patrikpen: Famous yet Unkown in M&V 15 October

Famous yet Unkown

GIUSEPPE PENNISI experiences
Camille Saint-Saëns' opera 'Proserpine' in Munich

Camille Saint-Saëns is one of the most famous French composers. In his eighty-six years of life, he produced a very large amout of chamber music,symphonies, musical poems and operas. Yet for his most favoriteinstrument, the piano, his own catalogue includes only 34 compositions. He was not only a composer, but also a music critic for major French publications, a polemist and a scientist. In many countries, only his five piano concertos, the symphonic poem Le Carnaval des Animaux and theopera Samson et Dalila are in the repertory of major concert halls andopera houses. Most of the rest of Saint-Saëns' output is seldom performed.

Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921). Click on the image for higher resolution

To remedy this, two initiatives are being taken, almost in parallel in Italy: the major publisher of books dealing with music has just issued a monumental monograph Camille Saint-Saëns: il Re degli spiriti musicaliby Giuseppe Clericetti (540pp, Zecchini Editore, 33 euros) — a key reference book for anyone who wants to study the composer, and theVenice based Centre de Musique Romantinque Française is running aFestival (24 September until 3 November 2016) with eight concerts ofchamber music in the lagoon and a rare opera Proserpine (in concertform) at the Munich Prinzregententheater and at the Versailles Opéra. In another article, I will report on the concerts, but here I am reviewingProserpine as I saw and heard it on 9 October 2016 in Munich.

Saint-Saëns composed thirteen operas. Proserpine had its premiere at the Opéra Comique in 1887 and is chronologically half-way through Saint-Saëns' operas. It is called a drame lyrique, following the style of the time when the French drame lyrique was attempting a different way as juxtaposed with the late developments of Italian melodrama and theWagnerian music drama which in France had a large and growing number of followers.

The plot, based on a gruesome but successful play, has nothing to do withGreek mythology. Even if set in the Italian Renaissance (considered vicious and corrupt), it well reflects the French Third Republic and its intrigues. It deals with a triangle: although several characters are on stage, three are the key: Prosepine, an ageing courtesan who has been the longtime mistress of young, strong and attractive Sabatino; Sabatino himself, and Angiola (a young girl just out of convent, where she was sent to be educated). Sabatino falls in love for Angiola. Proserpine wants, of course, to stop this and have Sabatino just for herself. With the help of a devious street criminal, Squarocca, she sets a trap for Sabatino and Angiola and attempts to stab Angiola to death. She is not successful and, in front of the failure of the plot and of her entire life, she commits suicide.

From left to right, at the front: Jean Teitgen as Renzo, Véronique Gens as Proserpine, conductor Ulf Schirmer, Marie-Adeline Henry as Angiola and Frédéric Antoun as Sabatino, with the München Rundfunkorchester and Coro Della Radio Fiamminga in Saint-Saëns' 'Proserpine' in Monaco. Photo © 2016 Riccardo Pittaluga. Click on the image for higher resolution

The score gives substance to a poor quality libretto, and the even more truculent play underlying it. Saint-Saëns worked for a long time on the music with the objective of making a fusion of traditional French drame lyrique and Wagnerian musik drama. The vocal part is mostly based onrecitative or declamation sliding to arioso and even duets and trios. Underneath is an orchestral symphonic carpet and a pure symphonicintermezzo at the end of the third act — in my view the opera's best moment.

Véronique Gens in the title role of Saint-Saëns' 'Proserpine' in Monaco, with Ulf Schirmer conducting the München Rundfunkorchester. Photo © 2016 Riccardo Pittaluga. Click on the image for higher resolution

Under the baton of Ulf Schrimer, the Münchner Rundfunkorchester handled this impervious score very well. The Vlaams Radio Koor directed by Edward Caswell was quite effective.

The principals (Véronique Gens as Proserpine, Marie Adeline Henry as Angiola, Frédérique Antoun as Sabatino and Andrew Foster Williams as Squarocca) have important voices. In particular, Véronique Gens is making a good transitino from Mozart roles — I remember her as a magnificent Donna Elvira — to more dramatic late nineteenth centuryparts. Frédérique Antoun is a real discovery even though only a few months ago I had heard him in Salzburg in one of the fifteen roles ofThomas Adès' The Exterminating Angel. In Proserpine he provides a realcoup de théâtre with his clear timbre and his elegant middle rangeregister.