It’s good to be the king
La Cieca is sure that many, if not all, of the cher public are literally salivating at the prospect of seeing an actual performance of Chabrier’s Le Roi Malgré Lui—as indeed it will be presented in its US stage premiere at Bard SummerScape beginning July 27. Well, lucky public is all I can say, because one of you has the chance to win two tickets to the opening night of the opera, complete with round trip transportation from Manhattan to Bard. It’s a competition and it follows the jump.
All you have to do, my dears, is to identify the following 20 quotations from French opera librettos (each containing the key word “malgré”) by title of the opera and the name of the character who sings the line.
Leave your answers in the comments section below, and the first entry offering what La Cieca judges are complete and correct answers will win its author the coveted tickets to Bard. La Cieca asks that only participants who are available and willing to go to Bard on the 27th enter the competetion. Should no completely correct entry be posted by midnight on Friday, July 20, La Cieca will choose a winner randomly from the contestants who have attempted to answer. La Cieca’s decisions as to accuracy and correctness of answers is final, as always.
And now, cher public, name those malgrés!
- Ce fils, malgré son âge est grand par son courage.
- De mes yeux, malgré moi, je sens couler des larmes.
- Depuis qu’il est parti, malgré moi, tout me lasse!
- Eh bien! oui, malgré moi peut-être je l’aimais.
- Eh bien! voilà que malgré moi j’y reviens encore!
- [Elle désigne Selva]: Il est venu l’arrêter, malgré ses larmes et ses prières.
- En ces lieux, malgré moi, m’ont ramené mes pas.
- II semble qu’une main de fer me mene en un autre chemin et malgré moi m’entraine devant elle.
- J’ai dans le coeur des raisons de t’aimer que malgré moi viennent me désarmer!
- Je jette malgré moi vers les biens de la terre un regard de douleur.
- Je viens à vous malgré ma haine.
- Mais ton effroi, ton trouble et ta pâleur mortelle trahissent, malgré toi, ta flamme criminelle!
- Malgré la nuit, malgré ton long silence, mon cœur joyeux avait lu dans ton cœur !
- Malgré le bruit des vents et la fureur des flots, entendez-vous les cris des matelots?
- Malgré l’effort même du démon moqueur, je t’ai retrouvée; je t’ai retrouvée!
- Malgré les cris, malgré les pleurs de tant de mères éperdues, des rivières de sang vont être répandues.
- Malgré nos vains efforts il calme la fureur de nos transports.
- Malgré toi, je saurai t’arracher au trépas!
- Mon coeur suit malgré moi de funestes attraits.
- Oui, tu viendras, cruelle, et malgré toi [bientôt] tu m’entendras.
I know someone who’s singing in Le Roi Malgre Lui and even she can’t get me out of the house during the Opening Ceremony
Why didn’t they embark on an annual Meyerbeer Cycle after that wonderful Huguenots they did at Bard? It certainly would have brought me back there in a hurry.
Meyerbeer costs a fortune to do, it doesn’t sell tickets and it’s mediocre music. Meyerbeer’s operas are basically famous for having been famous. The Huguenots was an interesting experiment, memorable more for the strength of the singing and the staging than for musical value (other than in that famous fourth act, and even that is uneven). So, at least so far as I could tell, Barb demonstrated what there was to demonstrate with the one Meyerbeer opera,-- i.e., there are some pleasant things there, but creating even a superb production around so a mediocre a work essentially amounts to a recipe for stone soup.
Every work suffers from it’s own stylistic limitations -- if one finds that a particular style -- in and of itself -- is ‘mediocre’ for your tastes, well, that’s your personal privilege to believe so.
- As far as Dionorah and the early Meyerbeer, I do agree with you -- but L’étoile du nord, Robert le diable and the later works are among my personal favorites and I don’t find them mediocre -- although specific performances of them can be.
- Bard is an educational institution -- not an opera entertainment center -- you are right on target implying it is better they spend their resources on other works not ‘so famous for having been famous.’
“Meyerbeer’s operas are basically famous for having been famous. ”
http://itsonlyfashionblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/gabor.jpg?w=300
Nerva--fabulous lol.
1 Guillaume Tell, Hedwige
2 Le Cid, Chimene
3. Werther, Charlotte
4 Gustave III or le bal masque, Amelie
5 La dame blanche, Marguerite
6 La muette de Portici, Fenella
7 Samson et Dalila, Samson
8 Manon, Des Grieux
9 Romeo et Juliette, Romeo
10 La Favorite, Fernand
11 L’ Africaine, Vasco Da Gama
12 Gustave III or le bal masque, Ankarstrom
13 Les pecheurs de perles, Leila
14 Les vepres siciliennes, Helene
15 Faust, Faust
16 L’Enfance du Christ, Herode
17 Orphee, Orphee
18 Iphigenie en Tauride, Oreste
19 Roland, Roland
20 Le trouvère, Le comte
A few years ago there was a delicious Laurent Pelly production of “Le Roi” at the Opéra-Comique. Two stagehands are lounging on the unfinished stage when the overture begins. They jump up but never quite catch up: they are still passing out the lances after the soldier’s chorus starts, etc. I alway think Pelly read to many “Mad” magazines as a kid.
Much attention paid this month to the adorable Jérémie Rhorer’s recording of Napoléon-Henri Reber’s Symphony No. 4. There is still an unlimited supply of important stuff to find in those libraries, apparently.