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Музыка Пуленка содержит много забавных приемов, в том числе популярный в то время, ныне забытый танец «Бостон». Вокальное письмо многословно, но все же слегка спотыкается. Часто противоречивые влияния Эммануэля Шабрие, Эрика Сати, Игоря Стравинского, Жюля Массне, Дариуса Мийо и особенно Жака Оффенбаха пронизывают произведение. Именно это перекрестное оплодотворение стилей и делает Пуленка таким очаровательным, ибо он был так же способен на сентиментальность, как и на сглаз. Оркестровка с использованием того же оркестра, что и у Кармен, умна, но не мила, и Пуленк сказал: «Правда в том, что я гораздо больше верю в новизну разума, чем материи». Периодические возрождения этого произведения доказывают его жизнеспособность как театральной пьесы, хотя первая запись со многими авторами партий, особенно с Дениз Дюваль и Жаном Жиродо, настолько близка к идеальному воплощению персонажей, насколько это возможно. . -Composer: Francis Jean Marcel Poulenc (7 January 1899 – 30 January 1963) -Librettist: Guillaume Apollinaire -Orchestra, Choir: Orchestre et Chœur du Théatre National de l’Opéra Comique -Conductor: André Cluytens -Performers: Denise Duval (Thérèse), Jean Giraudeau (The Husband), Emile Rousseau (The Gendarme), Gilbert Jullia (A Bearded Gentleman), Frédéric Leprin (Lacouf), Julien Thirache (Presto), Serge Rallier (The Journalist), Robert Jeantet (The Manager), Marguerite Legouhy (The Newspaper Vender, A Fat Lady), Jacques Hivert (The Son) 00:00 - Prologue Act I 06:43 - Scène 1 11:36 - Scène 2 13:25 - Scène 3 13:53 - Scène 4 15:42 - Scène 5 19:33 - Scène 6 23:43 - Scène 7 26:46 - Scène 8 30:11 - Entr’acte Act II 32:56 - Scène 1 34:09 - Scène 2 38:23 - Scène 3 39:57 - Scène 4 42:16 - Scène 5 42:58 - Scène 6 43:31 - Scène 7 49:02 - Scène 8 Poulenc wrote four operas and they fall into three distinct categories. His grand opera is “Les Dialogues des Carmelites“. The work is serious in demeanor, with little of the humor that characterizes much of Poulenc’s output. In subject matter, and in much of the writing, the work resembles Poulenc’s numerous religious works. “La Voix Humaine“ is a monologue for a soprano who is, on the phone, begging her lover not to leave her. It is an revealing look at intimate thoughts and personal despair. The second of these monologues was “La Dame de Monte Carlo“. And then there is “Les Mamelles de Tiresias“. Witty, zany, rambunctious, ridiculous, and outrageous are appropriate terms for this Opera-bouffe in two acts and a prologue. However there is also a touch of seriousness in the opera. Poulenc stated; “Whenever in the midst of the worst buffoonery a phrase can effect a change in the lyric tone, towards a certain melancholy, I have not hesitated thus to alter the character of the music, well knowing what sadness was hidden behind Apollinaire’s smile“. Completed in 1947, the work was originally paired, in performance, with Puccini’s “La Boheme“ or Bizet’s “Les Pecheurs des Perles“. It is not surprising that it did not please lovers of those two examples of extreme lyricism. The original play was set in 1903 in Zanzibar. Poulenc updated the story to 1917, and changed the location to somewhere between Nice and Monte Carlo. The settings were by Erte. The story comprises a number of sketches that somehow make enough sense to push the opera along. The title character is a feminist, who, by making her breasts fly away, turns her husband, with the help of an incubator, into a baby factory, with an output of thousands of children a day. Around this central theme is interwoven other odd plot devices like the simultaneous dueling deaths of Lacouf and Presto, and the creation of sons, one of whom hoards skim milk, another a journalist turned blackmailer. Poulenc’s music contains many amusing devices, including the then popular, now forgotten dance, the Boston. The vocal writing is wordy but still trips lightly. The often conflicting influences of Emmanuel Chabrier, Erik Satie, Igor Stravinsky, Jules Massenet, Darius Milhaud, and especially Jacques Offenbach scamper through the piece. It is just this cross fertilization of styles that makes Poulenc so captivating, for he was as capable of sentimentality as hi-jinx. The orchestration, utilizing the same orchestra as Carmen, is clever without being cute, and Poulenc said: “The truth is that I believe much more in the novelty of mind than of matter“. Occasional revivals of this work prove its viability as a theater piece, although the first recording, with many of the originators of the parts, especially Denise Duval and Jean Giraudeau, is as close to a perfect realization of the characters as one is likely to get. []
