Hahn: L’île du rêve

Niquet, Hervé;
Münchner Rundfunkorchester

BZ 1042

Hélène Guilmette

Cyrille Dubois

Anaïk Morel

Artavazd Sargsyan

Ludivine Gombert

Thomas Dolié

Münchner Rundfunkorchester

ISBN: 978-84-09-21786-1

‘To have written that, you must be a poet’, Massenet told Reynaldo Hahn when he read through the score of L’Île du rêve. Composed when the young man was not yet eighteen years old, this ‘curtain-raiser’ already had the qualities of the great works of the period. It reveals the colouristic talents of Bizet, the passionate outbursts of Massenet and even the prosodic originality of the young Debussy. The plot recounts a French naval officer’s love affair with a young Polynesian girl he has to abandon. This subject – also treated musically by Puccini (Madama Butterfly) and Delibes (Lakmé) – is approached in an almost Symbolist style: the Romanticism of the music contrasts with a contemplative, introspective treatment of the narration. This is where the youthful Hahn particularly shines: in the very first bars (the hymn to Bora-Bora), in the various love scenes for Loti and Mahénu (notably the duet ‘Restons encore les paupières mi-closes’) and even in the neo-Handelian prelude to Act Two.

CD + książka

Muzyka klasyczna

Bru Zane

02-11-2020

9788409217861

MusicWeb International: 'Nominee for Recording of the Year' (2021)