Louise Bertin: La Esmeralda

[giles.enders]

What I know Louise Bertin for is that she was the first person to write a 'Faust' opera.

[khorovod]

Spohr's Faust came before Bertin's but it was revised in 1850-something. I don't know if anyone treated the subject earlier than Spohr in 1813...?

[eschiss1]

Do we know exactly when Ignaz Seyfried composed his "Faust: eine dramatische Legende in 5 Acten"? Overture published in 1817- but...

[Derek Hughes]

Spohr's Faust came before Bertin's but it was revised in 1850-something. I don't know if anyone treated the subject earlier than Spohr in 1813...?

The New Grove Dictionary names Spohr's Faust as the first significant Faust opera. It is, of course, independent of Goethe. Grove lists several other early operas based on the Faust legend: by Müller (1784), Walter (1787), Hanke (1794), Lickl (1799), and Strauss (1815). There are three further Faust operas between Spohr and Bertin.

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

So what do you think?

[Alan Howe]

It was interesting - but not great music, as far as I can remember. I'll have to give it another go, but I'm currently listening to Verdi's Otello, so it'll feel like a heck of a come-down. Watch this space - but don't hold your breath...

[Derek Hughes]

Do we know exactly when Ignaz Seyfried composed his "Faust: eine dramatische Legende in 5 Acten"? Overture published in 1817- but...

As far as I can make out, this is not an opera but incidental music to Klingemann's play of 1815. See the German Wikipedia: http://de.wikisource.org/wiki/BLK%C3%96:Seyfried,_Ignaz_Ritter_von, which dates the music to 1816: 'Chöre und Instrumentalsätze zu ,,Faust". Dramatische Legende in 5 Aufzügen von Klingemann. Die Ouverture erschien bei Breitkopf und Härtel im Stich.' It is not in the list of Seyfried's operas in The Grove Dictionary of Opera. The MS full score of the overture, however, which is available online, does describe it as an opera: http://www.youscribe.com/catalogue/partitions-et-tablatures/art-musique-et-cinema/partitions-de-musique-classique/partition-complete-faust-seyfried-ignaz-1225201.

[eschiss1]

hrm...
maybe flowing/fuzzy categories...

[Derek Hughes]

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

I've now listened to La Esmeralda. I don't quite agree with the charge of incompetence: this is the work of someone who has done her harmony exercises carefully, and can even on occasion produce tasteful harmonic surprises. The problem, imo, is that she can do nothing else. The melodic invention is sometimes phenomenally trivial (parts of 'Il enlevait une fille', for example), and at times she seems to be not so much composing as transcribing and harmonizing notes picked out with one finger on the piano. Rarely are the melodic units more than a few notes long: there isn't a single long breathed, unfolding melody in the whole work.

I feel with this, as I do with some other composers featured on this board (Heinrich Hofmann, for instance), that we are asking too much of works which could pass as competent apprentice pieces, but no more. I'm relieved that, in this case, other people share my lack of enthusiasm.

[eschiss1]

Hrm, if you like. Haven't heard Bertin yet, but -quite- liked Hofmann's piano quartet.

[eschiss1]

Very very belatedly- I asked awhile ago (I think I did (hrm. sleepy much, Eric...)) whether there was any independent evidence whether Liszt made a vocal score of Bertin's Esmeralda? Something like that? This proved to be easy to find now in the days of everything-being-digitized-

here - look next to "18." (Esmeralda, opéra en quatre actes, paroles de M. Victor Hugo, musique de Mlle Louise Bertin; arrangé pour le piano, par F. Listz : romance chantée par Mlle"... - just lists some excerpts from it published by Troupenas of Paris (I think on an earlier page or earlier volume one may find the complete vocal score) but that's in the general direction.

(BTW If that link is not accessible outside the US or something (because it's at archive.org) gallica.bnf.fr also has many many issues scanned in (appropriately- it's French heritage, their national bibliography magazine, and a very important record), can try to find the link there. Useful resource generally anyway if I haven't mentioned. There's some others I among others have been looking for (online mostly, though I have more interloan access now), sometimes finding, for that reason - it's useful to have a record of publications and their copyrights. ... anyhoo.)

[Alan Howe]

The whole opera can now be heard on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tEP6_VCwyI