Etienne MÉHUL (1763-1817)
La Legende de Joseph en Egypte - Opera
in three Acts (1807) [96:00]
Joseph – Laurence Dale (tenor); Jacob – Frédéric Vassar (baritone); Simeon
– René Massis (baritone); Benjamin – Brigitte Lafon (mezzo); Utobal – Phillippe
Jorquera (baritone); Une jeune fille – Natalie Dessay (soprano); Mme Putiphar
– Jezabel Carpi (silent); L’Instituteur – Abbi Patrix (speaker)
Le Conseil Régional de Picardie et L’Orchestre “Le Sinfonietta”/Claude Bardon
Adaptation for film – Pierre Jourdan
Filmed in the Théâtre Impérial de Compiègne before 1991
No subtitles or texts provided
Picture: 16:9: regions not specified
DISQUES DOM – DOM DVD 11012 [96:00]
Méhul’s opera Joseph is more often spoken of than performed. After
its first performance in Paris in 1807 it took over 100 years to reach the
London stage (there was an earlier concert performance), and I do not recall
any English performances in recent years. Whatever the faults, or perhaps
oddities, of the present issue it does at least bring to attention a work
crying out for a new staging on this side of the Channel. They make very clear
his position as a follower of Gluck and a predecessor of Berlioz. Whether
he came anywhere near them in musical quality I am doubtful, but in the absence
of performances of his many operas it is hard to make a proper assessment.
Both Joseph and Uthal (based on Macpherson) would seem likely
to be worthy of revival.
In the meantime we have this interesting if curious version. Its curiosity
consists primarily in abandoning the original dialogue and substituting a
new telling by Christianne Besse of the entire Biblical story of Joseph by
a teacher to a small group of children while wandering around the grand but
empty Compiègne theatre, presumably during the period before its reopening
in October 1991. This is not ineffective, especially as the actor in question
speaks for the most part sufficiently slowly to be followed even with severely
limited French. Nonetheless subtitles, a libretto, or even simply an adequate
synopsis would have been helpful in this respect. The singers appear to be
miming to a recording - indeed the CDs of that recording once issued by Le
Chant du Monde are displayed by the teacher along with a portable CD player
- although the synchronisation is poor. The singers are encouraged to adopt
a slow style of movement and reaction more akin to silent films, and this,
combined with costumes which could have come from the illustrations to a nineteenth
century Bible, might suggest to the viewer a Sunday School Magic Lantern show.
But somehow the grandeur of the building in which it was filmed and the imaginative
lighting prevent the laughter which at first seems inevitable. That is prevented
even more by the grand simplicity of the music which has a character all of
its own.
The musical performance is dominated by the Joseph of Laurence Dale, a tenor
with the right mixture of grace and steel in his voice who is simply peerless
in this kind of music, and with a wonderful understanding of how to phrase
it. Brigitte Lafon is also outstanding as Benjamin. The rest are never less
than adequate - including a very young Natalie Dessay in a minor part - and
the orchestra play with great commitment under Claude Bardon who shamefully
is not named on the box or in the booklet. After the Overture the order of
the two successive arias for Joseph is reversed. This fits in better with
the new narration and does no great musical harm.
Once I had got used to its eccentricities I enjoyed this disc. Partly this
may be simply that it was a welcome change to see an opera presented so straightforwardly,
with none of the bizarre director’s fancies that we have become used to. I
suspect that I would have enjoyed at least as much a single CD with just the
music, or perhaps with some much reduced dialogue, but this is a performance
that does at least take the work seriously and manages to capture very well
its grand simplicity in both musical and dramatic terms. I can easily imagine
a superior version but in the meantime this fills an important gap very adequately.
John Sheppard
Fills an important gap.