Sapho was Gounod's first opera, composed in 1850 at the behest of Pauline Viardot, who took the title-role when it was performed at the Paris Opera the following year. It is a fascinating piece, above all because one can hear the composer gain confidence from the ceremonial First Act, through the intrigue and rivals' quarrel of the Second, to achieve a really tragic and individual form in the last. This recording originates in a production at St Etienne in 1992. There is consequently a fair amount of stage noise and applause.
The libretto, by Emile d'Augier, concerns a fictional Sapho, partly inspired by the poetess, partly by another classical heroine, who threw herself from the cliffs for love of Phaon. In this version the story is reduced to a simple love triangle—Phaon is loved by Glycere, whom he scorns in favour of Sapho. His involvement in a plot to overthrow the tyrant Pittacus (who does not appear, although he is much sung about) is discovered by Glycere, who uses the information to blackmail Sapho, so that she lets Phaon go.
The First Act has a fine declamatory aria for Sapho—part of an Olympic poetry contest—this must have been the kind of thing Viardot did supremely well. When she spots her rival, and utters ''Quelle est cette femme hardie?'' one can hear an echo of Fides's ''Qui je suis?'' from Le Prophete—the role in which Viardot had triumphed a couple of years before. Similarly, in Act 2, there is a conspirators' ensemble that bears more than a passing resemblance to the blessing of the daggers in Les Huguenots. It is the role of Glycere that seems to have got Gounod going; she dominates the Second Act with a dramatic recitative and duet with Pytheas—Phaon's confidant, a sort of precursor of Mephisto—followed by a slanging match with Sapho, in which she gets the better of her, and then a really beautiful trio-finale in which Sapho urges Phaon to flee, and he agrees to take Glycere instead (''O douleur qui m'oppresse!'').
Phaon's Act 3 lament, ''O jours heureux ou j'entendais ta voix!'' must have provided a triumph for Louis Gueymard; the whole scene is infused with a superb sense of doom, with a prelude in which the strings suggest the lapping waves against the ship on which the hero must depart. As he goes, in the distance a sad chorus of exiles fades away, to leave a lone goatherd with a flute to sing a little song to the distraught Sapho, before she launches her famous stances, ''O ma lyre immortelle''. This, the one famous number from the score, has been recorded by many great singers from Litvinne (the very first 12-inch French G&T of a female soloist), and Schumann-Heink down to Bumbry, Verrett and Horne in our own time. Michele Command who sings the title-role is hardly in that league, but she makes a positive impression with good diction and full-bodied tone; her voice is inclined to wobble a bit more than one wants whenever pressure is applied. The same goes for Christian Papis as Phaon, who rather unwisely attempts a couple of high notes in head-tone—stylistically correct, of course, but not a pleasure on the ear. Both of them gain considerably in confidence and control as the performance progresses.
The Canadian soprano Sharon Coste makes a most convincing Glycere; her big scenes in Act 2 reinforce its quality. Lionel Sarrazin is most effective as Pytheas. Gounod later reshaped the opera twice, as a two-act piece in 1858, then in four in 1884. Patrick Fournillier has reconstructed the original three-act version and he conducts with vigour and obvious relish. The recording favours the voices on the whole—if we lived in an age of great French singing one would say that one day it would be nice to see this on the stage, or to have a full-scale studio recording. As both these things seem extremely unlikely, this set is most welcome and a valuable addition to any collection of nineteenth-century opera, French or otherwise.'