Has anyone come across this interesting-sounding opera by Louise Bertin (1805-1877), La Esmeralda?>
http://www.amazon.fr/La-Esmeralda-Louise-Bertin/dp/B002698DCU/ref=pd_luc_s9_art_02_03_t_lh?ie=UTF8&psc=1 (http://www.amazon.fr/La-Esmeralda-Louise-Bertin/dp/B002698DCU/ref=pd_luc_s9_art_02_03_t_lh?ie=UTF8&psc=1)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louise_Bertin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louise_Bertin)
Yes, I've known La Esmeralda ever since Radio France broadcast it from Montpellier in 2008. Why it failed at the time of its première in 1836 is difficult to understand because it's highly romantic and can really compete with much written around the time. As so often with such rarities from unknown composers, one is left wanting to hear more. It was her last opera and although it's not always the case, probably her finest, but hearing Guy Mannering or her rendering of The Werewolf or even her Faust will probably remain an unfilled wish.
I bought this a few years back, and after I listened to it I thought about posting, but my reaction was so negative I decided not to bother. The short of it: it shows the influence of Berlioz, who was said ca. 1836 to have been paid big money by the Bertin family to help not-so-young Louise's opera to the stage. It certainly sounds eccentrically Berliozish in places, but without not only genius, but compositional skill and basic theatrical instinct. Characterisation is nil, the shape of individual numbers is peculiar and unsatisfying, the dramatic construction of scenes is either highly idiosyncratic or more likely, imo, just incompetent. The libretto is by no less than Victor Hugo himself, who was also said to have been paid a mint by the Bertins. Esmeralda seems to me a 19th century vanity production of the most shameless sort, and my trek through it went literally from disappointment to disappointment. Listen to excerpts on Youtube before you buy...after all, the box is substantial and takes up a lot of valuable shelf space. I wanted to like this opera, and I wanted to find it unjustly neglected, like, for example, William Henry Fry's Notre Dame of Paris. But it isn't. Imo.
David
I've ordered it, so I'll let you know what I think...
So you didn't take to it, then, David? ;) I've just bought the set out of curiosity and now I'm as ready to enjoy it for what it isn't as for what it is. I must say that it was a very French buying experience. I would have bought downloads, but they don't seem to be allowed to the UK. It's available on iTunes, but not if you live in the UK. It's available in France, but not if you live in the UK. Vive l'entente cordiale! So in the end I was effectively forced to buy the box set, but got my own back by getting it from an amazon.fr supplier based in Germany! As for valuable shelf space, I'll rip the tracks, keep the booklet and the box itself goes into store. Standard Thomas practice these days.
Standard Howe practice is to listen carefully to all the audio excerpts - and then to order. So, we'll see whether it's any good when it arrives...
Standard Shott practice is to go to the timber yard and buy yet more planks to construct extra shelves. The sheer quantity of the stuff is getting out of hand. (But, no, I'm not after well-meaning lectures on alternative technologies).
I haven't heard the opera (I suspect I should add 'yet'), but I remember reading far more positive accounts of it than that of David. Hopefully Alan and Mark might furnish a view? I can't think the opera is wholly awful (it was welcomed by its first audiences until the critics hacked at it.) And many of us spend delighted hours reading 'interesting' and 'not of the first rank' Victorian novels so that the really great ones stand out the more. If we do that with profit in the case of literature, why not with opera?
The funny thing is that I enjoy many flawed operas, and many flawed Victorian novels! Every once in a while, though, something really strikes a nerve...(like Thackeray's awful Henry Esmond -and this from a man whose favorite novel is The Newcomes.) I think my reaction was a little colored by the fact that, like Mark, I had to jump through hoops to get my copy. But it's more than that. I felt imposed on by Berlioz's denial that he was just paying the bills on this one.
David
PS. The idea of a Louise Bertin Faust puts me in a cold sweat.
You're reminding me that I've been looking forward to reading (listening to an audiobook version of) Daniel Deronda soon, and now I'm wondering who's made an operatic setting of it- I only see one in a quick search. (The novel I'm slowly reading/listening to now has at least one intriguing setting, from 1925, by Jeno Hubay.) But... anyway. Back to Bertin, whose La Esmeralda I seem to recall _was_ requested in vocal score (or full score, or parts, or whathave) @IMSLP by someone along with some other works- yes, that is the case- it has not yet been uploaded by anyone, though.
QuoteI think my reaction was a little colored by the fact that, like Mark, I had to jump through hoops to get my copy. But it's more than that. I felt imposed on by Berlioz's denial that he was just paying the bills on this one.
I know what you mean, David. In an ideal world I'd be able to approach new music quite dispassionately, unaffected by such extra-musical influences. But I can't, either.
Interesting trivia about this work: In the original Serle catalog of Liszt's works, Liszt was said to have made a vocal score of the entire opera. He even goes into some detail about it in (the catalog is attached to a book that discusses Liszt's music). It's been since proven spurious, though.
as in, someone else made the arrangement, or spurious in some other sense?
Someone else did it, as the vocal score and some extracts (assigned different numbers) exists.
Oddly enough it mentioned in one of the earlier releases from the Liszt piano edition (with a condescending "why?" attached to it), but the catalog included with the final volume -- done by Howard who prepared a full catalog of Liszt ouvure a few years ago -- mentions it's not by him (and as it's a vocal score, not for piano even though it's in the piano section of Serle's catalog).
Is this someone other than Humphrey Searle (composer, pianist, Liszt scholar, participant in Hoffnung Festivals, etc.) or does he lose his A grade because he missed such things (which perhaps explains, folk-tale-fashion, how Raabe has two of them)...
Anyone know Bertin's other music? There's a piano trio mentioned as having been published toward the end of her life... her Op.10, which I see is in the possession of a few libraries.
What I know Louise Bertin for is that she was the first person to write a 'Faust' opera.
Spohr's Faust came before Bertin's but it was revised in 1850-something. I don't know if anyone treated the subject earlier than Spohr in 1813...?
Do we know exactly when Ignaz Seyfried composed his "Faust: eine dramatische Legende in 5 Acten"? Overture published in 1817- but...
Quote from: khorovod on Thursday 03 October 2013, 11:12
Spohr's Faust came before Bertin's but it was revised in 1850-something. I don't know if anyone treated the subject earlier than Spohr in 1813...?
The New Grove Dictionary names Spohr's
Faust as the first significant
Faust opera. It is, of course, independent of Goethe.
Grove lists several other early operas based on the Faust legend: by Müller (1784), Walter (1787), Hanke (1794), Lickl (1799), and Strauss (1815). There are three further Faust operas between Spohr and Bertin.
Quote from: Alan Howe on Friday 08 February 2013, 07:57
I've ordered it, so I'll let you know what I think...
So what do you think?
It was interesting - but not great music, as far as I can remember. I'll have to give it another go, but I'm currently listening to Verdi's Otello, so it'll feel like a heck of a come-down. Watch this space - but don't hold your breath...
Quote from: eschiss1 on Thursday 03 October 2013, 12:36
Do we know exactly when Ignaz Seyfried composed his "Faust: eine dramatische Legende in 5 Acten"? Overture published in 1817- but...
As far as I can make out, this is not an opera but incidental music to Klingemann's play of 1815. See the German Wikipedia: http://de.wikisource.org/wiki/BLK%C3%96:Seyfried,_Ignaz_Ritter_von (http://de.wikisource.org/wiki/BLK%C3%96:Seyfried,_Ignaz_Ritter_von), which dates the music to 1816: 'Chöre und Instrumentalsätze zu ,,Faust". Dramatische Legende in 5 Aufzügen von Klingemann. Die Ouverture erschien bei Breitkopf und Härtel im Stich.' It is not in the list of Seyfried's operas in
The Grove Dictionary of Opera. The MS full score of the overture, however, which is available online, does describe it as an opera: http://www.youscribe.com/catalogue/partitions-et-tablatures/art-musique-et-cinema/partitions-de-musique-classique/partition-complete-faust-seyfried-ignaz-1225201 (http://www.youscribe.com/catalogue/partitions-et-tablatures/art-musique-et-cinema/partitions-de-musique-classique/partition-complete-faust-seyfried-ignaz-1225201).
hrm...
maybe flowing/fuzzy categories...
Quote from: edurban on Friday 08 February 2013, 04:53
I bought this a few years back, and after I listened to it I thought about posting, but my reaction was so negative I decided not to bother. The short of it: it shows the influence of Berlioz, who was said ca. 1836 to have been paid big money by the Bertin family to help not-so-young Louise's opera to the stage. It certainly sounds eccentrically Berliozish in places, but without not only genius, but compositional skill and basic theatrical instinct. Characterisation is nil, the shape of individual numbers is peculiar and unsatisfying, the dramatic construction of scenes is either highly idiosyncratic or more likely, imo, just incompetent. The libretto is by no less than Victor Hugo himself, who was also said to have been paid a mint by the Bertins. Esmeralda seems to me a 19th century vanity production of the most shameless sort, and my trek through it went literally from disappointment to disappointment. Listen to excerpts on Youtube before you buy...after all, the box is substantial and takes up a lot of valuable shelf space. I wanted to like this opera, and I wanted to find it unjustly neglected, like, for example, William Henry Fry's Notre Dame of Paris. But it isn't. Imo.
David
I've now listened to
La Esmeralda. I don't quite agree with the charge of incompetence: this is the work of someone who has done her harmony exercises carefully, and can even on occasion produce tasteful harmonic surprises. The problem, imo, is that she can do nothing else. The melodic invention is sometimes phenomenally trivial (parts of 'Il enlevait une fille', for example), and at times she seems to be not so much composing as transcribing and harmonizing notes picked out with one finger on the piano. Rarely are the melodic units more than a few notes long: there isn't a single long breathed, unfolding melody in the whole work.
I feel with this, as I do with some other composers featured on this board (Heinrich Hofmann, for instance), that we are asking too much of works which could pass as competent apprentice pieces, but no more. I'm relieved that, in this case, other people share my lack of enthusiasm.
Hrm, if you like. Haven't heard Bertin yet, but -quite- liked Hofmann's piano quartet.
Very very belatedly- I asked awhile ago (I think I did (hrm. sleepy much, Eric...)) whether there was any independent evidence whether Liszt made a vocal score of Bertin's Esmeralda? Something like that? This proved to be easy to find now in the days of everything-being-digitized-
here (http://www.archive.org/stream/BibliographieDeLaFrance1837BibliographieBnf/Bibliographie_de_la_France_1837_bibliographie_bnf#page/n607/mode/2up) - look next to "18." (Esmeralda, opéra en quatre actes, paroles de M. Victor Hugo, musique de Mlle Louise Bertin; arrangé pour le piano, par F. Listz : romance chantée par Mlle"... - just lists some excerpts from it published by Troupenas of Paris (I think on an earlier page or earlier volume one may find the complete vocal score) but that's in the general direction.
(BTW If that link is not accessible outside the US or something (because it's at archive.org) gallica.bnf.fr also has many many issues scanned in (appropriately- it's French heritage, their national bibliography magazine, and a very important record), can try to find the link there. Useful resource generally anyway if I haven't mentioned. There's some others I among others have been looking for (online mostly, though I have more interloan access now), sometimes finding, for that reason :) - it's useful to have a record of publications and their copyrights. ... anyhoo.)
The whole opera can now be heard on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tEP6_VCwyI