Maurice Ravel - L'Enfant et les sortilèges; L'Heure espagnol (Lorin Maazel)

Information

Composer: Maurice Ravel; Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov; Igor Stravinsky

CD1

• Ravel - L'Heure espagnole
• Rimsky-Korsakov - Capriccio espagnol, Op. 34

CD2

• Ravel - L'Enfant et les sortilèges
• Stravinsky - Le chant du rossignol

Orchestre National de la R.T.F.

Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra

Radio-Symphonie-Orchester Berlin

Lorin Maazel, conductor

Date: 1965; 1958; 1960; 1957 / 1997

Label: Deutsche Grammophon

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Review

Both operas feature stellar casts of highly characterful singers, many of whom are famous names, conducted by a young Lorin Maazel. Both have long been the recordings whereby most people came to know Ravel’s sparkling little one-act operas, one a moralising fairy-tale (“une fantaisie lyrique”), the other earthily immoral and farcical. However, my own first acquaintance with the latter was not via Maazel’s recording but a contemporaneous live performance with a cast almost as distinguished but unfortunately recorded only in mono sound: you may hear it on YouTube or as a download from House of Opera and I briefly review it my second survey of baritone Robert Massard’s recordings. He and Gabriel Bacquier were almost exact contemporaries, both being very long-lived – Bacquier dying at 96 in 2020 and Robert Massard having just celebrated his hundredth birthday as I write – and their repertoires overlapped to some degree. M. Massard loved playing Ramiro and sang the role to perfection sixty-five  times over his career, so it is a pity he was not asked to record it here. Nonetheless, Bacquier in his prime is certainly no makeweight; he is fluid and flexible of voice; likewise, José van Dam sings beautifully but if anything sounds too youthful as our dubious heroine’s fat, elderly lover. Michel Sénéchal is amusing and vocally graceful as Concepción’s other prolix student-poet-lover. Jane Berbié is as coquettish as one would expect of a famous Carmen. Light tenor Jean Giraudeau is a suitably weedy, cuckolded husband and the final number which metafictionally “breaks the fourth wall” (in a quasi-moralising manner of reminiscent of the end of Don Giovanni) is deftly negotiated.

Maazel handles Ravel’s sumptuous, mercurial scoring with aplomb; the whole thing flows and surges  elegantly, the myriad colours blooming seductively, its rhythms frequently laced with Hispanic allusions.

Having said that, for all its reputation, I do not think this recording is markedly superior to the 1964 Buenos Aires performance starring Robert Massard that I refer to above. I actually prefer several performances there: Massard’s voice is more beautiful and virile of timbre than Bacquier’s, likewise George Shirley is fuller of voice and more credible as Concepción’s lover than the rather fey Sénéchal, Angel Matiello’s baritone sounds more suited to the role of the corpulent, aging banker than van Dam, Denise Duval is even more pert and lively than Berbié, and Sébastian’s conducting is no less idiomatic than Maazel’s. Obviously the live mono sound is a relative drawback but it is remarkably forward and distinct. In brief, both recordings offer an entirely satisfying account of this miniature gem.

The earlier recording of L’Enfant et les sortilèges enjoys similar cult status, alongside the 1947 classic conducted by Ernest Bour – although that is obviously compromised by its vintage sound compared with the analogue stereo version here. It continues to dominate any list of recommendations by virtue of its idiomatic singing, the aptness of the casting, the verve of the conducting and the dramatic gifts of the performers who act as well as they sing. Two of the cast and of course the conductor participate in both operas here; Michel Sénéchal is especially vivid in his three roles. It is alternately a precise, elegant, but also splendidly raucous and liberated account, beautifully sung by some classy voices – ne’er a wobbler to be heard, but rather neat and highly amusing vocalisation. The dazzling succession of numbers composed in very disparate styles is perfectly executed, the otherworldliness of the music transporting the listener though Colette’s magical, bestiary scenarios until we arrive at the almost monastic polyphony of the concluding track, “Il est bon, L’Enfant”.

As bonus fillers, we are given two Russian works conducted in the late 1950s by the one-time child prodigy Maazel, by then in his late twenties. Again, both are in remarkably good sound and are as vibrant, colourful and idiomatically played as one could wish; the Spanish Capriccio links satisfyingly with Ravel’s Spanish opera, and there are other links between Ravel and Stravinsky, such as their use of nightingales and chinoiserie.

— Ralph Moore

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Maurice Ravel (7 March 1875 – 28 December 1937) was a French composer, pianist and conductor. He is often associated with Impressionism along with his elder contemporary Claude Debussy. Born to a music-loving family, Ravel attended the Paris Conservatoire. After leaving the conservatoire, he found his own way as a composer, developing a style of great clarity and incorporating elements of modernism, baroque, neoclassicism and, in his later works, jazz. Among his works to enter the repertoire are pieces for piano, chamber music, two piano concertos, ballet music, two operas and eight song cycles.

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Lorin Maazel (6 March 1930 – 13 July 2014) was an American conductor. A musical prodigy, he began conducting early, before enrolling at the University of Pittsburgh. Over his career, he held prominent conducting positions with leading orchestras such as the Cleveland Orchestra (1972–82), the Orchestre National de France (1977–90), the Vienna State Opera (as its first American director, 1982–84), and the New York Philharmonic (2002–09). Renowned for his versatility in both opera and symphonic music, Maazel recorded over 300 works spanning composers like Beethoven, Brahms, Mahler and Mozart.

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