Famous French Overtures
Jacques Offenbach (1819 - 1880)
La vie parisienne (Parisian Life)>
Adolphe Adam (1803 - 1856)
Si j'etais roi (If I were king)
Charles Gounod (1818 - 1893) (Like the
Breeze)
Ainsi que la brise (Faust)
Emmanuel Chabrier (1841 - 1894)
Fête polonaise (Le roi malgre lui)
(Polish Festival)
Daniel-Francois-Esprit Auber (1782 - 1871)
Les diamants de la couronne
(The Crown Diamonds)
Daniel-Francois-Esprit Auber (1782 - 1871)
Le cheval de bronze (The Bronze Horse)
Emmanuel Chabrier (1841 - 1894)
Danse slave (Le roi malgre lui) (Slavonic
Dance)
Jacques Offenbach (1819 -1880)
La belle Helene (Fair Helen)
Daniel-Francois-Esprit Auber (1782 - 1871)
Masaniello (La muette de Portici)
Popular revolutions are not always good for opera, and the
French Revolution had an immediately deleterious effect on standards at the Paris Opera,
where works of an overtly political and patriotic nature were for a time encouraged.
Something of a revival took place towards the end of the first decade of the nineteenth
century with the work of Spontini, followed by a younger group of composers that included
Boieldieu, Herold, Halevy and Auber. The last of these, christened Daniel-Francois-Esprit,
was the son of a royal huntsman and became a pupil of the redoubtable Cherubini after the
staging of his first opera in -1805, a work that enjoyed little success. He began to make
a name for himself only in the 1820s, with La bergère
chatelaine, and thereafter in collaboration with the librettist Augustin-Eugene
Scribe. The opera Masaniello, otherwise known as La
muette de Portici (The Dumb Girl of Portici), with a libretto by Scribe and
Delavigne, was first staged at the Opera in February 1828. The hero of the piece,
Masaniello, is a revolutionary leader in seventeenth century Naples. He succeeds in
releasing his unjustly imprisoned dumb sister Fanella and seizing power, but is poisoned,
driven mad, defeated and killed, while Fanella kills herself by jumping from her window
into the volcano of Mount Vesuvius. Performance of Masaniello in Brussels in 1830 led to
the Belgian revolution and establishment of independence. Scribe also wrote the libretto
for Le cheval de bronze (The Bronze Horse), first produced at the Paris Opera-Comique in
1835, and collaborated with Vernoy de Saint-Georges on Les
diamants de la couronne (The Crown Diamonds), successfully staged at the same
house in 1841. The first of these, in its original form, was described as an
opera-feerique, later to be expanded into an opera-ballet. The second, a thoroughly French
piece, was set in Portugal. Unlike Masaniello,
these two operas are typically graceful and relatively light-hearted, qualities apparent
from the overtures.
Adolphe Adam, son of a pianist and teacher whose pupils
included Kalkbrenner and Herold, is best remembered for his ballet Giselle. A prolific
composer, he wrote some eighty works for the stage and enjoyed considerable contemporary
success, starting with his Pierre et Catherine, staged at the Opera-Comique in 1827 as
part of a double bill with Auber's La fiancée.
Si j'etais roi (If I were king), with a
libretto by Ennery and Bresil, was first mounted at the Theatre-Lyrique in Paris in 1852,
the house that had taken the place of the Opera-National, a venture bankrupted by the 1848
revolution, leaving Adam with heavy debts that he attempted to discharge by a remarkable
increase in activity as a composer that ceased only with his death in 1856.
The composer Jacques Offenbach was the
son of a cantor at a Cologne synagogue, his surname derived from his father's place of
birth and his first name a French form of the original Jacob. In Paris he became one of
the most successful composers of popular music of the nineteenth century, rivalled
only by Johann Strauss in Vienna. Of his ninety or so operettas written principally for
the Paris stage, La vie parisienne (Parisian
Life) and La belle Helene (Fair Helen) are among the most popular. The second of these, a
frivolous version of Greek legend, with a libretto by Meilhac and Ludovic Halevy, was
first produced at the Varietes in Paris in 1864, and the first two years later at the
Palais-Royal.
Charles Gounod occupies a rather different position in French
music, the leading French composer of his generation, his attention not exclusively
directed towards the theatre, where his Faust above all retains a continuing position in
operatic repertoire. The choral waltz Ainsi que la
brise (Like the Breeze), the principal melody of which is entrusted to the
orchestra, first appears in the second act but is used to dramatic effect when the heroine
Marguerite, in prison and driven nearly out of her mind, recalls Faust's first meeting
with her and the music of a happier time. The opera, based on Goethe, was first staged in
Paris in 1859 at the Theatre-Lyrique and won immediate success.
Intended by his family for the law, Emmanuel Chabrier devoted
himself fully to composition only later in life, although he had achieved some success in
1877with his light opera L'etoile (The
Star). His penultimate work for the stage, Le roi
malgre lui (The King in spite of himself), concerns the accession to the Polish
throne in 1573 of the French Prince Henri III and hence includes a Fête polonaise, and a Danse slave for good measure.
The piece might have proved initially successful in Paris had not the theatre burned down
after the third performance, allowing the work to win its first fame abroad.
The Polish Radio National Symphony
Orchestra of Katowice (PRNSO)
The Polish Radio National Symphony Orchestra of Katowice
(PRNSO) was founded in 1945, soon after the end of the World War II, by the eminent Polish
conductor Witold Rowicki. The PRNSO replaced the Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra which had
existed from 1934 to 1939 in Warsaw, under the direction of another outstanding artist,
Grzegorz Fitelberg. In 1947 Grzegroz Fitelberg returned to Poland and became artistic
director of the PRNSO. He was followed by a series of distinguished Polish conductors -
Jan Krenz, Bohdan Wodiezko, Kazimierz Kord, Tadeusz Strugala, Jerzy Maksymiuk, Stanislaw
Wislocki and, since 1983, Antoni Wit. The orchestra has appeared with conductors and
soloists of the greatest distinction and has recorded for Polskie Nagrania and many
international record labels.
Czecho-Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra
(Bratislava)
The Czecho-Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra (Bratislava), the
oldest symphonic ensemble in Slovakia, was founded in 1929. The orchestra's first
conductor was Frantiek Dyk and over the past sixty years it has worked under the
direction of several prominent Czech and Slovak conductors. The orchestra has made many
recordings for the Naxos label ranging from the ballet music of Tchaikovsky to more modern
works by composers such as Copland, Britten and Prokofiev. For Marco Polo the orchestra
has recorded works by Glazunov, Glière, Miaskovsky and other late romantic composers and
film music of Honegger, Bliss, lbert and Khachaturian.
America's favourite "Pops" conductor, Richard Hayman
is Principal "Pops" Conductor of the Saint Louis, Hartford and Grand Rapids
symphony orchestras, of Orchestra London Canada and the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra,
and also held that post with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra for many years.
For over 30 years, Mr. Hayman served as the chief arranger for
the Boston Pops Orchestra during Arthur Fiedler's tenure, providing special arrangements
for dozens of their hit albums and famous singles. Under John Williams' direction, the
orchestra continues to program his award-winning arrangements, and orchestrations.
Now residing in New York City, Mr.
Hayman's work is in constant demand, in every medium of musical expression, from Boston to
Hollywood. Though more involved with the symphony orchestra circuit, Mr. Hayman has served
as musical director and/or master of ceremonies for the tour shows of many popular
entertainers: Kenny Rogers, Johnny Cash, Olivia Newton-John, Tom Jones, Engelbert
Humperdinck, The Carpenters, The Osmonds, Al Hirt, Andy Williams and many others.