Donald Macleod considers Pauline Viardot's role as a muse and a collaborator with Gounod, Saint-Saëns and Meyerbeer, and we hear from her fairy-tale chamber opera to a libretto by Ivan Turgenev, Le dernier sorcier.
“When I want to do something, I do it in spite of water, fire, society, the whole world,” an indicator, if ever there was one, of the inner steel of this week’s composer, 19th-century French singer, pianist, composer and influential society figure, Pauline Viardot.
Born in 1821, Pauline Viardot possessed an array of exceptional qualities. As one of the opera stars of her age, she was admired from Paris to St Petersburg as a sublime interpreter of Rossini, Bellini, Handel and Gluck. Beyond her incomparable voice, her twice-weekly artistic salons were a high point in Parisian cultural life. She knew, and was admired by Chopin, George Sand, Delacroix, Liszt, Fauré, Tchaikovsky, and Saint-Saëns to name but a few. While having, according to Saint-Saëns, an unnecessarily modest view of her talent, she was also an accomplished composer. A talented linguist with five languages at her command, her compositions include a substantial body of songs, one or two instrumental works and a series of highly appealing operettas.
Across the week, Donald Macleod will be exploring different facets of her extraordinary life. We’ll be hearing from a range of Viardot’s compositions as well as some of the operatic roles she made famous. He’ll be examining her role in Parisian cultural circles, and her friendships with leading writers among them Charles Dickens, and in particular Ivan Turgenev, and composers such as Berlioz, Saint-Saëns, Meyerbeer and Gounod, all of whom created roles specifically for her incredible voice.
Évocation
Györgyí Dombrádi, mezzo-soprano
Lambert Bumiller, piano
Ars Musici AM 1288-2
Le dernier sorcier (Finale to Act 2)
C’est moi, ne craignez rien
Loupprola, Schibbola, Trix
O bienfaisante fée
Salut! Salut! O forêt bien aimée
Adriana Zabala, mezzo-soprano, Lelio
Camille Zamora, soprano Stella
Eric Owens, bass-baritone, Krakamiche
Michael Slattery, tenor, Perlimpinpin
Manhatten Girls’ Chorus
Myra Huang, piano
Gounod: Sapho (Act 3)
O ma lyre immortelle….
Elina Garanča, mezzo-soprano
Filarmonica del Teatro Comunale di Bologna
Yves Abel, conductor
Saint-Saëns: Samson et Dalila (Act 1)
Printemps qui commence (Dalila, The Old Hebrew)
Waltraud Meier, mezzo-soprano
Samuel Ramey, baritone, the Old Hebrew
Orchestre et choeurs de l’Opéra-Bastille
Myung-Whun Chung, conductor
Meyerbeer: Le prophète (Act V Sc 2, 3 & 4 )
Ô prêtres de Baal, où m’avez-vous conduite ? …… Viens, il en est temps encore !
Marilyn Horne, mezzo-soprano, Fidès, mother of Jean
James McCracken, tenor, Jean de Leye
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
Henry Lewis, conductor Show less