony Aubin