United Kingdom Lalo, Le roi d’Ys (live performance efficiency): Soloists, Chelsea Opera Group Refrain and Orchestra / Paul Wingfield (conductor). Cadogan Corridor, London, 30.3.2025. (CC)
Forged:
Margared – Maria Schellenberg
Rozenn – Hye-Youn Lee
Mylio – Luis Gomez
Prince Karnac – Alexey Gusev
Le Roi – Thomas D. Hopkinson
Jahel – Ross Cumming
St Corentin – Edward Jowle
Gallicism meets Wagnerism (Debussy wasn’t the one one) in Edouard Lalo’s Le roi d’Ys. As early because the Overture it’s unattainable to not hear Lohengrin the harmonic vocabulary, though that was maybe much less pronounced on this Chelsea Opera Group (COG) efficiency than in some (André Cluytens, in his traditional recording with a solid together with Rita Gorr, for instance).
COG specialises within the revivification of the weird or forgotten and at all times presents the outcomes with aplomb. The orchestra, whereas not on the best skilled degree, provides its all and incorporates particular person members able to delivering nice magnificence in Lalo’s numerous solos, together with cellist Sam Whitby and clarinetist Alan Maries, who appear ripe for particular person remark.
The refrain performs a big half in Lalo’s 1888 opera (to a libretto by Édouard Blau) and certainly opens the piece with a celebration of Noël (‘Noêl! C’est l’aurore bénie’); pre-echoes of Massenet‘s Werther, maybe, premiered practically 4 years after the Lalo. There may be some merciless soprano writing concerned, and the COG refrain managed properly. Jahel, the King’s herald, will get a superb exercise on this opening scene, and baritone Ross Cumming gave his all; it was the duet between Margared and Rozenn that begins the opera’s dramatic trajectory, although, setting forth the backstory of Margared’s love for Mylio (regardless of being betrothed to Prince Karnac as a part of a conflict truce). Casting was fastidiously judged: soprano Hye-Youn Lee has a powerful, barely darkish soprano in opposition to Maria Schellenberg’s forthright mezzo-soprano as Margared. However, regardless of their distance aside on the stage, the 2 sparked off one another brilliantly as Lalo’s harmonic shadows eclipsed their exchanges like an encroaching nightfall. Lee’s duets with Mylio have been an actual spotlight. I notice Lee will sing Cio-Cio-San later this 12 months (June/July) at Grange Park which might be one to diary.
Apparently, Lalo makes common use of the complete gamut of the soprano vary in Margared’s half – the singer is as prone to be low down as excessive up, so the requirement is a performer with totally developed vary all through, and Schellenberg was in a position to mission each ends. Lalo truly has Margared’s recitative – which opens the second act – low down and stays within the decrease to mid side for some appreciable time; the impact is to convey Margared’s disquiet in addition to to throw into aid the phrases that later soar. Schellenberg was excellent right here, as Margared ruminates on Mylio loving Rozenn and never her, as she was within the opera’s remaining moments as Margared gives herself as sacrifice in a Tosca-like second (jettisoning herself into water versus off a rampart). My earlier expertise of Schellenberg was singing Megacle in Vivaldi L’Olimpiade’s on the Linbury whereas Gemma Ní Bhriain walked the half. Good to expertise her as deliberate, and good to listen to a singer whose profession can solely blossom: I notice she received the Michael Oliver Prize on the London Handel Singing Competitors, an esteemed occasion. She beforehand sang Ulrica in Un ballo in maschera for COG in 2023, the place she was praised by my colleague Agnes Kory in her assessment right here.
The Mylio, the male love curiosity of each Rozenn and Margared, was heroically taken by tenor Luis Gomez. His Act I aria, ‘Si le ciel est plein de flammes’ was pretty, his voice (at this level) properly recent: there was a way of comprehensible pressure in direction of the top of the night. Gomez will, by the way, be Pinkerton to Lee’s Cio-Cio-San at Grange Park in the summertime.
In Act I, Lalo darkens the music significantly for the doorway of Karnac, and this sense of menace pursues him typically. Baritone Alexey Gusev took the function, a way of evil exuding each phrase.
Whereas conductor Paul Wingfield took the piece comparatively swiftly (which works properly, for instance, within the depiction of wedding ceremony preparations that open the third and remaining act), he left house for the extra inside moments, certainly one of which takes place on the finish of Act II. This latter passage successfully begins with Karnac’s ‘Perdu! Je suis perdu!’ – Gusev gripping as Lalo checks the energy of his baritone’s higher register; Margared joins him providing her hand in revenge, and Schellenberg delivered with Ortrud-like malevolence. This entire passage cumulates in an ‘Apparition’: the statue of Saint Corentin (patron saint of Brittany) gives a warning in opposition to a sonic backdrop of ecclesiastical organ (digital, right here) given in imperious vogue by bass Edward Jowle.
However what, I hear you ask, of the titular character, the King himself? Counter-intuitively, this can be a quite small function however one taken with gravitas and authority by bass Thomas D Hopkinson.
Lalo’s music is so price listening to. There are satisfying structural correspondences between the acts, and his music is excess of Wagner-influenced French. I did really feel the ultimate act is weaker in pure inspiration than the primary two (an impression if not confirmed, actually supported by listening to the Dynamic launch of a 2008 efficiency carried out by Patrick Devin, however contradicted by the Cluytens, who gives a white-heat account). There may be nevertheless no doubting the joys of the looks of the organ on this act (at ‘Ah! Qu’ils périssent!’), one thing which actually ought to be heard reside.
This efficiency is likely to be properly timed by way of providing a reappraisal of Lalo’s opera as I discover live performance performances within the Concertgebouw Amsterdam and MPA Budapest final 12 months are related to Palazzetto Bru Zane, recognized for his or her lavish releases. The thrilling solid there included Cyrille Dubois, Kate Aldrich and Judith van Wanroij. Earlier than that, its final outing appears to be in numerous opera homes in France in 2016; there was an identical tranche of French performances in 2007/8, however then one has to return to 1998 (Metz). The Dynamic recording within the remaining evaluation fails to do Lalo’s rating justice; in case you have the Cluytens, keep it up. A remaining point out of a most fastidiously moulded, merely stunning efficiency of the Overture on a Chandos disc of French Overtures lately by the Estonian Nationwide Symphony Orchestra (the clarinet solo is well worth the value of the disc alone).
Could Chelsea Opera Group proceed their good work perpetually. A most pleasant night.
Colin Clarke
