Ravel - L’Heure espagnole, Bolero
£17.05
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Label: Harmonia Mundi
Cat No: HMM905361
Format: CD
Number of Discs: 1
Release Date: 16th June 2023
Contents
Artists
Isabelle Druet (mezzo-soprano)Julien Behr (tenor)
Loic Felix (tenor)
Thomas Dolie (baritone)
Jean Teitgen (bass)
Les Siecles
Conductor
Francois-Xavier RothWorks
BoleroL'Heure espagnole
Artists
Isabelle Druet (mezzo-soprano)Julien Behr (tenor)
Loic Felix (tenor)
Thomas Dolie (baritone)
Jean Teitgen (bass)
Les Siecles
Conductor
Francois-Xavier RothAbout
Continuing their exploration of Ravel’s output, François-Xavier Roth and Les Siècles offer us two works linked by his love of Spain.
Alongside the famous Boléro, which regains its original flavour here on period instruments, is Ravel’s first opera, which flirted with libertinism: though its outstanding cast consists entirely of native French-speakers, this caustic ‘Hour’ remains quintessentially Spanish.
Cast:
- Concepción: Isabelle Druet (mezzo-soprano)
- Gonzalve: Julien Behr (tenor)
- Torquemada: Loïc Félix (tenor)
- Ramiro: Thomas Dolié (baritone)
- Don Iñigo Gomez: Jean Teitgen (bass)
Alongside the famous Boléro, which regains its original flavour here on period instruments, is Ravel’s first opera, which flirted with libertinism: though its outstanding cast consists entirely of native French-speakers, this caustic ‘Hour’ remains quintessentially Spanish.
Cast:
- Concepción: Isabelle Druet (mezzo-soprano)
- Gonzalve: Julien Behr (tenor)
- Torquemada: Loïc Félix (tenor)
- Ramiro: Thomas Dolié (baritone)
- Don Iñigo Gomez: Jean Teitgen (bass)
Sound/Video
Paused
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1L’Heure espagnole, M52 : Introduction
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2L’Heure espagnole, M52 : Señor Torquemada, horloger de Tolède?
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3L’Heure espagnole, M52 : Totor !
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4L’Heure espagnole, M52 : Il reste, voilà bien ma chance !
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5L’Heure espagnole, M52 : Il était temps, voici Gonzalve !
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6L’Heure espagnole, M52 : C’est fait, l’horloge est à sa place
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7L’Heure espagnole, M52 : Maintenant pas de temps à perdre !
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8L’Heure espagnole, M52 : Salut à la belle horlogère !
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9L’Heure espagnole, M52 : Voilà !... Et maintenant à l’autre !
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10L’Heure espagnole, M52 : Évidemment, elle me congédie
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11L’Heure espagnole, M52 : Voilà ce que j’appelle une femme charmante
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12L’Heure espagnole, M52 : Monsieur, ah ! Monsieur !
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13L’Heure espagnole, M52 : Enfin, il part !
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14L’Heure espagnole, M52 : Voilà l’objet !
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15L’Heure espagnole, M52 : Ah! Vous, n’est-ce pas, preste ! Leste !
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16L’Heure espagnole, M52 : En dépit de cette inhumaine
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17L’Heure espagnole, M52 : Voilà ce que j’appelle une femme charmante
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18L’Heure espagnole, M52 : Oh ! La pitoyable aventure !
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19L’Heure espagnole, M52 : Voilà !... Et maintenant, Señora, je suis prêt
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20L’Heure espagnole, M52 : Mon œil anxieux interroge
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21L’Heure espagnole, M52 : Adieu, cellule, adieu, donjon !
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22L’Heure espagnole, M52 : Il n’est pour l’horloger, de joie égale
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23L’Heure espagnole, M52 : Pardieu, déménageur, vous venez à propos !
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24L’Heure espagnole, M52 : Un financier... Et un poète...
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25Boléro, M81
Europadisc Review
François-Xavier Roth’s survey of Ravel’s music with his period instrument orchestra Les Siècles has already served up abundant delights on the Harmonia Mundi label. Chief among them has been the complete Daphnis et Chloé, a Gramophone Award-winning album of which we wrote that ‘Roth and his players succeed more than any of the competition in recapturing Ravel’s own vision of ancient Greece’. Now they turn their attention to one of Ravel’s less well-known stage works, set not in classical antiquity but in 18th-century Toledo. At 50 minutes in duration, L’Heure espagnole is a work that doesn’t quite live up to its billing (at least, not literally), but early criticism of its 1911 premiere focused on the subject matter (a send-up of classical opera buffa) on which Ravel had supposedly squandered his considerable talents.
Posterity has thankfully been kinder, recognising in the orchestrally opulent and vocally finely characterised one-acter a bold alternative achievement in approaching an operatic subject in a modern manner – quite different from Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande of 1902, which Ravel greatly admired. This ‘trivial’ comedy is no exercise in neoclassical pastiche, however, but a work which minutely follows the ins and outs of the action, the efforts, exasperations and passions of the characters, as finely-honed as a high-quality timepiece. The evocation of Spain is subtle, with a hefty dash of Gallic charm and humour. The voices – which Ravel invested with a style of delivery approaching the naturalness (and idioms) of everyday speech – provide the skeleton on which is draped an orchestral cloth of remarkable, ever-changing hues.
Using instruments of the period brings a whole new clarity and atmosphere to the work, and the musicians of Les Siècles, now boasting a fastidiously researched and sourced array of wind and percussion instruments, bring their customary flair to every twist and turn of the light-hearted plot. Special mention should be made of the bassoon section (including the sarrusophone specified in the score, but usually substituted with a contrabassoon), who work overtime in the comedic department. But everyone, from the strings up, contributes to the remarkable sonorities on which Roth shines his light. The efforts to extricate a corpulent banker from one of the clockmaker’s two grandfather clocks, and the sliding of the timepiece from one shoulder to another as the muleteer Ramiro prepares to transport his load to the shop’s private apartment, leap vividly off the page.
Amid all the chimes and sighs of the orchestra, the cast is an impressive one, fully engaged in the spirit of the piece. Mezzo-soprano Isabelle Druet’s Concepción makes a suggestive comic heroine, audibly knowing and frustrated with her two hapless lovers: the would-be poet Gonzalve (tenor Julien Behr) and pompous banker Don Iñigo Gomez (buffo bass Jean Teitgen). Her aria ‘Oh ! La pitoyable aventure !’ is the musical highlight it should be, showing the real human emotion at strain amid all the to-ings and fro-ings of the stock comedy plot. Even if she doesn’t completely eclipse memories of the incomparable Denise Duval on Cluytens’s classic set, this is one of the finest impersonations of the central role for many years for its combination of wry humour and simmering passion.
Behr lends an heroic edge to the continually spouting Gonzalve, while Teitgen makes a splendidly blustery Don Iñigo. Baritone Thomas Dolié is a quite marvellous Ramiro, almost too eloquent for the part, and more genuinely poetic than Gonzalve when left alone to reflect on his growing attraction to the clockmaker’s wife (underscored by some exquisite string playing). As the clockmaker Torquemada himself, character tenor Loïc Félix is knowingly complicit in the whole affair: even if his voice is slightly too similar to Behr’s for a recording, his quick-witted, intelligent delivery leaves one wondering who really wears the trousers in the Torquemada household – or whether the situation really suits both of them! The opera’s ending, where all five characters break the ‘fourth wall’, comes as a specially delightful pay-off to an account of this rare masterpiece that easily outclasses all modern rivals.
The ’filler’ is much more familiar to audiences: Bolero – originally conceived as a ballet, but now mainly confined to the concert hall – in the new critical edition, replacing the customary side drum with the earthier tabors (two of them) specified in Ravel’s score. The opening will startle some listeners, less pianissimo than some of the hi-fi spectaculars of recent years, and the final climax (with none of the pulling around of tempo that has become usual) is less sheerly overpowering than many. What you get instead is a very vivid sense of how Ravel is deconstructing the incessantly repeated two melodies that provide the work’s backbone, every change in timbre, every portamento savoured in turn, against a rock-solid rhythm. It’s both a masterclass in early 20th-century orchestral instrumentation and a welcome contrast to the over-the-top spectaculars that have become the norm. Even if you already have a surfeit of Boleros, it’s worth hearing this one; and L’Heure espagnole makes the disc as a whole essential listening for all lovers of Ravel’s music.
Reviews
L’heure espagnole is the main work on the latest disc in François-Xavier Roth’s Ravel series with Les Siècles for Harmonia Mundi. As in previous releases, the orchestral playing is exquisite, the strings silky, woodwinds perfumed, the trumpets (1930s Selmers) sweetly tangy, the trombones suggestively louche. ... [Isabelle Druet’s] sexy Concepción prowls with a warm expressive mezzo and she relishes the risqué line, ‘the mechanism is very fragile, especially the pendulum’. ... [Boléro is] a terrific vehicle for the musicians of Les Siècles, who turn in a series of suggestive, steamy solos. Mark PullingerGramophone August 2023
Isabelle Drouet is the desperate housewife Concepcion in the opera, with Thomas Dolié as Ramiro, the hunky muleteer who catches her eye. Both are excellent, but it’s the quality and character of the orchestral playing that is truly exceptional here; the instrumental colours glow and shimmer, so that even an overplayed score like Bolero seems freshly minted. Andrew ClementsThe Guardian 14 July 2023
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