Gwendoline

If you love opera, and remarkable music than you must not let this slip by. This is a truely beautiful opera by an often unnoticed composer, the fact that anyone bothered to record it is a blessing and a miracle in of its self! So long have we only heard the overture and the promonition scene while all the many other beautiful pieces that make this picture complete have lay neglected. I do not believe this CD is in production anymore and it would be a wise desicion for anyone who loves truely romantic and moving opera, done only as the french can do it, to obtain this opera before it goes the way of "Le Roi Malgre Lui"!

Yes, it is amazing that here as elsewhere in his brief life as a composer Chabrier wrote wonderful music to a ridiculous text (try the unfinished Briseis for another prime example). A passionate admirer of Wagner (check out his piano variations on themes from Tristan und Isolde), Chabrier was able in the love/death duet from Gwendoline to almost equal the transcendent ecstasy of Wagner while retaining a melting, thoroughly French restraint and refinement. This is a work that any devotee of late 19th century opera should hear. The performance may not be flawless but the music is.

En France, il est de bon ton de mépriser le répertoire national -cas unique en Europe qui ne se retrouve chez aucun de ses voisins. Les entreprises du chef Jean-Paul Penin, logiquement expatrié, en sont donc d'autant plus précieuse. En 1996 il a enregistré «Gwendoline» de Chabrier en Slovaquie et les résultats sont à la hauteur des espérances. Tout d'abord la partition est superbe, et ce dès l'ouverture (seul morceau de l'opéra ayant survécu en France) et son thème de 32 mesures, un des plus longs de l'histoire de la musique. Le second acte est à lui seul un petit chef-d'aeuvre à la fois intimiste et brûlant dont les deux moments-clé sont les chaeurs de l'Épithalame et le duo d'amour « Soir nuptial, délice profond ». On parle beaucoup d'influences wagnériennes au sujet de Chabrier mais dans «Gwendoline», celles de Bizet et Berlioz sont bien plus patentes. Orchestrateur raffiné, Chabrier a composé ici des pages d'une étonnante beauté qui suggèrent émotion et méditation.

One should really weep over this opera: the music is vintage Chabrier. Yes, he was musically influenced by Wagner, but he turned that influence into something very personal, no fin-de-siecle languishing here, but a robust, rhythmically kinetic language that is immediatly recognizable - wonderful orchestration and luscious harmonies that look forward to Debussy, Ravel and Poulenc. The subject matter is Wagner- inspired too, a Nordic story - well story is too strong a word: episode - of Saxons and rampaging Danes. It's probably one of the worst, VERY WORST librettos ever written: it is ridiculously stupid and interesting that a connosieur of music, of food, and of art (Chabrier had a considerable collection of impressionist paintings) was so deficient in his appreciation of literature. Catulle Mendes is responsible: he was once memorably described by Jean Cocteau as 'part lion, part turbot'. This opera could never be revived on account of this text: rude Dane Harald is coerced to sit at a spinning wheel by 16 year old Gwendoline: and they die together in the sunset under an oak tree regurgitating sweet nothings about Valhalla. It's an unintentional comedy - and a tragedy that so much vintage music is married to it.The performance is efficient: all singers cope with Chabrier's occasionally murderous demands: Didier Henry is suitably hectoring, but at the cost of some vocal focus: Kohutkova has a bright timbre but is generalized - she does get around all the notes though - no mean achievement. Gerard Garrino has an impossible task, a tenor old man villain, who has to sing gorgeous soaring phrases in the 2nd act epithalamium: it's neither in character or quite glorious enough - a lost battle there! The conductor, Jean-Paul Penin is too efficient: many speeds are just a little too fast to make the music breathe.An adequate performance of some wonderful music: this is for French opera completists, or Chabrier lovers. A stage revival is out of the question: it would just elicit laughter.

Chabrier composed a series of charming, wistful pieces, such as "Espana", the Suite Pastorale and Joyeuse marche. This opera is a serious piece, with a Wagnerian story, but very un-Wagnerian music. It is also very short, another plus. This is its first recording, and, bearing in mind the huge cost of such a project, I don't see a new recording coming along any time soon. Luckily this version is very well sung and recorded, and comes with full text and translations into English and french. Highly recommended.