Briefly Noted: Albert Roussel's...operetta?

A. Roussel, Le Testament de la Tante Caroline, M. Lenormand, M. Gomar, L. Komitès, Orchestre des Frivolités Parisiennes, D. Corlay (released on March 1, 2022) Naxos 8.660479 | 78'56"

How many delightful surprises are left in the oeuvre of Albert Roussel? The chances to hear the French composer's music in live performance remain sadly limited: we have written warmly of his opera-ballet Padmâvatî and his marvelous score Le Festin de l'Araignée, both performed by the National Symphony Orchestra in recent years. Because he had both a conservative education in historical counterpoint at the Schola Cantorum and an interest in jazz and Asian music, his music tends to be erudite and unclassifiable.

Among the least expected works of Roussel is a rather absurd operetta, Le Testament de la Tante Caroline, premiered the Czech Republic in 1936 and then at the Opéra-Comique in Paris in 1937. The composer died a few months later, but in 1964, at the request of Roussel's widow, the librettist cut it from its three-act original form to a compact single act. Marcel Mihalovici adapted the music for this revised version, in some ways a response to critics who had found the composer had trouble "adapting himself to simplicity."

Benjamin El Arbi and Mathieu Franot founded Les Frivolités Parisiennes in 2012, with the goal of reviving lesser-known light French musical comedies. This disc is the world premiere recording of the one-act version of Tante Caroline, made from a live performance in June 2019, at the L'Athénée Théâtre Louis-Jouvet in Paris. The titular aunt of the venal family in this farce was, somewhat scandalously, a prostitute. She apparently enjoyed much success in her chosen career, as she amassed an impressive fortune.

Now that she is dead her three greedy nieces, who normally keep their distance out of propriety, show up hoping to inherit. Tante Caroline's will stipulates that the wealth will pass to the child of whichever childless niece can produce an heir within a year. Much of the middle nonsense is cut, leading to the conclusion, in which one niece is reunited with her illegitimate son, whom she gave up before taking religious vows. To everyone's surprise, the young man now serves as Tante Caroline's chauffeur, and the old lady has the last laugh.

The orchestra sparkles under the baton of Dylan Corlay, with a capable cast of singer-actors. Bass-baritone Till Fechner excels in both vocal and spoken patter as the lawyer, Maitre Corbeau, and Marie Perbost displays a limpid light soprano as Lucine, Tante Caroline's maid, especially in the pleasant little aria "Mlle Irene d'Anjou." Sadly there is no libretto included with this recording, and none to be found online, making this mostly of interest to francophone listeners. The Bibliothèque nationale de France has made available a portfolio of newspaper clippings about the work.

DCist: NSO @ maximum INDIA

See my review of the National Symphony Orchestra's latest concerts, published at DCist:

National Symphony Orchestra @ maximum INDIA (DCist, March 7):

Roussel, Padmâvatî (MP3)

The symphony orchestra has been dying for at least a decade. To reach new audiences, the theory goes, orchestras must innovate, explore new repertoire, come outside the concert hall. This weekend's concerts from the National Symphony Orchestra are one example of how to do just that. The program was part of the Kennedy Center's maximum INDIA festival, which we previewed earlier this week. For the occasion, the NSO commissioned a new piece from tabla player Zakir Hussain, called Concerto for Four Soloists. The chance to hear Hussain, as well as Bollywood singers Shankar Mahadevan and Hariharan, certainly brought out a large contingent of Indian listeners. Whether any first-time symphony-goers will return for other NSO concerts remains to be seen.

Music director Christoph Eschenbach is revitalizing the NSO in ways that are beginning to draw national attention to the ensemble. His adventurous programming for the Indian festival showed again why Washington listeners, and not just the regular core of subscribers, are turning out in large numbers. He paired the new work -- Indian music more or less directly from the source -- with a European work inspired by Indian music, excerpts from Albert Roussel's opera-ballet Padmâvatî. It is a work known well enough to have received a couple of recordings, but live performances are considerably rare, surprisingly so, given how lush and gorgeous the score is. The story takes place around the year 1300, when the Queen of Chittor (modern-day Chittaurgarh) chose to kill her wounded husband and immolate herself on his funeral pyre, rather than submit to an invading Mongol sultan. [Continue reading]

National Symphony Orchestra
Excerpts of Roussel, Padmâvatî
Kennedy Center Concert Hall

Other articles:
Anne Midgette, Tabla meets West as NSO's "India" concert seeks crossover convergence (Washington Post, March 4)

Padmavati And Other Crossover Adventures at the NSO

Many thanks to Robert R. Reilly for this review from the Kennedy Center.

For the Washington, D.C. celebration of India—“Maximum India,” the National Symphony Orchestra programmed a concert suite version of Albert Roussel’s opera, Padmavati, and the première of Indian composer Zakir Hussain’s Concerto for Four Soloists at the Kennedy Center on the evening of March 3rd.

Generally ignorant of Indian music, I confess I came Thursday night for Roussel, a French composer of the first half of the twentieth century, whose works I greatly admire. Roussel wrote Padmavati in 1917 after a trip to India had impressed him deeply with the lore of this queen who preferred the self-immolation of suttee with her dead husband to the attentions of the Muslim Mongol conqueror Alaouddin (circa 1300 AD).

Roussel considered Padmavati a pivotal work of his “transitional period” during which, he said, “the style changes, the harmonic sequences become bolder and harsher, [and] the Deubussian flavor has completely disappeared.” One must know that his preceding works, such as the First Symphony, were steeped in Impressionism and bathed in lush harmonies. Four years prior to Padmavati, Roussel had written Evocations, a triptych for soloists, choir, and orchestra, an almost hallucinatory recollection of India and its holy Hindu sites. It was an early sign of Roussel’s ability to take on major subjects with massive forces that could erupt in almost barbaric power without losing a sense of refinement and control. Padmavati fulfills the promise of Evocations.

Roussel conceived his opera on a vast scale for large orchestra, chorus, ballet troupe, and challenging soloists’ parts—the expense of which is one reason why it is seldom seen. But at least it can be heard in concert version or, here at the Kennedy Center, in two suites. The program notes, other than noting that this was the Washington première, indicate nothing on who arranged these suites, but they are without chorus, or soloists except for Padmavati herself. What we end up with are the orchestral preludes to the two acts, Padmavati’s long “Il est trop tard . . .” solo, and other orchestral music. Since the chorus is a major figure in the opera (and in some of the music redacted for these suites), this is a grievous (but economical) omission. I would hate for anyone to think that these suites, despite their orchestral brilliance, give a true measure of this opera’s worth.

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