Boieldieu: Jean de Paris
Soloists
Ensemble Lyrique de L'ORTF
Jean-Paul Kreder
Boieldieu is sometime called the French Mozart.He was born only a few weeks before Mozart but lived on until 1834. His fame rests on his music for harp and in particular the opera La Dame Blanche, one of the earliest operas based on the works of Walter Scott. I’ve know and loved that opera for a long time and it is a really good example of the early romantic style as it developed out of the lighter operas of the late 18th century.
Jean de Paris from 1812 is not as ambitious as La Dame Blanche but it contains some lovely music, particularly in the first act. The Mozartian influence is very clear but there are also hints of composers like Gretry and Mehul. I found it tailed off a little in the second act but overall I enjoyed the elegance and wit of the pice. Boieldieu was a highly accomplished composer and it would have been interesting to see whether he could have followed up the succees of La Dame Blanche with some further large-scale romantic opera but it was not to be. Ill health dogged his later years and he died of cancer, having lost the ability to speak.
