Reyer's Sigurd broadcast today

[scottevan]

Sorry for the late notice, but just discovered this:

Ernest Reyer, grand opera in four acts, "Sigurd"  2 p.m. Eastern Time on Espace 2. 

The listing:  Un opéra en 4 actes et 9 tableaux enregistré en octobre 2013 au Victoria Hall de Genève. Avec Andrea Carè, Anna Caterina Antonacci, Anne Sophie Duprels, Marie-Ange Todorovitch, Michael Helmer, Nicolas Courjal, le Chœur du Grand Théâtre de Genève, l'Orchestre de la Suisse Romande.  Direction : Frédéric Chas

I believe this is a concert recording.  Hope that the folks who were talking about this opera on a thread back in February will be tuning in! Apart from Meyerbeer, this is about as grand as French opera gets. And though it comes from roughly the same poetic/legendary source, quite different from Wagner's Ring.  Well worth the listen!

[Alan Howe]

Thanks for this. Is anyone able to record it, please?

[Mark Thomas]

Yes, please! I'm away from home at present and so can't record it.

[scottevan]

It appears that there's another opportunity to hear "Sigurd" on the German station MDR Figaro, broadcast today at 2 p.m. Eastern time.  I believe it's from a live performance taped yesterday.  (Sorry,  I'll be unable to record.) For  those who love either French grand opera or count themselves as Wagnerians, this is a must.

[BerlinExpat]

I recorded Sigurd from MDR Figaro yesterday but won't post it on account of a fairly large number of 'drop-outs' which even when removed are partly audible. (Does the weather affect internet radio?) The broadcast will be repeated on February 21st on Deutschlandradio Kultur at 19:05. The performance is exemplary but cut, running at 2h 28m.
I also have the concert performance with Anna Caterina Antonacci from Geneva last year, running at 2h 40m if anyone is interested.
Both are shorter than Rosenthal (Paris 1973) and Neuhold (Montpellier 1993) which both are about 3h 20m long.
This wonderful opera really needs a definitive recording - perhaps something for Palazetto Bru Zane. I recall that not even the first performance was complete!

[Mark Thomas]

I missed the broadcast and can't find a "listen again" option with MDR Kultur. I for one would be very interested in your recording of the Geneva performance, Colin, if you wouldn't mind uploading it. Sigurd is a really fine piece, still unaccountably lacking a modern, full, commercial recording.

[Alan Howe]

This recording is very fine - and probably better sung than any of the more recent performances too. The sound is excellent, by the way; it could have been made yesterday...
http://premiereopera.net/product/sigurd-by-reyer-with-massard-chauvet-paris-1973/

[Mark Thomas]

Ah, thanks Alan. I'll go and prise open my wallet...

[Alan Howe]

It is truly superlative. No messin'!

[Alan Howe]

...in fact I'd say this 1973 performance is one of the great recordings of any opera. Apart from the quality of the conducting and playing (truly inspiring), it catches a great era of French singers, e.g. Andréa Guiot, Guy Chauvet, Robert Massard, Ernest Blanc and Jules Bastin.

By the way: the opera, despite its subject (which suggests Wagner), is much more son-of-Berlioz. If you love Les Troyens as much as I do, this is a worthy successor. I imagine the PremiereOpera recording is identical with this one mentioned on Wikipedia:

Le Chant du Monde, Harmonia Mundi LDC 27891719: concert ORTF, commercial recording of Sigurd, 1973, in studio, 3 CD, total 191 min), Rosenthal conducting, with the following cast: Guy Chauvet (tenor), Robert Massard (baritone), Jules Bastin (bass), Ernest Blanc (baritone), Nicolas Christou (bass-baritone), Bernard Demigny (baritone), Jean Dupouy (tenor), Claude Méloni (baritone), Jean Louis Soumagnas, Andréa Guiot (soprano), Andrée Esposito (soprano), Denise Scharley (mezzo-soprano).

[eschiss1]

Lately this always gets me confused with Dorn's Nibelung opera (which -was- composed/premiered (1854?) before Wagner's Ring cycle, unlike Rey[er]'s Sigurd, which was finished, anyway, in the year Wagner died.)  ... Going to have to see if there's a recording of the Dorn, too...

[BerlinExpat]

Reyer completed Sigurd in the 1860s and had to wait many years to find a theatre willing to perform it. The Paris Opéra initially rejected it on account of the Germanic subject (Francco-Prussian War and all that) and only staged it after the successful première in Brussels. There followed over 200 performances on various stages until the outbreak of WW1.

[Mark Thomas]

Many thanks for making the Geneva recording available here, Colin. Much appreciated.

[Alan Howe]

Here's a very good review of the 1973 recording posted by Ralph Moore at Amazon.com:

First performed in 1884, of Wagnerian length at just over three hours and with a plot which uses the same elements adapted from the Lay of the Nibelungs that we find in the last scene of "Siegfried" and the three Acts of "Götterdämmerung", the similarities between "Sigurd" and Wagner's mammoth works are nonetheless coincidental, as Reyer's sketches predate the first performances in Paris of the last parts of the "Ring" by nearly two decades. It has since borne the fate of being first overshadowed then eclipsed by Wagner's Gesamtkunstwerke.

It was in fact in some ways as retrogressive as Wagner's music was innovative, being very much in the tradition of French heroic Grand Opera and evidently heavily indebted to French predecessors, especially Berlioz, echoes of whom are constant throughout the opera. At times a little bombastic, it thus at its worst recalls the empty pomp of Meyerbeer, although despite the heavy orchestration with its over-use of cymbals, I found although a libretto is available on the Internet - French only - no translation - I had no need of recourse to it, so clear is the diction of the artists recorded here. The frequent use of shimmering strings and the deployment of heavy brass do seem to recall Wagner but that, too, must be coincidental and more often than not I found myself remembering features of Berlioz's two great operas, "Les troyens" and "Benvenuto Cellini" and there are passages of "spirit music" in Act II which anticipate Massenet's "Esclarmonde". not performed until 1889.

Although Wagner by no means invented its use, another Wagnerian feature in "Sigurd" is the use - indeed, over-use - of motifs. Wagner made much more subtle and varied use of them, whereas Sigurd's theme - a heroic, stentorian, ascending brass figure - and Brunehild's calling card, "La Valkyrie est ta conquête", are decidedly over-exposed, although at least memorable and effective, which cannot be said of all Reyer's melodies. He has a fine sense of the dramatic and his orchestration is striking, but he does not share Berlioz's melodic fecundity. He can resort to "note-spinning" and his long tunes are sometimes either too diffuse or too obvious, hence the two-note minor-third invocation of the gods sounded in the opening and throughout Act II is rather crude and over-repetitive.

The opera is especially strong in ensembles of a rousing nature such as the drinking and hunting choruses, and also duets, trios and quartets, such as the confrontations between Hilda and Brunehild over their love for Sigurd - where the Hilda's opening phrases. "Jeune reine, ma soeur" remind us of Gluck, another influence over Reyer - the extended duet between Brunehild and Gunther in Act III, the trio in Act II "Ô Brunehild, ô vierge armée" and little gems like the music for the quartet of Attila's emissaries in Act I. Sigurd's death is a little anticlimactic musically, although the build-up to his murder is similar in tension and atmosphere to the scene in "Pelléas et Mélisande" just before Golaud stabs Pelléas, and Brunhild's lament "Sigurd est mort" strikes home. The apotheosis of the last scene is highly effective if musically conventional.

The cast could hardly be bettered, featuring some of the best French singers of the era. This was a studio recording in 1973; the stereo sound, conducting, playing and singing could hardly be better given its provenance, the chorus being lusty and committed, the orchestral sound first rate and Rosenthal's direction utterly apt. Andréa Guiot's Brunehild appears a little earlier than Wagner's Brünnhilde in "Siegfried", but still not until half way through the opera and it's worth the wait: she has a big, creamy, vibrant sound worthy of a mortal who was formerly a goddess and she has less edge and "scratch" in her voice than Crespin, who also liked this role. Andrée Esposito is fine as a febrile Hilda and mezzo Denise Scharley similarly satisfying as her nurse. Listening to excerpts sung by Georges Thill and César Vezzani makes you realise just how marvellous the role of Sigurd can be made to sound by a tenor of exceptional quality but Guy Chauvet does not let the side down. He has a rather hard, constricted sound and begins a little tentatively, struggling a little with his top notes, but he soon warms up and makes a lovely job of his big aria, "Esprits gardiens", starting in a melting mezza voce before swelling his tone into full voice. A great treat for me is hearing Robert Massard, the finest French baritone of his generation and in my opinion a much under-rated singer.His French baritone counterpart, Ernest Blanc, a Bayreuth regular as Telramund, is also impressive as the High Priest with his dark, grainy tone. Belgian bass Jules Bastin is in fine, elegant voice as Hagen, making much of his spritely aria announcing Gunther's nuptials.The only relative blot is the growly, unsteady Bard with his uncertain intonation in low notes.

Unfortunately this wonderful memento of a once prized but now nearly forgotten has not been re-issued since its first appearance on CD in 1989 and copies are rare. I obtained mine on eBay from a gifted private producer and sound restoration specialist friend who makes transfers from LP to CD of very high quality for private use; as a bonus, arias by Thill and Crespin are appended. It is by no means a perfect work but I thoroughly enjoyed listening to it twice through with hardly a break.

[adriano]

The Manuel Rosenthal ORTF performance is absolutely magnificent!