GREAT SOUNDING ORIGINAL MET REEL BROADCAST SERIES.
Special release on 2CDs with announcements/curtain calls in Spanish.
Metropolitan Opera House
January 9, 1943 Matinee Broadcast
LAKMÉ {54}
Lakmé...................Lily Pons
Gérald..................Jacques Gérard
Mallika.................Helen Olheim
Frédéric................Mack Harrell
Nilakantha..............Norman Cordon
Hadji...................John Garris
Ellen...................Frances Greer
Rose....................Lucielle Browning
Mrs. Bentson............Doris Doe
Fortuneteller...........Lodovico Oliviero
Merchant................John Dudley
Thief...................Wilfred Engelman
Dance...................Michael Arshansky
Dance...................Ruthanna Boris
Dance...................Alexis Dolinoff
Dance...................Jack Gansert
Dance...................Monna Montes
Conductor...............Wilfred Pelletier
Lo compré interesado por el tenor canadiense Jacques Gérard, que hizo una breve carrera en el Met y de quien sólo conozco un par de fragmentos que hay en YouTube. Uno de ellos es este dúo del primer acto de Lakmé, junto a la soprano Georgette Mathieu.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtWcQso_ezcSobre su Gerald en el broadcast metropolitano de 1943, Paul Jackson comenta ("Saturday Afternoons at the Old Met", pp. 291-292):
"The hero of the afternoon (and he proves worthy of the epithet) is the French-Canadian tenor, Jacques Gérard, new to the Met. A protégé of Pelletier, Gerard came to the Met after schooling in France and fifteen years with the provincial and major French houses (debut at Liège in 1927, the Opéra Comique in the early thirties). Gerard had even partnered Pons in Lakmé in that never-never land of operatic history, her pre-Met days in the French provinces (La Baule Casino, 1928). [...]
His voice, not overlarge, is entirely rooted in the French language. Unlike [Mack]
Harrell, who succesfully grafts his French onto a central sound, Gérard's instrument is inseparable in timbre and technique from his native tongue. Often ill suited to the idioms of other nations, a voice grounded in French technique can make vivid and charming what had seemed merely artificial or cloying or palatable only in the salon. Even a distanced passion takes on life under its sway. Why? -because the language conditions a linear apprroach, and Delibes' melodies thrive under it. (Pons, too, and even Harrell, often limn their phrases with this fine-tipped brush.) Gerard's diction is clear throughout the entire range, the nasals almost overemphatic but lending color, and the tone quality is surprisingly youthful (his pictures in Opera News suggest a middle-age-bourgeois), a bit shallow but never unpleasant, though there is no velvet on the tone. Surprinsingly, he is more than up to the larger aspects of this seemingly ungrateful role. In the climaxes of the opera, Gerard's stout high B-flats, a lively rhythmic sense, and an ardent manner make Gerald more sufferable than he deserves. (A favorite picture from the old Victor Book of the Opera strays into the mind -Martinelli and De Luca playing unlikely British soldiers. What could Martinelli possibly have made of this feckless hero?)[Irving]
Kolodin asks, «Who remembers Gerard et al.?» In Gerard's case, very few, for he never sang on the broadcasts again, though he remained at the Met for four seasons singing a few performances each year of Hoffman, Wilhelm Meister, Don José and Roméo".
Identificarse
Registrarse
Normas
FAQ
Usuarios
- que en éste de "transición" de Bayreuth. Para mi gusto, el reclamo de esta grabación es el Wotan de Jerome Hines, cantante algo granítico en Verdi pero que, por lo que conocía ya de este Anillo, funciona bien en Wagner. En Siegfried, el Wotan/Wanderer lo canta con sorprendente madurez un joven James Milligan, quien fatalmente falleció pocos meses después.
