Georges Bizet * "Les Pecheurs de Perles" - Opera in Three Acts Alfredo Kraus (Nadir), Sesto Bruscantini (Zurga), Adriana Maliponte (Leila), Antonio Campo (Nourabad) Orchestra Sinfonica del Teatro Liceo di Barcelona/Carlo Felice Cillario Bongiovanni GB516/7-2 [2CDs] (ADD) TT: 46:12 + 59:19 Summary for the Busy Executive: French Realistic Naturalism as smashing Music. Intriguingly obvious; the best Performence of this opera currently on Record. Smart-Gorgeous! The premiere of "Carmen" in 1875 was no success, and a few weeks thereafter Bizet died of a heart alienation, which he summarized with the words: "I have failed again". When we know what a masterwork it actually was and how much acclaim it got over the years, We can sum up with saying that Bizet was a easy-going and chosefree person, but he could never take a failure with balanced mood. And actually he had more then "Carmen" to be proud of. The arts devloped a bit different in France then in Germany. At the mid of the 19th century the fire and expansive power of the French Romanticism subsided. Literary taste tired of the uncritical flights of imagination, of the eternal stories whose complicated atrificiality belied life. Thus naturalism came in direct opposition, a conscious reaction, to Romanticism. The soil was well prepared by Comtes philosophical school and by such publications as the french translation of Darwins "The Origin of Spieces" (1862), Renans "Life of Jesus" (1863), and Claude Bernards many volumes on experimental medicine. Author like Balzac and Flaubert were true realistic, and more so then many other artists, but still they remained Romantics in their approach to art and estetic philosophy. The actual founders of Naturalism were Edmond Goncourt (1822-1896) and Jules Goncourt (1830-1870) who, with their own words; "wrote true novels although the public preferred false and artificial ones". Their style is rich and nervous, often somewhat bizarre as they constantly strove to be artistic. they wanted to piant human beings and human aspiration in words with the visual accuracy of a portrait. A faithful disciple of them were Alphonse Daudet (1840-1897), the poet of the novel, whose naturalism was still tempted by a delicate sentimentalism and a fine sence of humour. One Real champion was of course the uncompromising Guy de Maupassant, but the finest master of the French Naturalism was undoubtlely Emile Zola, whose novellas became, under the influence of sociological studies, documents of human life and customs, and recalled the finest traditions of the French litterature. It took longer for the Naturalism to make success on the stage. One reason is that it should always take longer time for a "style" to etablish oneself in music, as opera, then the craft take a little longer to learn. But one other reason was also the stubborn indulgence in local colour at the theatres. This feature of local colour was perceived as hardly tied to Romanticism, as one of the charcteristic traits of romantic men was their affinity to for the Oriental. The litterature show so many examples of artist trying to illustarte the Orient as something that both tempted and scared them; Kundry, Salome the list is long - and even the music in Tosca, whichs plot take place in Rome in the 19th century, sound of pentatonic harmonies. One might wonder what the Romanticist saw so obsessing with the Orient, but a scholar, whose name I forgot, remarked upon Leonardos da Vinci famous painting: "Mona Lisa knows why she is smiling of course. Just the other don't know it, and to them it appears a mystery". Emile Aguier on the other hand commented upon Theophile Gauthiers oriental obsession that; "He needed a camel and four dirty Bedouins to tickle his brains into creative action". To tackle the problem a bunch of poets - among them Roumanile, Aubanel and Mistral - founded "The Felibrige Society" to work for to resusciatate the artistical definition of Folklore and Orientalism. The talented and sensetive Bizet, runned right into the newopened climate, and conscious about it to whatever degree, his naturalist and anti-sentimental operas came exactly right in the time of the upspring of the realist definition of Orientalism, and hence the power with which his music conquered the popularity of all years since. With thinking music of the like of Bach/Haendel to be too much moulding ancient garbage, the idioms of Rossini and alike to childish, and as seeing it as a reacton upon the heavy Wagner/Bruckner art, Nietzsche, who once had found his artistic ideal in Wagners sentimental melodramatic opera, wrote enraptured that Bizet had released a welldoing and dry sirocco over Wagners decadent world of sounds and ideas: "Yesterday I heard Bizets masterpiece for - you could guess it? - twentieth time, and I feel a new and different sensualism, a beautful African spirit [...] a suntenned sensibility from the south" [...] "This music is wicked, refined, fatastic, and withal remains popular" [...] "And finally love; the to the natural retranslated love [...] as fatality; cynical, innocent, cruel, and thereby natural! Love is like war in its methods..." [...] "Have more painful, more tragic accents ever been heard on stage before? And how are they obtained? Without grimaces of any kind! No trace here of that sloppy sentimentality that is so typical for Wagner and his likes...." a.s.o. Whatever Nietzsche philosophied, no doubt he was at least right to the point that the time of sentimentality was a past one. Bizet had actually already manifested the style in "Les Pecheurs de Perles". The opera "The Pearl Fishers" has never actually won the acclaim it should have had. That "Carmen" was a great masterwork has after its upcoming overshadowed Bizets earlier Oriental-Naturalist opera in a way that highly unfair to its actual quailty and inspired beauty. "Carmen" was masterful, bu of course not so gigantic that it retrospectively can have worked has having deprived "The Pearl Fishers" a success at its premiere in 1863 (that makes 12 years earlier), but the explanation is that the effect of the work of the "Felibristes" had not yet bloomed out in full. Due to the old definition, Bizet had to bear ridicule from Romantic critcs for aping Wagner, and from those critics who were too little Romantic yet too much Nationalist to give Wagner any credit - good or bad - accusations for aping Verdi. None of these critics are remembered even to the name today, but Bizets "Les Pecheurs de Perles" still stands as a masterwork, confess it or not! As not everybody might know the plot of "The Pearl Fishers", I am going to provide a short and roughle synopsis: Act I: Zurga has been appointed new chief of the pearl fishers on Ceylon, when he meets his friend of his youth, Nadir. Once upon a time they became enemies and antagonists, as they both fell in love with the priestess Leila in the Brahma-temple ("Au fond du temple saint"), but all this is now forgotten and they swear each other eternal friendship. The pearlfishing of the season shall just begin, and therefore the enveiled priestess, who every year pray to the Gods for the fishermens well-being, comes down. Zurga calls her to pray night and day, and he promises her his love if she keeps her promise of chaste. If she breaks it, she will be punished with a death sentence. She is just about to reply when her eyes fall upon Nadir. The high-priest Nourabad stresses to her that she still can be set free from her mission, but she insists to execute it, and enters the temple. Nadir is shaken that the enveiled priestess is Leila, whom he still is in love with, what he expresses in the Aria "Je crois entendre encore". Act II: The same evening the lovers meet in the temple, and Nadir tries to convince Leila that they shall escape togetehr. She refuses, but she admits that she still loves him ("Comme autrefois"). Nourabad has been standing hidden in the temple, and now he calls out the people who shall accuse Leila for having broken her promise. Zurga rips the veil off from Leilas face, recognizes her, and in wrath over Nadirs betrayal dooms her to death. Act III: Leila begs Zurga to have mercy on Nadir, but when he himself ensures his love, she sees the battle is lost, and instead asks him to give her mother that necklace she always carried around her neck. Zurga now realizes that Leila once has saved his life, and he decides to help her in exchange. When Leila and Nadir shall enter the offerplace where they shall be lit on fire, Zurga shouts to the people that the light on the sky is not the dawn but their houses burning down, and they hurries away to their village to save what can saved of their houses. Zurga sets Leila and Nadir free, and they manage to escape before the enraged people are back to demand their revenge. But further it doesn't get, when Zurga is sentenced to death by the raging crowd and he finds to have to be burned himself. Although now "Carmen" has had vastly more performances throughout, "The Pearl Fishers" was never by any means hold in low esteem at least by musicians. Ever since around 1880 the heldentenor of Nadir has been one of the most sought roles by tenors. And that is no surprise as especially Nadirs singing in the first act can be so incredibly beutiful and dignified convincing in dramatic expression, that it would be any ambitious great tenors pride to do it well. No Frenchman, or any Verist composer at all, ever wrote anything so masterful for heldentenor. The only one I can think of had probably been able to challence Bizets music here is Wilhelm Lekeu (who though perhaps owed somewhat more to Wagner), but he died very young, before his prodigal talent - as manifested in "Andromedee" - broke out in full bloom. But the role of Nadir by no means give the tenor a chance to triumph so easily, and Alfredo Kraus demonstrates his supremancy in this role with singing the famous aria "Je crois entendre encore" in extremely high tessitura, in fact it is in the original key of A-Minor, instead of the usual transcription some step downwards. But it is the clear loving phrasing of Kraus what gives Nadir his exact connotation, not only as regards langour and abandon, but also for his vibrant and bold elans. Consequently also the less known allegro "Des Savannes et des Forestes", the above mentioned duet with Zurga, the charming serenade "De mon Amie" and the tender "Ton Coeur n'a pas compris le mien" sung together with Leila, find in Kraus a singer and an interpreter of outmost importance. Moreover, in addition to Kraus who, in his turn, is by far the best Zurga in the recording history. In fact, the nobility and the authority of Seste Bruscantini and the pathos through which he outlines the inner conflicts of his character (not only in the aria "O Nadir, tendre ami") perfectly matches his varied and soft singing, as well as his confident execution of phrases something so high as as to reach G-Sharp (Andantino: "Une femme encounne", Act I). Beside the correct performence of the bass Antonio Campo who sings Nourabad, also the Leila of Adriana Maliponte presents all the charateristics of an interpretation on high level: absolutely fluent and precise agilities, soft and inspired vocality as in the Largo "O Dieu Brahma", nostalcig and tender expresion in "Comme autre Fois" and in the love duet with Nadir. In this case too we might speak of the best Leila ever recorded. All in all, such brilliant impression as of Leila as vision of a woman imflaming two men with passion enough to make them rivals into death, and the power of the choirs denouncation, and the noble and bold singing of Zurga when he with a sort of a "Con onor muore chi non puo serbar vita con onore"-Aria sings Adieu, accepting his defeat standing upright, without any grimace, any tear, or any sign of sentimentality, burned in the fire as the victim of blind grim tragic events. In addition the conductor Carlo Felice Killario has a firm grip on the score, and cleverly understand to let the music evolve onwards, the harmonies and sections develop out of each other as the grammatical boxes of a conjunctive language develops for a skilled writers pen. As he leads it, The Orchestra Sinfonica del Teatro Liceo di Barcelona follows him sensetively and minuteously, seemingly to have him getting the affair exactly as he wants it to be - the result of Cillarios work is one that is much an expression of Zola then the "decadent" Romanticism - and the orchestral playing can add to the features that overcomes the slighly amateurish recording process, and make just this performance to the best "Les Pecheurs de Perles" on record. Mats Norrman [log in to unmask]