[1/18/2011] Preview: In which we tune into the sound world of Gounod's "Faust," via Faust's aria (continued)

And this, it appears, is how Dr. Faust's laboratory will appear in the opening scene of the Met's new-by-way-of-Covent Garden Faust.


BEFORE WE LISTEN TO ANY MORE OF FAUST,
YOU KNOW WHAT WE HAVE TO HEAR . . .

We're a long way from the opening of the opera, here in the Garden Scene of Act III, but you know we plunge reluctantly into operas without hearing how they start. So here's the orchestral introduction to Faust.

Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Sir Thomas Beecham, cond. Live performance, Jan. 30, 1943
Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Sir Colin Davis, cond. Philips, recorded February 1986


NOW, BACK TO "SALUT, DEMEURE"

From consecutive Decembers, 1949 and 1950, we hear first the refulgent-voiced young Giuseppe di Stefano and then the incomparable Swede Jussi Bjoerling. While Bjoerling did record a sprinkling of arias, including "Salut, demeure," in French, he reportedly refused to make complete recording any of his French roles -- and Gounod's Faust and Roméo were two of his greatest -- because he didn't want critics attacking his French. In fact, as you'll hear, it was pretty darned good. (I see, by the way, that Sony has initiated a new series of Met broadcast issues which includes the famous 1947 Sayão-Bjoerling Gounod Roméo et Juliette.)

Content note: The CD track that contains the di Stefano-Pelletier performance continues on with the brief Faust-Méphisto exchange on up to the point of Marguerite's entrance, which is where we'll pick up in tomorrow night's preview. The Bjoerling-Cleva performance, for which I made my own digital file, stops before the applause that greeted the aria, which -- trust me -- was ample.

GOUNOD: Faust: Act III, Recitative and Aria, Faust, "Quel trouble inconnu me pénètre" . . . "Salut, demeure chaste et pure"

Recitative
What unknown trouble penetrates my heart.
I feel love taking possession of my soul.
O Marguerite, at your feet here I am!

Aria
Hail, chaste and pure dwelling,
Where can be felt the presence
of an innocent and divine soul.
What richness in this poverty!
In this hideaway, what felicity!
What richness in this poverty!
In this hideaway, what felicity!

O nature!
It's there that you made her so beautiful.
It's there that this child slept under your wing,
grew up under your eyes.
There that, your breath
enveloping her soul,
with love you made
the woman blossom
into this angel of the heavens!

Hail, chaste and pure dwelling &c.

Giuseppe di Stefano (t), Faust; Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Wilfred Pelletier, cond. Live performance, Dec. 31, 1949
Jussi Bjoerling (t), Faust; Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Fausto Cleva, cond. Live performance, Dec. 23, 1950

AND NOW, JUST BECAUSE WE CAN . . .

. . . and, well, for fun, let's jump ahead nearly a decade and hear how di Stefano (in a 1958-ish studio recital recording of the aria, his Faust-ing days being well behind him, I believe) and Bjoerling (from a 1959 Faust broadcast) were holding up. Actually, not badly in either case. For the 1958-vintage di Stefano the aria can't have been easy, and he does insist on his rather than Gounod's rhythms, but he still manages better pretty darned well. Bjoerling, meanwhile, less than a year from his untimely death, is sounding if anything better in 1959 than in 1950.

Giuseppe di Stefano (t), Faust; Tonhalle Orchestra (Zurich), Franco Patané, cond. Decca, recorded c1958
Jussi Bjoerling (t), Faust; Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Jean Morel, cond. Live performance, Dec. 19, 1959

Of course a great native French-speaking tenor can make the sound as well as sense of the words a potent weapon in his expressive arsenal. That said, it would be hard to imagine two tenors more unlike than the radiant Georges Thill and the less elegant but vibrantly plain-spoken Corsican César Vezzani. (The Vezzani performance is from the complete 1930 recording of Faust with Marcel Journet, who had been the Méphisto of Victor's 1906 recordings of Faust excerpts with Caruso and Geraldine Farrar, in the role.)

You'll note that Thill does something absolutely extraordinary here, and almost brings it off: He attacks the high C softly, kind of the way Gounod wrote it. For even upper-caliber tenors it's a formidable enough task just to land a ringing high C; the more sensitive among them may attack it in full voice and then, if all goes well, taper the volume off to a more appropriate sound. Thill doesn't fudge it at all, and produces a very different effect with the moment.

Georges Thill (t), Faust; orchestra, Eugène Bigot, cond. Pathé, recorded March 6, 1930
César Vezzani (t), Faust; Paris Opera Orchestra, Henri Büsser, cond. Pathé, recorded 1930

Finally, it may seem unfair to toss him in with this competition, but I think the enormously likable American John Alexander, who made regrettably few recordings (the only operatic role I can think of is Pollione in the first Sutherland Norma) holds his own very nicely, I think, though the French is decidedly so-so. (Tomorrow night and Sunday we're going to continue listening through the Garden Scene from this Faust, with Gabriella Tucci as Marguerite and Justino Díaz as Méphisto. And if we get into the opera's opening scene on Sunday, we may well hear Alexander and Díaz do that too.)

John Alexander (t), Faust; Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Alain Lombard, cond. Live performance, Dec. 24, 1966


IN TOMORROW NIGHT'S PREVIEW . . .

Méphisto executes his plan to attract Marguerite's attention for Faust. Then on Sunday we hear the plan come to fruition.


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