Customer Reviews

Grétry: Zémire et Azor

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Zémire et Azor is the best work of Grétry's many compositions.
It is based on the story of Beauty and the Beast - it is an
elegant and gentle work - it is beautifully executed by the RTB
chamber orchestra (Belgium) and very well recorded. Of the so-
loists only Mady Mesplé is well-known - she makes the most of
her bravura aria 'La fauvette' - but we get stylish performances
from the others as well. This reissue is on two super-bargain
CDs with a synopsis and a small essay on the composor - as a
fill-up on the second CD we get dances and ballet music taken
from other works by the same composer. A very welcome release.

This is hands down one of the most beautiful old operas I've ever heard. It saddens me that it's so obscure it will never be staged in the States or Europe's main opera houses. It may have been staged in some theateres at one time or another but its really buried treasure metaphorically speaking. EMI has recently been on a successful digitally remastering of old records streak. This recording stars Madie Mesple, a French lyric-coloratura soprano who enjoyed success in her signature role of Lakme and stuck to the French repertoire more than any other soprano of the post World War years. She has a bright, fairy-like, sweet voice, of the "Snow white" kind a critic once said, but she uses it effectively in portraying virginal girls, romantic heroines and victims. In this opera, one by the French composer Gretry (best known for Richard the Lion Heart which was Tchaikovsky's favorite opera) Mesple sings the role of Zemire. Now what this is really is Beauty and the Beast under different names. It's meant to mirror the styles of music and romanticism of the period in which Gretry composed which was the late Baroque Era when such names as Jean Baptiste Lully was still talked about with reverence and ears were tuning in to the newer sounds of Gluck (of Orfeo and Eurydice fame). The music is absolutely beautiful, with rich melodies, courtly ballet dances, ornate arias, duets and ensembles. While it is different from the Beauty and the Beast story we are familiar with thanks to Disney, its still a gorgeous piece of old French culture. This is music that Louis XIV would have gone to sleep listening to. This is music that is soulful and achingly beautiful. At times one wants to cry, even if there is no tragedy being played out! Surely this kind of music foreshadowed Mozart. Take a look. You'll have to get it from Amazon. com because I know of no record stores that sell this. It's buried treausure for opera treasure diggers. If you like old and obsucre operas that are beautiful, add this to your collection. You will enjoy it immensely. Last night, I heard the last parts and I was in my garden hearing it played from inside the house and I felt that this music actually makes you feel a lot more noble and enriched as a lover of the arts It's music to spoil yourself with. Or to spoil others.

This is the only recording of this French opera I've been able to find. It's a great example of opera from the classical era, with splendid ornamentation, and a crispness like no other. Based on the Beauty and the Beast tale.

Most reasonably knowledgeable classical music lovers will know the name of Grétry and might even be able to name a couple of his works, such as the famous Beecham "lollipop", the "Air de ballet" from this opera and the baritone aria "O Richard, o mon roi" from his opéra comique, "Richard Coeur-de-lion", but nowadays performance of his music is more honoured in the breach than the observance. I have a sentimental attachment to his memory from frequent visits as a teenager to Liège and passing by the statue honouring him as a son of that city.

Grétry decamped to France and this opera was a big hit at the courts of Louis XVI and Catherine the Great in St Petersburg (who named her greyhound Zémire). It remained so through the French Revolution but was eventually eclipsed by the more innovative and dramatic style of Méhul, Cherubini and, of course, Mozart. I am a little bemused by the breathless enthusiasm of one or two reviewers for the opera here, which is tuneful and charming but hardly a masterpiece. True, tastes change and vary within the same age and chacun à son goűt, say I, but performed as it is here it does not receive the most persuasive advocacy. Most of the voices are of the third rank; although this was in fact recorded in Belgium the two tenors are in the worst French tradition, squeezed, throaty and ultra-light - especially the Ali who sounds as if it is the microphone stuck up his nose, in order that he might be heard, that makes his voice sound so strangulated. The only star name is the soubrette soprano Mady Mesplé who sings in rather shrill and piping fashion and is well able to negotiate the coloratura demands of her virtuoso showpiece aria "La fauvette", capped with a stratospheric top G.

Grétry's orchestration is skilful and elegant, as is the much of the music, but it inevitably sounds very conventional to our ears. If you have sweet tooth and respond to a style I find rather formulaic you will enjoy this perhaps as a delightful period piece. The plot is very simple: a straight retelling of the "Beauty and the Beast" fable - but never have I heard a less imposing or menacing Beast than that impersonated by the tenorino here.

As a bonus, we are given the "Danses villageoises" suite and the "suite de ballet" from "Céphale et Procris", neatly played if without the lift that Beecham might have brought to the music.