69.00 PLN

2 CD:

Nr kat.: BLV107240
Label  : Bella Voce

L. E. Cantrell 5.0 out of 5 starsTourangeau in good live performance at bargain price 27 September 2005 - Published on Amazon.com Verified Purchase SOURCE: Live performance at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, January 1977. SOUND: Quite good for a live performance. Both the voices and the orchestra are well-captured. The Canadian audience is (no surprise) generally quiet, restrained and polite. CAST: MIGNON - Huguette Tourangeau WILHELM MEISTER - Henri Wilden LAERTE - Antonio Santos LOTHARIO - Pierre Charbonneau PHILINE - Noelle Rogers FREDERIC - Michael Philip Davis GIARNO/ANTONIO - Edgar Hanson CONDUCTOR: Richard BONYNGE with the Vancouver Opera Orchestra and Chorus. DOCUMENTATION: No libretto. Allusive references to the plot but no full summary. A curiously apologetic history of the opera. Short biographical sketch of Huguette Tourangeau and thumbnail bios of Noelle Rogers and Henri Wilden. Track list that identifies characters singing and provides timings. FORMAT: Disk 1, Act I, 14 tracks; Act II, 7 tracks; 78:29. Disk 2, Act II (conclusion), 7 tracks; Act III, 6 tracks; alternative finale, 2 tracks; 72:28. TEXT: The final two numbers, deemed anticlimactic and cut out after early outings of this opera, are included in this performance. "Mignon," along with Gounod's "Faust" and Massenet's "Werther," are operatic proof of the fascination exerted by Goethe over the French. "Mignon" dates from 1866 when Louis Napoleon's ramshackle Second Empire was at its giddiest so, of course, the opera comique tacks a Gallic happy ending onto a Germanically gloomy tale. COMMENTARY: The Amazon listing notwithstanding, this is not a production of the Rome Opera House. This "Mignon" springs from my very own home town, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. It dates from those rumbustious and ultimately catastrophic years when Richard Bonynge and his Merry Pranksters used Vancouver as a tryout town. After all, who in the operatic world cared if Bonynge, Sutherland & Co. fell on their collective faces among the moose, mountains and Mounties? As it happens, this is one of the successes from those otherwise dismal times. Tourangeau is excellent. She had a full but agile mezzo voice. Her sound was light and youthful, making her an excellent Adelgisa with Sutherland in "Norma" and an effective Nicklausse/Muse in the Sutherland-Domingo "Tales of Hofmann." Admittedly, she was in the shade cast by Joan Sutherland and Richard Bonynge, but I have never quite understood why her career did not blossom when apart from them. She is very much the star of this piece and is worth the price of the recording. The rest of the cast, as is typical for a Vancouver Opera production, is competent and wholly forgettable. Bonynge's conducting is neither more nor less than expected of him. "Mignon" is a deservedly obscure opera that is lightly pleasing, mildly tuneful and single-mindedly second class. This recording is exactly what it purports to be: a well-recorded, enjoyable performance built around a fine mezzo soprano offered at an attractive price. For anyone interested in hearing "Mignon," this set is worthy of five stars. LEC/AM/09-05