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Fanfare Magazine: 43:4 (03-04/2020) 
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Glossa
GCD924005




Code-barres / Barcode : 8424562240056

 
Reviewer: Barry Brenesal

 

Rameau was not merely a composer of extremely inventive harpsichord works, a leading opera composer of his day, and a renowned theorist on the relationship between harmonies and acoustics; he was also an inveterate musical tinkerer. Surviving correspondence we possess includes endless demands for changes from his librettists while designing new operas—a curious parallel to Giuseppe Verdi—but also that he regarded a few of his operas as works-in-progress with every fresh staging.
 

Les Indes galantes is his most extensive instance of this. It first saw light of day in August 1735, roughly 40 years after its genre, the opéra-ballet, was first created. In many respects it is a typical example, offering a prologue with Roman deities who provide a central theme, followed by a series of acts—each self-contained with its own plot, scenery, many dances, and special effects. Light entertainment was the order of the day, and Rameau, along with his librettist Louis Fuzelier, was keen to meet this challenge in only his third work for the stage.
 

It suffered at first from very poor box office sales, however. Important changes were made after the first performance, but audiences remained displeased. When remounted the following year with further modifications, though, the work was pronounced a great success, and was performed either per act or complete more than 320 times during the composer’s life.
 

And, with each new mounting, Rameau modified it. Some changes were minor; others, important enough to remove characters or create new acts. Taken over time, they resulted in more than 15 versions of Les Indes galantes, which have been subsequently condensed by scholars into a shorter series of proto-editions reflecting the composer’s shifting thoughts about his opera with new productions (at the Royal Academy: 1736, 1743, 1751, 1761; in Lyons: 1741, 1749; other productions likely—see Rousset, below). These provided him with opportunities to adjust the opéra-ballet according to both the needs of his latest cast, and his own perceptions of audience tastes.

Nor were these alterations a matter of perceived progression on the part of Rameau, as though the 1751 premiere was better than that of 1741. Consider the way the composer swapped out and rearranged the order of his acts at the Royal Academy, over the years:

1735: Les Turc généreux; Les Incas du Pérou; Les Fleurs

1735, post-première: Les Incas du Pérou; Les Turc généreux; Les Fleurs

1736: Les Incas du Pérou; Les Turc généreux; Les Fleurs; Les Sauvages

1743: Les Incas du Pérou; Les Turc généreux; Les Fleurs

1751: Les Incas du Pérou; Les Sauvages; Les Fleurs

1761: Les Incas du Pérou; Les Turc généreux or Les Fleurs; Les Sauvages
 

Three of the acts played musical chairs, swapped out every decade or two. Perhaps he moved them around to create curiosity in an audience that would not have seen or heard them for a while. Whatever the reason, there’s no impression of evolution towards an Ur-text (which would have been anachronistic during Rameau’s time, in any case).
 

The premieres above ignore non-Parisian performances of Les Indes galantes in Lyons, or elsewhere. We have no idea whether Rameau was involved in these, or not. What we do know, thanks to surviving manuscripts (and even to pages that were in part glued over, only to be carefully peeled back in more recent times to see the composer’s older thoughts) is that Rameau repeatedly returned to this opera of his for changes that would grow in number until the Royal Academy management decided it was time to stage this popular work once more. Whether or not he was a madman (as Voltaire charged) due to his incessant demands for libretto changes, Rameau was a consummate operatic tinkerer when the opportunity presented itself, as it did with this, his first opéra-ballet.
 

The sheer breadth and depth of changes to the score of Les Indes galantes have invariably led to tinkering of another sort over the years, from conductors and musicologists who can’t resist a “grow your own opera” approach to the work based on Rameau’s own manifold alterations. This might change over coming decades, thanks to the 2016 publication of a new edition of the opera by Rameau scholar Sylvia Bouissou. It includes a rigorous reconstruc-tion of the 1736 version, with appendices supplying the complete 1735, 1743, 1751 and 1761 versions. Even so, the urge to use a specific edition and combine it with anything from moments to major sections drawn from others is likely to continue proving a popular option. And after all, who is wrong in doing so, as long as it’s handled in a responsible fashion? Bouissou herself prefers the original 1735 earthquake in Les Incas du Pérou instead of the simpler 1736 version that was repeatedly employed in later years, because she finds it far more distinctive. It was only removed because the orchestra claimed it was “too difficult” to perform at the time.
 

What György Vashegyi conducts on this recording is the previously unpublished 1761 version of Les Indes galantes, utilizing the Bouissou edition. This doesn’t render any recording that uses another edition necessarily obsolete. Alternative solutions have been applied in recent years to the textural problems now apparent in this work. Christophe Rousset and Les Talens Lyriques opted a few years ago to employ the so-called Toulouse edition, in a manuscript dated to 1750 and currently part of the collection of the Toulouse City Library. (The laudable aim of historical accuracy in their DVD resulted in one of those out-of-sync affairs whose visuals featured both modern costuming and nudity, and a lot of wriggling, jumping, and running around—all literally—in place of dancing.) Hugo Reyne and Nicolas Sceaux in turn prepared their own edition in 2014, restoring the original orchestration based on sources of 1735 extant in the Paris Opéra’s library, and adding the Les Sauvages act from 1736. Unfortunately, that recording isn’t easily available in the U.S. (though a fair amount of indifferent singing lessens the annoyance occasioned by its loss).
 

Typically, recordings made of Les Indes galantes from before the 21st century build upon the 1902 edition of Durand’s venerable Rameau series. It was prepared by Paul Dukas under the overall supervision of Camille Saint-Saëns, and attempted to locate and publish both scores and score variants that were known at that time. Dukas and Saint-Saëns, however, were also editorial pragmatists, and realized that the best possible contemporary edition of the score must be updated for a typical modern opera orchestra if modern performances were a goal. Of competing (Durand, at least in part) sets of the opera that are readily attainable here, the most “complete” is that of William Christie and Les Arts Florissants, recorded in 1991. He utilizes Rameau’s 1736 ordering of the acts, which has the benefit of four acts (plus the prologue) rather than three, as all other Paris stagings of Les Indes galantes did.
 

Christie interpolates the1735 prologue, though, which includes a part for L’Amour, or Cupid. And whatever may be said for concision, and simply “getting on with the good stuff” for audiences who were bored to tears by Roman gods and personified virtues, its slightly greater length is more dramatically and musically appropriate. Dramatically so, because the words, music, and actions of L’Amour (eliminated from the work in 1736, and from subsequent versions) illustrate the work’s overarching theme of love under attack, yet ultimately spirited and triumphant. Its removal from the prologue leaves us with nothing more than Hébé crying for an offstage L’Amour to send his arrows and counteract violent Bellona, the Roman goddess of war. Musically, the eliminated material contains what is arguably the best number in the prologue, L’Amour’s “Ranimez, vos flambeaux.” Rameau employs divided violins in the air that engage in vigorous three-part counterpoint, including the soloist as she displays a militant side to love—one completely divorced from the composer’s usual bucolic flutes in thirds. Christie (and Paillard, for that matter, in his mid-1970s recording) appreciated this air’s value.
 

The singing in this production is of mixed quality, though generally very good. Véronque Gens provides one of the three best performances I’ve heard in all performances of this opera. Unfortunately, as Phani (Les Incas du Pérou), she only has one air, “Viens Hymen,” which is, however, delivered with a refined control of dynamics. Jean-Sébastian Bou is solid, and handles his runs and ornaments well (“Il faut que l’Amour s’envole”), Thomas Dollé is listed in several sources as a baritone, and so the range is, here; but his tone is richer and deeper then several successful basses (“Permettez, astre du jour”).
 

Chantel Santon-Jeffrey’s voice has evidently stabilized since her performances in Le temple de la Gloire, released a year ago (Philharmonia Baroque 10). At the time of my review of that set, I noted that a comparison La Gloire’s air, “Tu vois ta récompense,” with an earlier recorded performance of hers under van Waas (Ricercar 363) in 2015, reveals her regularly aspirating through most figures in the latter, and with a dull, faded chest tone. She still makes an impressively monumental effect when singing loudly and without much vocal movement (“Régnez, plaisirs et jeux”), but the other issues remain when she attempts figures or moves down into her chest register.
 

Finally, two performers I was frankly looking forward to hearing very much on this new release gave me significantly less pleasure than I had anticipated. Rainoud van Mechelen is a musician I’ve previously admired in works by Mazzocchi, Bertali, Sances, Clerambault, other Rameau operas and a variety of collection discs. He possesses a fairly dry high tenor voice, but it’s coupled with a sure sense of style, imaginative phrasing, and real ease with ornamentation and figures. Here, he feels slightly pushed at tempos which sometimes appear expressively inappropriate. Damon in Les Sauvages, for example, is a Frenchman with a sly, mocking character who openly celebrates a philosophy of inconstancy. Why should his air “La terre, les cieux, et les mers” proceed at a swift, passionate clip when he’s facetiously taunting a rival with his deliberate inversion of classical allusions in Nature?
 

Katherine Watson is another artist I’ve greatly admired in a variety of recordings, including Couperin, Monteverdi, Purcell, and Lully. Of a recording of her performance in Couperin’s Leçons de ténèbres (paired under Jonathan Cohen’s direction with Anna Dennis) I wrote that “for sheer splendor of voice and stylishness of treatment, this version can’t be bettered.” Here, however, she’s only intermittently fine, as in “Régnez, Amour,” which displays runs handled with ease, and a bit of welcome plush on the tone. “Fuyez, fuyez, vents orageux,” by contrast, offers dropped notes, clipped ones, and moments where she audibly runs out of breath.
 

It’s not surprising, though, given the unrelentingly furious tempo of Vashegyi’s accompaniment. Not even a constant mezza voce to conserve breath helps. Christie in his 1991 recording employs what I’ve regularly heard elsewhere, a moderate tempo that poses no problems for Miriam Ruggeri. Vashegyi is overall a disciplined and insightful conductor, one who makes much in particular of the many dances for which the score of Les Indes galantes is celebrated. But in these instances where he clearly differs with Mechelen and especially Watson, the results are subpar, to put it mildly.
 

Comparisons with earlier versions of this work must be necessarily asymmetrical, given that not only do the artists differ between sets, but the scoring and edition employed, and the music included. Thus if your insist upon the most authentic scoring in a single accurate edition, Vashegyi will suit your tastes. He offers a single, complete edition, in excellent balance and overall sound, with generally fine performances. Alternatively, if you don’t mind an album that mixes editions for more content (Les Fleurs) even as it attempts to revise the old Durand scoring, Christie’s 1991 set should be the first to consider. It also has the advantage of two other singers (alongside Gens) that I consider essential in their roles: Sandrine Piau as Zaïre (Les Fleurs), and Jean-Paul Fouchécourt as Dom Carlos (Les Sauvages) and Tacmas (Les Fleurs). Plus, you get the 1735 prologue, though Christie takes the aforementioned “Ranimez, vos flambeaux” so quickly that the pair of orchestral parts become nothing more than background decoration.
 

(This is an instance, and the only one in my opinion, where Paillard’s mid-1970s Les Indes galantes is superior to any of the versions recorded during the last 30 years. Paillard was a fine conductor and a genuine Rameau enthusiast who believed that the composer’s orchestration has to be regularly tweaked for more dramatic effect, and recitatives in some works occasionally interrupted with “amusing” quotes from well-known 19th-century music.)

Though both albums by Vashegyi and Christie are flawed, each offers strong value. As for a recording that uses a Bouissou edition (or more than one) with great casting, and conducting that always works with singers, instead of sometimes against them—we’ll just have to wait.

 


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