Franck - Hulda (Freiburg Oper)

[Alan Howe]

Heldenarbeit! Thanks!

[Kevin]

Much appreciated hadrianus.

[BerlinExpat]

Adriano, I think you must look at act 4 and the epilogue again. Your epilogue starts with the Ronde ( 5th ballet movement). My recollection from the theatre and this recording is that the epilogue begins at 54:04 minutes if you run act 4 and the epilogue together.

I know I'm being pedantic, but why 4 acts when the theatre programme and all other sources state prologue, three acts and an epilogue. I know theatres often split works differently to avoid multiple intervals, but in a recording I don't understand the necessity to annotate differently.

[Alan Howe]

Thanks, Adriano, for all your hard work in recording the broadcast.

[Mark Thomas]

The vocal score at IMSLP designates them Acts 1-4 and Epilogue. The Epilogue does indeed begin in this performance where BerlinExpat indicates.

[adriano]

Nobody is perfect!

The corrected version is in the Downloads board.

(Edited by Alan Howe)

[Alan Howe]

Many thanks, Adriano. You'll see that I've replaced the link in the Downloads board.

[adriano]

My pleasure, Alan
As mentioned earlier, I did not listen, but just guess, since I am very busy these days...

[Alan Howe]

You have preserved for us something wonderful. Bollon is evidently a gifted conductor and the orchestra sounds magnificent.

When you have some time, do give us your overall assessment of the music...

[Alan Howe]

In the meantime, here's an interesting view:

Description by Adrian Corleonis:

D'Indy dismissed the operas of Franck's last decade as mere "attempts at dramatic music," and "to tell the truth, less dramatic than his oratorios." This hardly prepares one for their bloodthirstiness, nor for the gusto with which Franck laced into it. Hulda, for instance, was a labor of love that occupied him from 1879 to 1885, years spanned by composition of the erotically writhing Quintet for Piano and Strings and the imposing Prélude, Choral et Fugue for piano while embracing Le Chasseur maudit (1882), Les Djinns (1884), and the Variations symphoniques (1885). Despite the crude dramaturgy of the libretto -- by Charles Grandmougin after a play by Bjornsterne Bjornson -- featuring (as numerous critics gleefully pointed out) a corpse at the end of every act, Franck's portrait of the eponymous heroine, a noire character and literal femme fatale (soprano falcon), is compelling and the music, despite its eclecticism, is not only some of his very best but crests dramatic highpoints clinchingly, leading the action inexorably forward. Orchestra and chorus play an eloquently large role, while symphonic interludes color the score with an atmospheric exoticism extending to modal writing and the occasional employment of Norwegian folk melodies. Things Norwegian were then in vogue -- Grieg's piano works were newly popular; Norwegian conductor and violinist Johan Svendsen was famously active in Paris from the end of the Franco-Prussian War; Castillon composed a Marche scandinave (1872) and Lalo his Fantaisie norvégienne for violin and orchestra (1880) and orchestral Rapsodie norvegienne (1881). For Franck, however, the song of Norway was less local color than the mystical voice of the fjords bespeaking a legendary eleventh century demesne felt from Hulda's opening bars and present at full strength in such things as the second act "Chanson de l'Hermine" and Cortège et Choeur des Fiancés, the Entr'acte pastorale between the second and third acts, the fourth act's strangely beguiling Marche royale, and, above all, the five-movement allegorical ballet, "Combat of Winter and Spring," which looks forward to the works Debussy would compose in the era following Franck's death in 1890. In Franck's vocal score most of these numbers are arranged for piano, four hands. Eiolf and Hulda's sensual, ecstatic love duet in Act III is among the most passionately arresting in nineteenth century French opera. Parisian and provincial opera houses gave Franck the runaround -- Hulda was not staged until after his death, at the Théâtre de Monte-Carlo on March 4, 1894, in a truncated, retouched version directed by Raoul Gunsbourg.
https://www.allmusic.com/composition/hulda-opera-in-4-acts-fwv-49-mc0002508836

[Kevin]

Yes I agree. I find the work to be special maybe because I've long cherished a desire to listen to it.

[Alan Howe]

I'm pleased to report that the performance features a very good American tenor, Joshua Kohl, whose website reveals that Hulda is soon to be released by Naxos: http://www.joshuakohltenor.com/about. Unfortunately, it seems that it will be on DVD: https://www.mirshakartists.com/joshua-kohl, thus preserving an absolutely hideous production.

[Kevin]

That's very good to hear!

EDIT: Oh Lord it says DVD!

EDIT 2: why they had to do that for such a extremely obscure opera is behind me. A bloody shame!

[Alan Howe]

Yes - hence my own edit, above.

[Alan Howe]

why they had to do that for such a extremely obscure opera is behind me

It's certainly beyond me. But that's the world of German 'Regieoper', I'm afraid:

Regieoper (German for director's opera) is a form of Regietheater specific to opera. In Regieoper, the stage director assumes a central role in determining the concept of an opera, often exchanging the established traditions related to that opera for an approach that may or may not adhere to the composer's or librettist's original intention. The director's approach may include but is not limited to changing the staging intended by the composer or librettist, modernizing the story to reflect contemporary political controversies, and infusing the production with shock value (most often, sexuality).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regieoper