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With the "Méditation", Jules Massenet probably wrote one of the most famous melodies of our time. It originates from his Comédie-lyrique "Thaïs", which – unlike Massenet's operas "Werther" or "Manon" – never made it into the international opera repertoire. Presumably because the two main roles of Thaïs and Athanaël demand something almost superhuman from the singers. In the new production by Peter Konwitschny at the Theater an der Wien, the American soprano Nicole Chevalier is one of the most exciting singers currently on stage in the title role. At her side, the young Austrian bass-baritone Josef Wagner celebrates his house debut. This is a fascinating and musically excellent performance of a timeless classic of the opera repertoire. “Gigantically well told (...) Grandiose!” (Der Kurier) // “An acoustic delight” (Der Standard)

With the "Méditation", Jules Massenet probably wrote one of the most famous melodies of our time. It originates from his Comédie-lyrique "Thaïs", which – unlike Massenet's operas "Werther" or "Manon" – never made it into the international opera repertoire. Presumably because the two main roles of Thaïs and Athanaël demand something almost superhuman from the singers. In the new production by Peter Konwitschny at the Theater an der Wien, the American soprano Nicole Chevalier is one of the most exciting singers currently on stage in the title role. At her side, the young Austrian bass-baritone Josef Wagner celebrates his house debut. This is a fascinating and musically excellent performance of a timeless classic of the opera repertoire. “Gigantically well told (...) Grandiose!” (Der Kurier) // “An acoustic delight” (Der Standard)

MASSENET: Orchestral Suites Nos. 4 - 7

Also available on CD

Jules Massenet’s five act opera-comique is presented on this new release by Patrick Davin and his Orchestra of the Opera Royal de Wallonie-Liege. Manon is Massenet’s most performed opera, which has maintained its spot in the repertoire since its composition. The enduring opera “quickly conquered the world’s stages.” Annick Massis stars in the title role. The French soprano has enjoyed a long stage career, frequently performing in Mozart’s operas and many bel canto roles.

Picture Format: NTSC, 16:9
Audio Formats: PCM 2.0, DD 5.1
Subtitles, French, English, Italian, German, Korean
Region Code: 0 (All)
Running Time: 162 mins

Like several of Massenet’s later operas, Chérubin dispenses with a tenor lead – bad for box-office, no doubt, yet highly appropriate for what amounts to the éducation sentimentale of Mozart’s page, susceptible as always and still given to jumping from great heights and getting in everybody’s way. Who better to impersonate him, therefore, than Frederica von Stade, with innumerable Cherubinos to her credit? True, a slightly darker voice might have set his moments of anger in sharper relief, as well as distinguishing him from the admirable Ensoleillad of June Anderson in their love duet of Act II, arguably among Massenet’s finest. But let us remember that the original Chérubin was the soprano Mary Garden, creator of Debussy’s Mélisande, who, alive in Aberdeen until 1967, could have told us much about the opera’s rapturous premiere at Monte Carlo, had she not remained firmly uncommunicative to interviewers (‘Och, I cannae remember...’). Clearly in 1903 the composer’s granary of attractive melodies was still well stocked, if none are as memorable as those of Manon or Werther; and the elegant, colourful, at times Spanish-inflected score retains much of its appeal today. Nor is it unworthily served here. Samuel Ramey exploits his smooth sonority to splendid effect as the sententious yet comprehending Philosophe. Among the lesser vignettes Michel Sénéchal’s Duc is outstanding. The revelation, however, is Dawn Upshaw: sweet-toned, infinitely touching, as Nina, the girl to whom Chérubin eventually turns.

-- Julian Budden, BBC Music Magazine

Also available on Blu-ray

\ With its combination of enchanting love story and broad, burlesque comedy, Cendrillon is one of the great operatic fairy tales – a Cinderella that looks back to Charles Perrault’s original story in all its richness and ambiguity. Massenet’s sensuous Belle Epoque fairy tale is gilded with lavish orchestral textures and glittering vocal writing, drawing on everything from baroque dances to Wagner-inspired chromaticism to bring its story to colorful life, conjuring a world of infinite musical and emotional variety. Fiona Shaw’s original Tour production makes its Festival debut here, re-directed by Fiona Dunn and conducted by John Wilson, with a cast led by Glyndebourne favorites Danielle de Niese as Cendrillon and Kate Lindsey as her Prince. The Times called this production “a savvy modern-day makeover,” while Classical Source called it “enchanting and thought-provoking.”

Since it was first published in 1731, L’Histoire du Chevalier Dex Grieux et de Manon Lescaut has been the object of numerous adaptations for both stage and screen. In the 19th century, Daniel-Francois-Esprit Auber, Jules Massenet and Giacomo Puccini used Abbe Prevost’s novel as the theme for their respective operas. After 1912, cinema transposed the story of Manon and the Knight into varying degrees of melodramatic intensity. In 1974 British choreographer Kenneth MacMillan in turn decided to focus on the two protagonists for an ambitious ballet that could translate the feelings and emotions of two souls abused by the accidents of life and their own personal weaknesses. In short, how a young girl on her way to a convent manages to elope with the young student with whom she has just fallen in love, only to leave him to escape destitution and finally allow herself to be persuaded by her brother Lescaut to yield to the advances of wealthy “protectors.” Rather than reuse the score of Massenet’s opera, MacMillan entrusted Leighton Lucas with the task of arranging a series of extracts taken from a selection of the French composer’s operatic, symphonic and vocal scores. The end result was a huge success from its debut performance in London in 1974 onwards. Sixteen years later, L’Histoire de Manon entered the Paris Opera Ballet’s repertoire.

Domingo’s thrilling performance is all one could wish for.

After languishing in obscurity for the best part of a century, Hérodiade, a version of the Salome story that preceded Strauss’s by 24 years, is enjoying a revival with recent productions in Vienna and San Francisco and two new recordings. As befits this grandest of grand operas, each is starrily cast. Plasson’s interpretation extracts fine, incisive playing from the Toulouse orchestra, has a glorious yet girlish Salomé in Cheryl Studer, an imposing Phanuel in José van Dam and a terrifying, manipulative, lascivious Hérode in Thomas Hampson. But he is let down by Nadine Denize’s unlovely Hérodiade, whose occasional flat notes might be excusable were it not for her strident tone. Ben Heppner’s Jean cannot be faulted technically, but stylistically he is too much of a Heldentenor for this lyric role.

Domingo’s thrilling account for Sony is, in contrast, all one could wish for. His voice may be less burnished than it was, but in this sort of dramatic part, he remains peerless. The chief delight of the Sony set, however, is Gergiev’s fervent conducting; he reveals textures imperceptible under Plasson and injects a foreboding intensity and fire into the score, which he takes at speed, shaving 12 minutes off Plasson’s running time. Gergiev’s cast is also exemplary: Juan Pons (Hérode) and the bass Kenneth Cox (Phanuel) are better contrasted, and no less impressive than Hampson and Van Dam; Dolora Zajick is a more attractive and therefore more complex Hérodiade; and Renée Fleming a lustrous though uncharismatic Salomé. If there’s a snag, it is that the recording is live and has all the attendant disturbances – rustling costumes, interruptive applause, occasionally uneven sound – but they’re a small price to pay for opera this exciting.

Performance: 5 (out of 5), Sound: 4 (out of 5)

-- BBC Music Magazine

In these days of wine lakes, beef mountains and deserts of dried milk, a double supply of navarraise is probably nothing to write to the Marketing Board about. Still, it is notable. No doubt everybody thought (if anybody gave it a thought at all) that Massenet's sorely tried heroine had gone to her eternal rest along with the age of melodrama which produced her. But who laughs last laughs longest, and she certainly does both of those. So here is RCA blazing away with the guns of Navarraise...and casting it with a generosity that could be mistaken for profligacy.

"Worth waiting for" said the advertisement. And indeed the opera itself...is worth the rediscovery. It opens and closes with, as well as offering several reminders of, a big bold tune in D minor, full orchestra fff, that nowadays would make a fortune for someone as the 'theme music' of an epic film. It continues (and here is an attraction to the makers of 'large-scale' stereo recordings) with tremendous noises of canons and rifles which on the first night, as Bernard Shaw put it, "did heavy execution among the ladies and gentlemen who cultivate their nerves on tea and alcohol"; and it has a grand part for the heroine, especially if she takes a pride in the "voix rauque", the "voix etranglee" and the "crise de nerfs supreme" culminating (though the score does not insist on this) in a peal of mad laughter. Attention is not allowed to wander, and although the tenor does have an aria it is only ninety seconds long, and not even Polonius could complain about that. There are also: Drinking Song (combined with Soldiers' Chorus), Love Duet, Mad Scene and Intermezzo (entitled Nocturne). I suppose that Shaw, who enjoyed himself hugely on that first night, was right when he said that Massenet "has not composed an opera; he has made up a prescription", especially when he adds "and his justification is that it has been perfectly efficacious". That means that, like its prototype Cavalleria Rusticana, it is strongly theatrical, melodious and emotional. The main trouble about the efficacy of the prescription is that Massenet has increased the dose.

The RCA recording does nothing to moderate it. If the CBS version opened fff; this one adds another f for good measure... Henry Lewis has drawn rather finer playing from the LSO than Antonio de Almeida did; the recorded sound has more depth and warmth, and important instrumental figures are given more prominence in relationship with the voices... With Marilyn Horne we know by the end of her first phrase, with its voluptuous chest notes, that (as Micaela sings of Carmen) "elle est dangereuse". Horne is much more in line with what we read of the great Emma Calve in the role, and what presumably Massenet had in mind when he wrote the part for her, filling the score with directions to sing "avec ivresse", "avec élan" and so forth, as well as the incitements to the "hoarse" and "strangled" mentioned earlier... Domingo's rich tone matches Horne's... Milnes has little to do, but is better than Sardinero; Zaccaria is better than Souzay...

"Worth waiting for" then? RCA's sound is rather richer, the conductor's reading rather more studied, the drama rather more vivid...[and] the general feeling is grander.

-- Gramophone [11/1975]

This Blu-ray Disc is only playable on Blu-ray Disc players and not compatible with standard DVD players.

Also available on standard DVD

With its combination of enchanting love story and broad, burlesque comedy, Cendrillon is one of the great operatic fairy tales – a Cinderella that looks back to Charles Perrault’s original story in all its richness and ambiguity. Massenet’s sensuous Belle Epoque fairy tale is gilded with lavish orchestral textures and glittering vocal writing, drawing on everything from baroque dances to Wagner-inspired chromaticism to bring its story to colorful life, conjuring a world of infinite musical and emotional variety. Fiona Shaw’s original Tour production makes its Festival debut here, re-directed by Fiona Dunn and conducted by John Wilson, with a cast led by Glyndebourne favorites Danielle de Niese as Cendrillon and Kate Lindsey as her Prince. The Times called this production “a savvy modern-day makeover,” while Classical Source called it “enchanting and thought-provoking.”

This disc is just a peach. Jules Massenet’s ballet music brings together all the most charming musical trends of the 19th century: the new French ballet tradition, the lightness of Offenbach’s operettas, the lush tunes of Strauss’s Vienna, the big splashy orchestration of late-century “exotic” potboilers. The music keeps getting better and better as the CD goes along.

First I listened out of order and decided the opener, Bacchus, was my least favourite. Then I went in order and, mid-Bacchus, wondered what I had been complaining about. Yes, “Chasseresses et Bacchantes” has an early role for a percussion instrument so wimpily played that I’m not sure what it is, but then the most glorious Johann Strauss parody waltz breaks out and all is forgiven. Yes, the final bacchanale isn’t as crazy as Saint-Säens’ or Roussel’s, but what music is?

Hérodiade is an opera about Herod, where he’s the central character, in contrast with Richard Strauss’s Salome. The ballet music comes from a banquet where Herod entertains guests with dances by exotic slave girls from various foreign lands. It’s the shortest selection here.

Then we have big suites from Thaïs and Le Cid, each over 20 minutes, the highlights of the disc. Those who know Thaïs only for its “Meditation” will be happy to hear that the rest of the opera is also jam-packed with beautiful music. It’s varied, too, from the stern timpani roll of the opening andante to the perky Pierné-like flute and piccolo solos of the sixth movement, to the unexpected two-minute church-like organ solo. Le Cid is a festival of Spanish tropes, tunes and clichés from the very start. The inevitable cor anglais solo, in ‘Madrilène’, is just gorgeous. It’s as tuneful and colourful as the Spanish pastiches of Chabrier and Debussy, which is to say it’s a ton of fun.

The Barcelona Symphony plays excellently throughout, that one wimpy percussion issue confined to a single track. They seem to especially enjoy the Le Cid music, but who wouldn’t? Patrick Gallois continues to prove himself an extremely skilled, sensitive conductor of ballet music. You could imagine people dancing to this album. Given how good the music is, it’s extremely rare to have it collected on disc without the full operas alongside. Frémaux and Marriner have recorded Le Cid but for sound, panache and comprehensiveness, it’s hard to beat this. What fun.

– Brian Reinhart, MusicWeb International

Since it was first published in 1731, L’Histoire du Chevalier Dex Grieux et de Manon Lescaut has been the object of numerous adaptations for both stage and screen. In the 19th century, Daniel-Francois-Esprit Auber, Jules Massenet and Giacomo Puccini used Abbe Prevost’s novel as the theme for their respective operas. After 1912, cinema transposed the story of Manon and the Knight into varying degrees of melodramatic intensity. In 1974 British choreographer Kenneth MacMillan in turn decided to focus on the two protagonists for an ambitious ballet that could translate the feelings and emotions of two souls abused by the accidents of life and their own personal weaknesses. In short, how a young girl on her way to a convent manages to elope with the young student with whom she has just fallen in love, only to leave him to escape destitution and finally allow herself to be persuaded by her brother Lescaut to yield to the advances of wealthy “protectors.” Rather than reuse the score of Massenet’s opera, MacMillan entrusted Leighton Lucas with the task of arranging a series of extracts taken from a selection of the French composer’s operatic, symphonic and vocal scores. The end result was a huge success from its debut performance in London in 1974 onwards. Sixteen years later, L’Histoire de Manon entered the Paris Opera Ballet’s repertoire.

Reissue of the original full-priced CD edition. Translated libretto included.

Von Stade is magnificent, with faultless intonation and sparkling scales; she makes it easy to sympathize with Cinderella’s distress, as well as to smile with her.

First issued on CD on CBS Masterworks CD79323 (itself from the 1979 LP issue, 79323), this set positively sparkles with joy. Its fairy-tale story, known surely to all (Cinderella) is perfectly suited to the masterly craft of Jules Massenet, whose operas must surely soon receive the full attention they deserve. A concert performance of Thaïs at the Barbican by ENO recently acted as a timely reminder of that work’s stature (review). But that is only one of a total of 25 from this composer’s pen – and the level of inspiration in Cendrillon is hardly less. The magic/fairytale element clearly suited Massenet’s wide and sensitive orchestrational palette, while the vivacious story of Princes, magic and balls makes for pure delight.

The cast here is really rather starry, boasting the likes of von Stade, Gedda and Bastin. Ruth Welting was a name new to me, yet her account of the Fairy’s mesmerising coloratura roulades is consistently ravishing (her roles at the Metropolitan, New York included Zerbinetta Ariadne auf Naxos, Königin der Nacht Zauberflöte and Gilda Rigoletto).

After an introduction that fizzes along, the chorus shows their prowess (‘Chez Madame de la Haltière’). Yet it is the focussed voice of Jules Bastin’s Pandolfe that really impresses. In tandem with Rudel’s exemplary pacing, every word is clear. Bastin’s aria (Scene 2, ‘Du côte de la barbe’) is excellent, with the singer placing his high notes perfectly. Again fast and clear, Bastin’s projection of the comedic ‘Félicitez-moi donc’ and his ensuing contributions (track 7) are perfectly done. Wherever he sings, Bastin is focussed and his pitching is uniformly true.

Cinderella has to wait until Scene 5 (track 8) before she enters our consciousness in the rather sighing line ‘Ah! Que mes soeurs sont heureuse!’. Von Stade is magnificent in providing just the right bleak tone appropriate for her character’s malaise. How plaintive is the simple cry of ‘Ah!’, how meaningful the phrase ‘Résigne-toi, Cendrille’. Her joy at the end of the act is similarly brought to life (the repetitions of ‘Je suis Reine’, for example). Or try von Stade in Act 3 Scene 1, her tuning faultless, her scales sparking away, her pitching clean. During the course of this performance it is easy to sympathise with Cinderella’s distress, as well as to smile with her.

Nicolai Gedda’s Prince Charming matches von Stade’s Cinders. His Act 2 Scene 2 shows off his truly lovely round tone to perfection and it is worth noting that he is thoroughly convincing here, despite the cheesiness of some of the lines he has to sing (‘Coeur sans amour, printemps sans roses’ …). It is at moments like this that I wondered the omission of a libretto might not be so bad after all …. When Cinderella and her Prince are in duet (Act 2 Scene 4), it is all one could have hoped for. Gedda provides an outpouring of passion against von Stade’s lovely, simple and tender innocence. Their voices are suited to a tee. Again, Gedda’s ardent singing warms the heart towards the end of Act 3.

As mentioned above, Ruth Welting is superb. She emits an aura of the approachably supernatural with her vocal twists and turns, and her thoroughly delightful trills. The other star of this set is the Ambrosian Opera Chorus. Massenet puts his chorus to good use, and the Ambrosian responds with disciplined yet touching singing, the Fairies floating along nicely (CD2 Track 10).

The sparkling repartee of Noémie (Teresa Cahill) and Dorothée (Elizabeth Bainbridge) in Act 3 Scene 2 exemplifies these singers’ grasp of Massenet’s world while Jane Berbié’s strong mezzo cuts an imposing Madame de la Haltière.

Julius Rudel’s command is never once in doubt and it is good that his orchestra gets the chance to shine in the Dances of Act 2 (CD 1, Tracks 15-19), but the many felicities of scoring throughout the opera mean that the Philharmonia is a source of constant delight... [T]his is a Recording of the Month if ever there was one.

-- Colin Clarke, MusicWeb International [reviewing Sony 91178]

Jules Massenet’s fairy-tale opera Cendrillon (‘Cinderella’) was an immediate success at its premiere in 1899 at the Opéra-Comique in Paris. Massenet, then at the height of his powers, creates a magical sound-world full of wit, enchantment and perfumed elegance to match librettist Henri Cain’s coming-of-age adaptation of this classic fairy tale. The colorful fantasy world created by the acclaimed stage director Barbrara Mundel and set designer Olga Motta features the British-Swiss soprano, Kim-Lillian Strebel, in her critically acclaimed title role. Kim-Lillian Strebel has received critical acclaim following a number of high profile debuts. She has acquired an extensive repertoire to include several high-profile roles. She recently made her US concert debut with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra.