On this week’s Opera House, we’re featuring Léo Delibes Lakmé, the beautiful but ultimately tragic love story of the daughter of a Brahmin priest and a British military officer in colonial India. Lakmé contains two very famous numbers, the Bell Song (a coloratura soprano favorite) and the Flower Duet (used in Ghiradelli chocolates and British Airways TV commercials). Delibes, who was born on February 21, 1836, is perhaps best known as the composer of the ballets Coppélia and Sylvia. Based on Pierre Lotis 1880 autobiographical nover Rarahu, ou Le Mariage de Loti, the opera was first heard at Pariss Opéra Comique on April 14, 1883. Set in nineteenth-century colonial India, the British Army officer Gérald (tenor Gregory Kunde) falls in love with Lakmé (soprano Natalie Dessay), daughter of Nilakantha (bass-baritone José Van Dam), a Brahmin priest. Lakmé and her servant Mallika (mezzo-soprano Delphine Haidan) venture down to the river to gather flowers and to bathe, removing their jewels. Swearing to take revenge on the violator of his temple, Nilakantha forces Lakmé, who’s in love with the English officer, to sing at the bazaar so as to identify the culprit. When Gérald appears, Lakmé faints, thus giving him away. Later, Nilakantha stabs Gérald but Lakmé nurses him back to health at a secret forest hideout, where he is eventually found by his fellow officer, Frédéric (baritone Franck Leguérinel), who persuades Gérald to return to his military duties. When Lakmé returns to the hideout, she senses the change in her lover and commits suicide by eating the poisonous datura leaf. Michel Plasson conducts the orchestra and chorus of the Capitole de Toulouse in this 1997 EMI Classics recording. From a 2007 concert in Baden-Baden, Germany, here’s Anna Netrebko as Lakmé and Elīna Garanča as Mallika singing “Dôme épais, le jasmine” (Flower Duet): youtu.be/Vf42IP__ipw. As a bonus, Id like to show you another side of French coloratura soprano Natalie Dessay. Well hear her sing the Fauns second aria, Dal tuo gentil sembiante, from the 15-year-old Wolfgang Amadeus Mozarts 1771 opera Ascanio in Alba. This Saturday, December 6th, at noon the Metropolitan Opera begins its weekly matinee broadcasts with Gioacchino Rossinis Il Barbiere di Siviglia (The Barber of Seville). Christopher Maltman is Figaro; hes joined by Lawrence Brownlee (Count Almaviva), Isabel Leonard (Rosina), Maurizio Muraro (Dr. Bartolo), and Paata Burchuladze (Don Basilio). Next Thursday, December 11th, in an expanded edition of the Opera House celebrating the 211th anniversary of the birth of Hector Berlioz, I’ll present a live 2000 recording of Les Troyens (The Trojans), conducted by Sir Colin Davis. It features Petra Lang (Cassandra), Peter Mattei (Chorebus), Michelle De Young (Dido), Ben Heppner (Aeneas), Sara Mingardo (Anna), and Stephen Milling (Narbal). The Opera House is heard every Thursday evening at 7 o’clock in the Eastern time zone on 89.7 FM in central North Carolina, and we’re streamed online at theclassicalstation.org.
Posted on: Wed, 03 Dec 2014 12:25:57 +0000
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