I have never read much about Reyer, so this important article published at MusicWeb is very welcome:
http://musicweb-international.com/classrev/2016/Sep/Reyer_article.htm (http://musicweb-international.com/classrev/2016/Sep/Reyer_article.htm)
Thanks for posting this interesting article! Detailed and interesting, not just a summary. Though the introduction might be a tad more sober; I thought adjectives like "highminded" were a thing of the past (the spell checker seems to agree...).
I learned a lot of things I had no idea were even around to learn.
When Orson Welles and Benny Herrmann discussed the (exhilarating, but tragic) operatic scenes in "Citizen Kane", they had intended using an aria from Reyer's "Salammbo", but the publisher asked a crazy sum for material hire, so Herrmann decided to compose an aria of his own, but in the style of Reyer - and he did a splendid thing!
How interesting. Any idea what the Herrmann aria is called?
"Salammbo's Aria"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwFtHTZnbF0
And on that famous Herrmann RCA LP/CD of 1974 (conducted by Charles Gerhardt) it is marvellously sung by Kiri te Kanava!
Here Kiri's later performance in concert...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrwTzh0X1H8
and what about these?? :-)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3wVmmB2F1g
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7ZUNJ6GSIc
In the original soundtrack of "Citizen Kane", the aria is (on purpose) unsufficiently well sung by soprano Jean Forward.
Welles and Herrmann were also aware that Mussorgsky had composed an opera on "Salammbo", but at that time nobody had completed it yet. In the original film script, there is the talk, however, of using an aria of Massenet's "Thais".
Thanks! Wonderful! You've just got to love what Herrmann produced here...
And here's that fabulous early Kiri performance:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Gu7-HsCBfY (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Gu7-HsCBfY)
" In the original film script, there is the talk, however, of using an aria of Massenet's "Thais"."
And the Hermann aria sounds a lot more like a Massenet parody than a Reyer one.
Well, there's surely a lot of Strauss in it too...