Today’s post is, as promised, the completion of the non-thematic, no-concept article I began two weeks ago with commentary on the 1956 Met broadcast of Manon Lescaut. As I was preparing for that, my colleague Joseph Horowitz sent me a message or two enthusing about the conducting of Paul Paray with the Detroit Symphony in a concert performance of Carmen from 1959. Horowitz is much more up on conductors and orchestras than I am, and his posts on artsjournal.com fruitfully explore several under-critiqued areas of our musical heritage. So when he enthuses about something, I pay attention. As it turned out, the Carmen and José of Paray’s Carmen were Jean Madeira and Brian Sullivan. Hearing them again started me thinking about not only their own careers, but those of others, some of whom participated in the Manon Lescaut performances of those years, and others who struck little bells because they connected to topics that were already active in my mind—Benjamin Britten, because I was assigning myself some homework in anticipation of the Billy Budd the Met had announced for next season, and Lawrence Tibbett, because of my involvement in Marston’s upcoming restoration and release of that great baritone’s recordings. These pieces jigsaw together for me in ways that are no doubt idiosyncratic, but which may throw some light on aspects of the American opera scene, 1948-59.

Paray was a French conductor and composer who spent a eleven or so years (1952-1963) as conductor of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. He recorded extensively for Mercury, which label was turning out some of the best-sounding orchestral recordings of that time (or this), and while to my ears the Detroit remained a recognizably American orchestra (as did the BSO under Munch or the CSO under Martinon), Paray’s French ear clearly had an influence on its style and sound.^(I) In this Carmen, I certainly hear a lot of what Horowitz found stimulating, especially when the orchestra is properly to the fore. The overture has great fizz and discipline—Paray finds the virtues of clarity and crispness without their often concomitant loss of weight. And those qualities prevail through most of the performance, along with some fine execution of instrumental interjections (the trumpets at several junctures) or solos (the violin picking up on Carmen’s “Tra-la-la-las” as José leads her to prison). At points, as with José’s outburst at “Non, je ne peux plus d’écouter!” and succeeding bars, the orchestra’s interjections make an impact one doesn’t often hear. There is also a strong momentum to the reading, usually to its advantage but sometimes not, as with a recklessly fast tempo for the smugglers’ quintet, which turns to shambles, and more crucially the opera’s final scene, which is brutally pushed in best sauve qui peut fashion. Perhaps broadcast constraints were pressing.