Leo Delibes: Lakme - Mesple, Burles, Soyer, A. Lombard, Choeurs et Orchestre du Theatre National de l'Opera-Comique

Léo Delibes : Lakme
Mesple, Burles, Soyer, A. Lombard

Choeurs et Orchestre du Theatre National de l'Opera-Comique

1971

Mady Mesple's very French, light girlish tone admirably suggests the virginal character and innocence of the heroine: her intonation is impeccable, her coloratura seemingly effortless, and the clarity of her enunciation could stand as a model for all singers.' Gramophone

Léo Delibes : Lakme
Opera en Trois Actes
Libretto : Edmond Gondinet & Philippe Gille d'apres Pierre Loti
Mady Mesple : Lakme
Charles Burles : Gerald
Roger Soyer : Nilakantha
Danielle Millet : Mallika
Jean-Christophe Benoit : Frederic
Bernadette Antoine : Ellen
Monique Linval : Rose
Agnes Disney : Miss Bentson
Joseph Peyron : Hadji
Choeurs et Orchestre du Theatre National de l'Opera-Comique
Chorus Master : Roger List
Alain Lombard : Direction

Recorded 17, 18, 21-25, 28-30.IX., 1, 2.X. & 18, 21.XII.1970, Salle
Wagram, Paris.

Included : Full Covers, Full Libretto, Full Booklet in 300 dpi

Reviews :

Stereophile : 2006 Records To Die For: Brian Damkroger

DELIBES: Lakme

A French opera about a doomed love caught between the British and Indian cultures may seem an inherently bad idea, but Lakme is wonderful, and this 1973 performance by a French cast, taped in Paris's Salle Wagram, is one of the most successful opera recordings I've heard. Some prefer Joan Sutherland's spectacular 1967 version, but I believe that Mady Mesple's lighter touch better fits the role of the virginal princess. The rest of the cast is strong, and Alain Lombard's conducting is dramatic without being overstated. The original LPs sound best, but the CD reissue is lovely as well.

Classical Net : Raymond Tuttle - 2002

I always like to make a special case for Leo Delibes's Lakme, an opera that is so much more than the "Bell Song" (which, come to think of it, has fallen out of fashion) and the ever-present Lakme-Mallika "Flower Duet." Lakme is the perfect French opera-comique of its era (1882). The story – set in India – is exotic and lightly tragic. (At the end, the Indian heroine commits suicide by biting a poisonous datura flower because her British lover is deserting her.) Nevertheless, the audience goes home smiling because the tunes are so good and because the composer never allows the shade to win out over the light, Lakme's unhappy fate notwithstanding.

EMI recorded their Lakme in 1970, three years after Joan Sutherland and husband Richard Bonynge did their version for Decca/London. Sutherland made pretty sounds in the title role, but, by and large, the French roles eluded her. She was never idiomatic and she never made real characters out of Lakme and Faust 's Marguerite. Mesple, in contrast, had Lakme in her blood; she was the true successor to the stratospheric Mado Robin, the archetypal French coloratura soprano of the 1950s. Mesple's voice may be girlish, even a little pallid, but it is an instrument that is both tremendously flexible and sweet. Her interpretation of the title role is simple but full of understanding. Burles's Gerald is gentle, virile, and gloriously sung, and as Lakme's father, young Roger Soyer shows both authority and genuine solicitousness for her daughter's welfare. It takes a French bass to sing with such melting lightness. The smaller roles are strongly cast, and Lombard, unlike Bonynge, doesn't allow the scenes with the English visitors to become caricatures. Lombard knows what this music is all about and finds the drama in Lakme without stifling its poetry. The sound still is excellent, thirty years later.

Posted by Ice