Louise Bertin: La Esmeralda

[Alan Howe]

Has anyone come across this interesting-sounding opera by Louise Bertin (1805-1877), La Esmeralda?>
http://www.amazon.fr/La-Esmeralda-Louise-Bertin/dp/B002698DCU/ref=pd_luc_s9_art_02_03_t_lh?ie=UTF8&psc=1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louise_Bertin

[BerlinExpat]

Yes, I've known La Esmeralda ever since Radio France broadcast it from Montpellier in 2008. Why it failed at the time of its première in 1836 is difficult to understand because it's highly romantic and can really compete with much written around the time. As so often with such rarities from unknown composers, one is left wanting to hear more. It was her last opera and although it's not always the case, probably her finest, but hearing Guy Mannering or her rendering of The Werewolf or even her Faust will probably remain an unfilled wish.

[edurban]

I bought this a few years back, and after I listened to it I thought about posting, but my reaction was so negative I decided not to bother.  The short of it: it shows the influence of Berlioz, who was said ca. 1836 to have been paid big money by the Bertin family to help not-so-young Louise's opera to the stage.  It certainly sounds eccentrically Berliozish in places, but without not only genius, but compositional skill and basic theatrical instinct.  Characterisation is nil, the shape of individual numbers is peculiar and unsatisfying, the dramatic construction of scenes is either highly idiosyncratic or more likely, imo, just incompetent.  The libretto is by no less than Victor Hugo himself, who was also said to have been paid a mint by the Bertins.  Esmeralda seems to me a 19th century vanity production of the most shameless sort, and my trek through it went literally from disappointment to disappointment.  Listen to excerpts on Youtube before you buy...after all, the box is substantial and takes up a lot of valuable shelf space.  I wanted to like this opera, and I wanted to find it unjustly neglected, like, for example, William Henry Fry's Notre Dame of Paris.  But it isn't.  Imo.

David

[Alan Howe]

I've ordered it, so I'll let you know what I think...

[Mark Thomas]

So you didn't take to it, then, David?  I've just bought the set out of curiosity and now I'm as ready to enjoy it for what it isn't as for what it is. I must say that it was a very French buying experience. I would have bought downloads, but they don't seem to be allowed to the UK. It's available on iTunes, but not if you live in the UK. It's available in France, but not if you live in the UK. Vive l'entente cordiale! So in the end I was effectively forced to buy the box set, but got my own back by getting it from an amazon.fr supplier based in Germany! As for valuable shelf space, I'll rip the tracks, keep the booklet and the box itself goes into store. Standard Thomas practice these days.

[Alan Howe]

Standard Howe practice is to listen carefully to all the audio excerpts - and then to order. So, we'll see whether it's any good when it arrives...

[petershott@btinternet.com]

Standard Shott practice is to go to the timber yard and buy yet more planks to construct extra shelves. The sheer quantity of the stuff is getting out of hand. (But, no, I'm not after well-meaning lectures on alternative technologies).

I haven't heard the opera (I suspect I should add 'yet'), but I remember reading far more positive accounts of it than that of David. Hopefully Alan and Mark might furnish a view? I can't think the opera is wholly awful (it was welcomed by its first audiences until the critics hacked at it.) And many of us spend delighted hours reading 'interesting' and 'not of the first rank' Victorian novels so that the really great ones stand out the more. If we do that with profit in the case of literature, why not with opera?

[edurban]

The funny thing is that I enjoy many flawed operas, and many flawed Victorian novels!  Every once in a while, though, something really strikes a nerve...(like Thackeray's awful Henry Esmond -and this from a man whose favorite novel is The Newcomes.)  I think my reaction was a little colored by the fact that, like Mark, I had to jump through hoops to get my copy.  But it's more than that.  I felt imposed on by Berlioz's denial that he was just paying the bills on this one.

David

PS. The idea of a Louise Bertin Faust puts me in a cold sweat.

[eschiss1]

You're reminding me that I've been  looking forward to reading (listening to an audiobook version of) Daniel Deronda soon, and now I'm wondering who's made an operatic setting of it- I only see one in a quick search. (The novel I'm slowly reading/listening to now has at least one intriguing setting, from 1925, by Jeno Hubay.) But... anyway. Back to Bertin, whose La Esmeralda I seem to recall _was_ requested in vocal score (or full score, or parts, or whathave) @IMSLP by someone along with some other works- yes, that is the case- it has not yet been uploaded by anyone, though.

[Mark Thomas]

I think my reaction was a little colored by the fact that, like Mark, I had to jump through hoops to get my copy.  But it's more than that.  I felt imposed on by Berlioz's denial that he was just paying the bills on this one.

I know what you mean, David. In an ideal world I'd be able to approach new music quite dispassionately, unaffected by such extra-musical influences. But I can't, either.

[TerraEpon]

Interesting trivia about this work: In the original Serle catalog of Liszt's works, Liszt was said to have made a vocal score of the entire opera. He even goes into some detail about it in (the catalog is attached to a book that discusses Liszt's music). It's been since proven spurious, though.

[eschiss1]

as in, someone else made the arrangement, or spurious in some other sense?

[TerraEpon]

Someone else did it, as the vocal score and some extracts (assigned different numbers) exists.
Oddly enough it mentioned in one of the earlier releases from the Liszt piano edition (with a condescending "why?" attached to it), but the catalog included with the final volume -- done by Howard who prepared a full catalog of Liszt ouvure a few years ago -- mentions it's not by him (and as it's a vocal score, not for piano even though it's in the piano section of Serle's catalog).

[eschiss1]

Is this someone other than Humphrey Searle (composer, pianist, Liszt scholar, participant in Hoffnung Festivals, etc.) or does he lose his A grade because he missed such things (which perhaps explains, folk-tale-fashion, how Raabe has two of them)...

[eschiss1]

Anyone know Bertin's other music? There's a piano trio mentioned as having been published toward the end of her life... her Op.10, which I see is in the possession of a few libraries.