Saint-Saëns L’Ancêtre

Opera 17

Saint-Saëns L’Ancêtre

Soloists

Tokyo Philharmonic Choir

Monte-Carlo Philhamonic Orchestra

Kazuki Yamada

Saint-Saëns is a composer who I have got to admire more and more in recent years. He quite often is dismissed in patronising terms - as a composer of enormous talent but no genius.  I'm gradually getting to know his operas. The fabulous Bru Zane recordings of 19th and early 20th century French music are a hugely important addition to the CD catalogue and I will be returning to them several times in this project.

L'Ancêtre is Saint-Saën's last opera. It was commissioned for the opera at Monte Carlo which in the late 19th century was in many ways an outpost of the Paris Opéra.  It had some early success but then, like almost all of the composer's operas, disappeared from view. That is a great pity. I didn't think that this was an out and out masterpiece but it had plenty to capture the imagination. Perhaps it got off to a bit of a slow start but by Act two its really started to catch fire and there were some highly impressive ensemble and moments of drama. It is quite a short piece and perhaps that it is one of the problems preventing it from establishing even the shortest toe-hold in the repertory. You would feel short changed if this was the only work on the programme but combining it with another opera would make for a long evening - at least for modern audiences, who don't have the stamina of audiences 100+ years ago who would expect to be entertained for three or four hours as a matter of course.

More exploration of French opera tomorrow.