The Freiburg opera continues its eclectic search for new titles, and offers a discovery of Franck's rarest opera, HULDA. That should be exciting !
https://www.theater.freiburg.de/de_DE/spielplan/hulda.15384600
Indeed. Here's some info:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hulda_(opera) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hulda_(opera))
There's a performance in Italian taken from rather scratchy LPs and in poor sound on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2C-XSGL3sJQ (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2C-XSGL3sJQ)
I imagine it's the same performance as the one advertised here:
http://premiereopera.net/product/hulda-by-franck-milan-1960/ (http://premiereopera.net/product/hulda-by-franck-milan-1960/)
Has anyone taken a punt on this recording?
Not I, being no great fan of Franck's mature music, which is my loss I appreciate. That said I'll be interested to hear what there is of Hulda on YouTube. Thanks for the link.
Turgid, turgid. But a good modern recording from Freiburg under Fabrice Bollon (cpo, perhaps?) might do the trick...
Quote from: Alan Howe on Tuesday 22 May 2018, 19:02
Turgid, turgid. But a good modern recording from Freiburg under Fabrice Bollon (cpo, perhaps?) might do the trick...
As far as I can see from the season brochure, there will be Naxos recordings of both Magnard's 1st symphony and Schreker's »Das Spielwerk und die Prinzessin«. I did not read about a recording of Hulda (and somehow I don't think that they'll do 3 recordings in one season, as it's still a relatively small house...)
Nice, but it's the Franck we need.
"I don't think that they'll do 3 recordings in one season, as it's still a relatively small house...)"
If it's not for Naxos, it might be for CPO, as Freiburg/Bollon seem to have an ongoing love affair with CPO (or vice-versa :D )
We're still eagerly waiting for the CPO issues of "Wunder der Heliane" and "Der Schmuck der Madonna".
Oh, great to hear about the planned "Spielwerk"-recording. Thanks a lot!
They do record a lot, so let us still hope for Hulda.
Yesterday I visited a general rehearsal where they obviously recorded Magnard's Chant funèbre (which will be played in concert tonight).
Rumour has it that there are negotiations for a recording of Hulda. Let's see whether that proves true...
Yesterday evening, I witnessed Bollon's Hulda in the Stadttheater Freiburg. The mise-en-scène seems debatable (and reviews are rather negative about this point), since the plot has been transferred from Norway during christianisation to modern-day Congo in the aftermath of colonisation, and there is a lot of violence, rape and machine guns. Hulda does not throw herself into a Fjord in the end but offers herself to someone's gunfire.
I think that all the violence and rape is consequent, I think it would be kind of a Disney version if you would spare the audience the violence that is surely involved in civil war like circumstances. I can understand, however, that there are people who do not want to see this.
That being said, I loved the music. Both powerful music and beautiful melodies, duets, choir scenes, orchestral preludes.
The orchestra was in good form, and from what I as an amateur can tell, really well sung as well. Short excerpts can be heard during this radio review: https://www.swr.de/swr2/kultur-info/oper-hulda-von-cesar-franck-am-theater-freiburg-in-deutscher-erstauffuehrung/-/id=9597116/did=23457210/nid=9597116/1txqohs/index.html
I do hope that there will be a recording!
Let's hope it's an audio recording. Who needs a DVD of yet another Regietheater-inspired bastardisation of an operatic staging?
Freiburg generally does only audio recordings, the only notable exception being Massenet's Cendrillon, which was not the most memorable production to be preserved for posterity. Not sure they'll have means for another video recording.
Missed Hulda, but planning to attend the Schreker in July.
The Schreker in July has been cancelled.
Oh, thanks for the information... I was really looking forward to that, as it also featured the excellent young tenor Nutthaporn Tammathi.... :(
(Well, HE hadn't even been informed, apparently !!!)
Is there going to be a recording of this, does anyone know? A work so rare as this, performed every 100 years it looks like, deserves a decent recording I think.
Freiburg's Hulda (studio production, so probably no machine guns) is going to be aired tomorrow 26 April 8:03 pm on Southwest German radio SWR2 (web radio swr2.de)
best wishes, ewk
Thanks for the info. Please someone record it. Might be the only chance to hear it...
I echo that. Is anyone available, please?
https://www.swr.de/swr2/musik-klassik/cesar-franck-hulda-swr2-oper-2020-04-26-100.html (https://www.swr.de/swr2/musik-klassik/cesar-franck-hulda-swr2-oper-2020-04-26-100.html)
SWR2 can't decide if it's an opera in 2, 3 or 4 acts! In Freiburg it was prologue, three acts and an epilogue and lasted about 135 minutes
It's heart-warming to read that it's a studio production and not a recording from the theatre which had an awful amount of stage noise. It'll also be interesting to hear if the complete ballet music is included rather than the half the stage performance was given.
If you download the "Manuskript zur Sendung", which includes some info about the work, you can see that they will air all 4 acts and the epilogue.
I think somehow that they would not have done a studio recording if there wasn't a CD release planned
Some of their previous CDs were co-productions with the SWR.
Will tray to record it - even though I am rather disappointed by Franck as an opera composer. "Stradella" is quite so so la la :-)
The opening pages states "Oper in 2 Aufzügen"
Then in the "Manuskript zur Sendung" I read 'You will hear the first three acts'. It's badly worded. Act 4 and the epilogue presumably runs after a break. They've obviously turned the prologue into an act.
I have no idea what's going on there about the acts. I just realised the cast is the same as last year with one notable exception: Hulda herself is now played by Meagan Miller. I wonder why? Never heard of her, she any good?
Very average:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3WkSQGMcvY (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3WkSQGMcvY)
She's sung a lot of very heavy repertoire - which you can hear in her wobble, unfortunately.
Quote"Stradella" is quite so so la la :-)
He was only 19, not even Rossini wrote a convincing opera at that age, surely the more mature Wagnerian Hulda will be better... just guessing though.(hope its good, always loved Franck)
Just in case nobody else has done so, I've recorded the "Hulda" broadcast from a digital channel, not from the internet. During the very last chord there was a half a second's drop-out, which I could repair. Hope the rest will be OK as well. Will edit the whole tomorrow morning.
Thank you Adriano!
Yes indeed, many thanks.
Heldenarbeit! Thanks!
Much appreciated hadrianus.
Adriano, I think you must look at act 4 and the epilogue again. Your epilogue starts with the Ronde ( 5th ballet movement). My recollection from the theatre and this recording is that the epilogue begins at 54:04 minutes if you run act 4 and the epilogue together.
I know I'm being pedantic, but why 4 acts when the theatre programme and all other sources state prologue, three acts and an epilogue. I know theatres often split works differently to avoid multiple intervals, but in a recording I don't understand the necessity to annotate differently.
Thanks, Adriano, for all your hard work in recording the broadcast.
The vocal score at IMSLP (https://imslp.org/wiki/Hulda_(Franck%2C_C%C3%A9sar)) designates them Acts 1-4 and Epilogue. The Epilogue does indeed begin in this performance where BerlinExpat indicates.
Nobody is perfect!
The corrected version is in the Downloads board.
(Edited by Alan Howe)
Many thanks, Adriano. You'll see that I've replaced the link in the Downloads board.
My pleasure, Alan
As mentioned earlier, I did not listen, but just guess, since I am very busy these days...
You have preserved for us something wonderful. Bollon is evidently a gifted conductor and the orchestra sounds magnificent.
When you have some time, do give us your overall assessment of the music...
In the meantime, here's an interesting view:
Description by Adrian Corleonis:
D'Indy dismissed the operas of Franck's last decade as mere "attempts at dramatic music," and "to tell the truth, less dramatic than his oratorios." This hardly prepares one for their bloodthirstiness, nor for the gusto with which Franck laced into it. Hulda, for instance, was a labor of love that occupied him from 1879 to 1885, years spanned by composition of the erotically writhing Quintet for Piano and Strings and the imposing Prélude, Choral et Fugue for piano while embracing Le Chasseur maudit (1882), Les Djinns (1884), and the Variations symphoniques (1885). Despite the crude dramaturgy of the libretto -- by Charles Grandmougin after a play by Bjornsterne Bjornson -- featuring (as numerous critics gleefully pointed out) a corpse at the end of every act, Franck's portrait of the eponymous heroine, a noire character and literal femme fatale (soprano falcon), is compelling and the music, despite its eclecticism, is not only some of his very best but crests dramatic highpoints clinchingly, leading the action inexorably forward. Orchestra and chorus play an eloquently large role, while symphonic interludes color the score with an atmospheric exoticism extending to modal writing and the occasional employment of Norwegian folk melodies. Things Norwegian were then in vogue -- Grieg's piano works were newly popular; Norwegian conductor and violinist Johan Svendsen was famously active in Paris from the end of the Franco-Prussian War; Castillon composed a Marche scandinave (1872) and Lalo his Fantaisie norvégienne for violin and orchestra (1880) and orchestral Rapsodie norvegienne (1881). For Franck, however, the song of Norway was less local color than the mystical voice of the fjords bespeaking a legendary eleventh century demesne felt from Hulda's opening bars and present at full strength in such things as the second act "Chanson de l'Hermine" and Cortège et Choeur des Fiancés, the Entr'acte pastorale between the second and third acts, the fourth act's strangely beguiling Marche royale, and, above all, the five-movement allegorical ballet, "Combat of Winter and Spring," which looks forward to the works Debussy would compose in the era following Franck's death in 1890. In Franck's vocal score most of these numbers are arranged for piano, four hands. Eiolf and Hulda's sensual, ecstatic love duet in Act III is among the most passionately arresting in nineteenth century French opera. Parisian and provincial opera houses gave Franck the runaround -- Hulda was not staged until after his death, at the Théâtre de Monte-Carlo on March 4, 1894, in a truncated, retouched version directed by Raoul Gunsbourg.
https://www.allmusic.com/composition/hulda-opera-in-4-acts-fwv-49-mc0002508836 (https://www.allmusic.com/composition/hulda-opera-in-4-acts-fwv-49-mc0002508836)
Yes I agree. I find the work to be special maybe because I've long cherished a desire to listen to it.
I'm pleased to report that the performance features a very good American tenor, Joshua Kohl, whose website reveals that Hulda is soon to be released by Naxos: http://www.joshuakohltenor.com/about (http://www.joshuakohltenor.com/about). Unfortunately, it seems that it will be on DVD: https://www.mirshakartists.com/joshua-kohl (https://www.mirshakartists.com/joshua-kohl), thus preserving an absolutely hideous production.
That's very good to hear!
EDIT: Oh Lord it says DVD!
EDIT 2: why they had to do that for such a extremely obscure opera is behind me. A bloody shame!
Yes - hence my own edit, above.
Quotewhy they had to do that for such a extremely obscure opera is behind me
It's certainly beyond me. But that's the world of German 'Regieoper', I'm afraid:
Regieoper (German for director's opera) is a form of Regietheater specific to opera. In Regieoper, the stage director assumes a central role in determining the concept of an opera, often exchanging the established traditions related to that opera for an approach that may or may not adhere to the composer's or librettist's original intention. The director's approach may include but is not limited to changing the staging intended by the composer or librettist, modernizing the story to reflect contemporary political controversies, and infusing the production with shock value (most often, sexuality).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regieoper (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regieoper)
I still cannot understand how the German Regietheater still carries on like this. And, if Naxos are going to issue this on DVD, it's their problem; they may have sponsors paying for this crap staging.
Still, now we have a good audio version for us :-)
Years ago many stagings included Nazi concentration camp and madhouses à la bonheur, now we have terroroist thematics.
Of course, for many directors it is easier to squeeze a crazy concept of his own into an opera, rather than to study the score and its historical background.
Anyway, most German Regiethater directors cannot read music. During my Zurich Opera years, we had some famous specimens using a CD booklet instead of a vocal score as a reference. And there was a lot of "working progress"; they just sticked to their crazy (pardon: original!) conception and during 5 weeks of rehearsals they tried out and improvised constantly (pardon: experimented) - and changed everything again the following day...
Please, help me! What is this theme in act 2, at 29 minutes (danse des Epées)!
It's Franck's "Sabre Dance" :-)
QuoteAnd there was a lot of "working progress"; they just sticked to their crazy (pardon: original!) conception and during 5 weeks of rehearsals they tried out and improvised constantly (pardon: experimented) - and changed everything again the following day...
I have come across this too (though, mercifully, rarely in my singing experience). Regieoper is just another word for lazy, ignorant, self-indulgent, disrespectful (to composer and audience), garbage! There - I've nailed my colours to the mast.
It's just downright insulting both to the composer and librettist (which need not concern the director as they're both long dead) but also to the audience (who mostly aren't), assuming as it does that we won't "get" the piece unless it's made "relevant" to the modern day, often in the most unsubtle and egregious way. I'm amazed that the Germans have put up with it for so long.
I remember a storm of protest, probably 25-30 years ago, at a Welsh National Opera production of Nabucco, which replaced the Hebrews with Palestinian refugees - reading the reviews, that seems a pretty mild case of revisionism when compared with the horrors inflicted on Hulda.
I'm getting very confused here. Why would they take the trouble to recast Hulda in the radio broadcast but then release the same production as last year with a totally different Hulda on DVD? What am I missing here? The booklet even states "studio production"
According to the reviews there was a lot of shooting and screaming on stage. Murders and rapes etc. occurred - all this makes a lot of noise. Perhaps the SWR did not agree with that... Which would mean that they still have some intelligent people over there...
I hope you are right hadrianus. I'm getting too old now for all these shock announcements.
Quote
According to the reviews there was a lot of shooting and screaming on stage. Murders and rapes etc. occurred - all this makes a lot of noise
I can confirm that, Adriano, from having seen it live: lots of machine guns including their loud noise in that staging. I hope none of that has made it into the audio version? I yet have to listen to it.
As I stated earlier, I found the staging self-consistent -- however, I think the drama wouldn't have been less dramatic if they had set it like Franck had intended it. I wonder when HIP discovers staging questions for themselves.
Best wishes, ewk
Perhaps we could make money selling an audio-only version?
Only joking...
no, ewk & Kevin S
As already told, the new audio was made in a studio. I haven't listened to it yet completely, but I bet we purists will be fully satisfied :-)
Some reviewers did indeed mention that they found the music itself rather boring...
Let's hope, then, that this will be a CD-only release.
Yes I hope it will be CD only, that's why I was getting confused by a mention of a DVD release.
how's the 1960 recording ?...
The 1960 version is sung in Italian. The translation is by its conducor, Vittorio Gui.
I had this LP box in my collection because I am a fan of Giacinto Prandelli. Then I sold my collection and though that this item is not worthy to be digitzed - as I had done with many other of which I supposed they wouldn't perhaps be reissued on CD.
** Internet Radio: You may have noticed that on radio hubs for DAB/FM and Internet Radio, the latter is at the moment no more available due to silly a server change - thus causing a lot ot confusion. Among other, one has to re-set the affected devices - but it seems that this is still not working properly on all of them.
I think I've seen the 1960 offered for sale, is why I ask, hopefully in a legitimate RAI transfer.
You can purchase it from both CD and LP and Discogs
Isn't Franck's "Sabre Dance"perhaps related to the Russian theme in the third movement of Tchaikovsky's 1st Piano Concerto? Must check later on with a score...
Thank you, Hadrianus! It's it indeed, Tchaikovsky's 1st piano concerto! I couldn't keep it out of my mind... How did Franck get this theme? (Tchaikovsky' 1st P.C. 1874 and Franck's Hulda 1879)
Maybe it's just me but sometimes I hear a Tchaikovsky influence in some of Francks other works too.
I think Franck must have found this theme in a collection of folk music. Just at that time it had become "popular" in France to use exotic music.
Composer Louis-Albert Bourgault-Ducoudray was mainly responsible for importig Russian music to France. And he also imported music from the Far East - and from Brittany - and he became a specialist of Palestrina! He was responsible of the premiere of Balakirevs "Tamara" in Paris (in 1881). Incidentally, he also composed himself an opera about "Thamara".
20 years ago I recorded LABD's "Rhapsodie Cambodgienne" for Marco Polo... At that time in France quite a sensation. Even using folk themes having nothing to do with Russia, the piece sounds rather like Rimsky-Korsakov and Balakirev.
This is actually one of those composers with a most impossible name to remember - and to pronounce :-)
I think Hulda is supposed to be 1882-85 btw.
Also, the vocal score of B-D's Thamara is online here (https://imslp.org/wiki/Thamara_(Bourgault-Ducoudray%2C_Louis-Albert)) :)
Now that we have the download of Hulda, what do friends think of the opera?
You're right. Hulda is from 1881-1885, first performance Monte-Carlo, March 1894.
Quotewhat do friends think of the opera?
I have only listened to it all the way through once and it became rather a marathon; there's something remorseless about the music, and in that respect it reminded me a lot of Wagner. There are many, many passages where I was really impressed by Franck's poetic imagination. It abounds with good melodies, filled as it is with impressive, sensuous, dramatic music which make the journey worthwhile but, for me at least, overlong. Maybe it's just too early to form a balanced view, but those are my initial impressions.
I think it's quite a find - and it fills a major gap in our knowledge of Franck's late period when so much of his best music was written. The orchestral writing is gorgeously rich and there is plenty of memorable material: the opening is particularly striking. Like Mark, I found it a 'big listen', which means I've more work to do to get to grips with the opera as a whole, but my goodness aren't we fortunate to live in this great era of re-discovery?
I'm extremely grateful to all those who posted about this performance and alerted us to the broadcast. Kudos to you all!
I agree with both Alan and Mark. Actually I was stunned of what I was hearing because just as with Meyerbeer I was told ''don't bother'' with their operas. Yes, the work is too long, Franck's pacing could've been a lot tighter. I enjoyed it all the same though as if I just discovered a hidden treasure nobody knew about.
The 1879-1882 manuscript 5-act (in process of being revised into a prologue+4 acts, but not yet the 1885 form? bit confused) first version of Hulda has been, I think, uploaded to BNF (https://catalogue.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb42995451c).
After listening to Hulda twice, I was certainly impressed with the work. The "pigeon holing" of Franck in some dusty organ loft seems more inaccurate than ever. Many thanks for the download. thank you.
Palazzeto Bru Zane are to record the thee-act abridged version of Hulda . It's the version first heard in Monte-Carlo in March 1894. It is to be a concert performance of the complete 3 act version for their French Opera series.
My French is pretty rusty, but I'm pretty sure "versión integrale sans coupure" indicates that the recording will be of the Prologue + 4 acts original version, not the abreviated Monte Carlo Hulda.
Well, this is the unabridged version which was heard on SWR2 Radio on 26th April 2020 - which had been uploaded in here.
The performances will be in Liege, Namur and Paris next May and June. Recording will presumably follow. The cast, with the exceptions of Jennifer Holloway and Veronique Gens, are new to me. The Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Lieges and its conductor, Gergely Madaras, are also unfamiliar.
Quoteversión integrale sans coupure
...means 'complete version without cut(s)'.
The Freiburg performance is due out on 8th October on Naxos (3 CDs):
https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/products/9247184--franck-hulda
(https://media1.jpc.de/image/w300/front/0/0730099048071.jpg)
(https://media1.jpc.de/image/w600/rear/0/0730099048071.jpg)
Teaser video here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkf6Z78naH0&t=20s
The only caveat is some pretty variable singing.
Perhaps it's worth waiting for the future Bru Zane release? https://bru-zane.com/en/evento/hulda/
I think I'll be buying both.
I won't. I'll stick with the recording of the Hulda broadcast and wait for the Bru Zane, then decide based on what reviews and friends here think of each one.
I suspect that the Naxos will have the better tenor and Bru Zane the better Hulda, but there probably won't be much in it. Neither will score a knockout blow.
There is a major problem with many, if not most modern-day opera recording projects. Inevitably, given the costs involved these days, they are either based on or are actual recordings of live performances; in other words, no longer do we have record companies putting together casts of the best singers (if they exist, of course!) to make high quality studio recordings. This leads on the one hand to some advantages in spontaneity and a sense of performances being 'lived in'; however, on the other hand, the casts are too often extremely variable in quality. It is now very rare indeed to find a new recording of any opera that bears comparison with the best recordings of the past - and, in the case of unsung repertoire, this situation usually results in a product that is seriously below par in some important area, usually vocal. There is also the problem of putting out DVDs of dreadful, unwatchable Regietheater-style productions. Just give us the soundtrack!
I suspect that we'll end up with two recordings of Hulda, each with serious flaws - which is why I'll buy both the Naxos and the Bru Zane - and wish I could mix and match the casts!
QuoteI'll stick with the recording of the Hulda broadcast and wait for the Bru Zane
It seems the new recording is about 28 minutes longer and that can't be accounted for by the ballet music alone which is around 17 minutes long! If I remember correctly only two numbers were played in the theatre.
I have had a suspicion for some time now that non-live radio broadcasts of "complete" operas are sometimes cut.
Excerpts are now available at jpc:
https://www.jpc.de/jpcng/classic/detail/-/art/hulda/hnum/10696524
As is evident, there's some dreadful singing here. Caveat emptor - although my copy's already on order. There's some absolutely sublime music on offer.
This is eminently worth having. The orchestral contribution is first-rate and the recording suitably resplendant. Most of the singing is good; only Anja Jung (Hulda's mother) really lets the side down. However, there's little of the vocal glamour needed to lift this performance from the very acceptable to the truly outstanding; how this beautiful opera would have benefited from singers of the calibre of Teresa Zylis-Gara, Gösta Winbergh, Gilles Cachemaille and Gino Quilico who were cast a generation and more ago in Chausson's Le roi Arthus. However, these days record companies rarely bring together top-flight casts in the studio; instead we rely on recordings made at or based on live performances in provincial theatres, with all the inconsistencies of casting involved.
As I said, well worth having. But not outstanding overall.
Not a great opera; but an opera with some great music in it - try the close of Act 2.
Positively reviewed by Dave Hurwitz here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHCjx0lVzRg
Quote from: Alan Howe on Sunday 31 October 2021, 18:13
Positively reviewed by Dave Hurwitz here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHCjx0lVzRg
I like Hurwitz a lot, and this review should bring more deserved attention towards the recording. But this opening remark of his made me want to go puke:
QuoteWe've recorded, in the history of classical music, practically everything that there is to be recorded by major composers. It's very, very rare to find serious, large, important works that haven't been touched... and we have one here.
If Franck is a major composer, how about Raff and his operas? Huh? Saint-Saëns? Ok, I don't want to hijack this thread, but I had to get that out of my chest...
Absolutely right. It's clearly a huge blind-spot. I mean, how on earth does he know what's 'out there', yet to be discovered, performed and recorded?
And so back to Hulda...
... I can't let that go without saying "Haydn operas". (Ok, recorded— once, mostly.)
And so back to Hulda, please. If anyone wants to start a thread on neglected operas, please do so!