It’s awful to hear a great work pass by and leave so scant a trace.

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My frequent correspondent Fred Kolo responded to my last post, on G. Charpentier’s Louise, by kindly sending along his favorite among a number of live versions in his own collection. Since I had some lingering thoughts about Louise, and since my lookback at it had left me with a yearning to see it revived, I made sure to find the time to listen. The performance is from the Grand-Théâtre de Genève in October of 1966, with Jean Meylan conducting the Orchestre de la Suisse-Romande—an ensemble which, like that of the Santa Cecilia, hearkens back to the old Decca-London days with the series of good recordings under Ernest Ansermet, including two of Pelléas et Mélisande. It was Fred’s thought that, judging from the timings, the Geneva performance might be complete, as the others I’ve heard are not. As it turns out, that is not the case. Although it does restore brief passages in Acts 1, 2, and 3 that are sometimes redacted, for the most part it observes the standard theater cuts. It is, though, a dramatically vivid rendition that, like the prewar abridged Columbia recording and the Opéra-Comique one on Epic, benefits from a native stylistic unity and sense of ensemble, but unlike them shakes off the constraints of the studio and digs into the theatrical life of the piece.

Meylan, a conductor with whom I was not even on name-recognition terms, seems to have had a quite active career, including a considerable stretch in Geneva, without getting more than a cup of coffee or two with the commercial recording labels. He doesn’t have the advantage of superior sonics here (the soloists come across well, but the orchestral and choral sound picture is lacking a measure of depth and richness), and since part of the appeal of Louise rests with its unusual atmospherics, something of unquestionable importance to its effect is dampened. But Meylan’s reading has solid rhythmic bones and strong dramatic commitment, and he and his forces are able to shape the balky series of events in the latter half of Act 2—the Bohemians taking over the scene; the re-appearance of the Noctambulist as the King (or Pope) of the Fools; the crowning of Louise as the Muse and the Bohemians’ own parade and homemade Apotheosis of Light; the intrusion of The Mother and the phantasmic re-entrance of the Ragpicker—so that the sequence has a logical structure, and therefore lands with unaccustomed force.

With two exceptions (the basses Nicola Rossi Lemeni, who sings The Father, and José van Dam, as The Ragpicker), the principals are singers who built substantial careers in the French-language houses but were only occasionally summoned abroad or into the recording studios. The Louise is Suzanne Sarroca, who I chanced to hear on what I believe was her only venture to the U. S., as Rachel in two concert performances of La Juive with Richard Tucker (New York, 1964, conducted by Robert Lawrence). I recall a capable singer with an attractive soprano of medium weight (I spoke of her as “sensitive and full-voiced” in my Financial Times review), but Tucker and Norman Treigle (as Brogni) were the stars of that occasion, and theirs are the performances that lodge in the memory. Here, in the heat of a fully staged production and in a role of different properties—Rachel is passionate and tragic, but in writing that is more formalized and “classical,” and most easily sung by a true dramatic soprano—Sarroca is both more compelling and more uneven. Her voice, her instinct for the dramatic moment, and her feel for the language of the text all respond well to the charged exchanges with the Mother and Father, and rise to a mettlesome fulfillment of the challenging last scene. In Act 3, though, the wheels come off for a while. When she attempts the nuanced dynamics and lyrical line of “Depuis le jour,” her voice loses focus and firmness, and some of this lack of clarity and underpinning carries over into portions of the demanding duet. Still, her singingactress virtues bring a very spirited portrayal home on the positive side.