Massenet Hérodiade
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: Jules (Emile Frédéric) Massenet
Genre:
Opera
Label: Rodolphe
Magazine Review Date: 8/1986
Media Format: Vinyl
Media Runtime: 0
Mastering:
ADD
Catalogue Number: RP12449/51
Tracks:
Composition | Artist Credit |
---|---|
Hérodiade |
Jules (Emile Frédéric) Massenet, Composer
David Lloyd-Jones, Conductor Ernst Blanc, Hérode, Baritone French Radio Chorus French Radio Lyric Orchestra Jean Brazzi, Jean, Tenor Jules (Emile Frédéric) Massenet, Composer Michel Philippe, Vitellius, Baritone Muriel de Channes, Salome, Soprano Nadine Denize, Hérodiade, Mezzo soprano Odile Versini, Young Babylonian Pierre Thau, Phanuel, Bass |
Composer or Director: Jules (Emile Frédéric) Massenet
Genre:
Opera
Label: Rodolphe
Magazine Review Date: 8/1986
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 0
Mastering:
ADD
Catalogue Number: RPC32450/1
Tracks:
Composition | Artist Credit |
---|---|
Hérodiade |
Jules (Emile Frédéric) Massenet, Composer
David Lloyd-Jones, Conductor Ernst Blanc, Hérode, Baritone French Radio Chorus French Radio Lyric Orchestra Jean Brazzi, Jean, Tenor Jules (Emile Frédéric) Massenet, Composer Michel Philippe, Vitellius, Baritone Muriel de Channes, Salome, Soprano Nadine Denize, Hérodiade, Mezzo soprano Odile Versini, Young Babylonian Pierre Thau, Phanuel, Bass |
Author: Lionel Salter
To the best of my knowledge, Herodiade has never been recorded complete: it still hasn't, for, besides the omission of the ballet music, act 4 is heavily cut in this radio performance, which oddly enough was given before an audience that was not dissuaded from hysterical outbursts after familiar arias (and broke in with smothered applause at one orchestral juncture) or coughing in quiet moments (such as the introduction to ''Vision fugitive''). The Orchestre Lyrique in 1974, as I well remember from my own experience with it, was not Radio France's pride and joy; but give or take one or two hairy moments and false entries, an occasional bout of ragged ensemble, and the odd singers' mistakes common in the heat of the moment, David Lloyd-Jones succeeded in getting a very fair performance that now serviceably fills a gap in the recorded repertoire. Chief honours are taken by NadineDenize in the title-role: she shows quality both in fury (as in her outrage at her denunciation by John) and in tenderness (her ''Ne me refuse pas'' wheedling of Herod). Ernest Blanc is in fine voice, even though he doesn't make Herod's vacillations altogether convincing; but he is unaccountably faulty in rhythm in ''Vision fugitive'' (which nevertheless receives a thunderous minute-long ovation from the audience) and adds an unnecessary barnstorming high A flat at the end of ''Demande au prisonnier'' (again greeted with shouts of ''Bravo!''). The casting of Salome presents a problem: her entries are signalled orchestrally by a girlish tripping figure, but her vocal part calls for anything but a girlish voice, and Muriel de Channes, the possessor of a rich lyrical tone and an admirably firm upper register, cannot really be blamed if the Salome whose imagine she conjures up sounds rather mature. Jean Brazzi makes an unpromising first entrance, with a heavy vibrato, but he improves to make an acceptable, if beefy, John the Baptist.
On the technical side the balance is mostly good, and such shortcomings as there are seem attributed to the orchestra itself—brass which tends to be assertive, and rather thin violins whose pizzicato in the brief Act 2 dance of Babylonian slaves is too weak. No attempt has been made to edit the recording of the broadcast, and in the transfer to LP there is a clumsy change-over from Sides 1 to 2: on Compact Disc (whose overall quality does not differ greatly) the change-over point comes, unbelievably, less than four minutes before the end of Act 2.'
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