PACO063 - Désormière conducts Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande

		Irene Joachim Jacques Jansen Chorus Yvonne Gouverne Orchestre Symphonique Roger Désormière, conductor Recorded in Paris in 1941 XR remastering by Andrew Rose at Pristine Audio, July 2011 Front cover artwork based on a photograph of Mary Garden as Mélisande in the première, 1903 Total duration: 2hr 34:23 ©2011 Pristine Audio. Download ID: 1478893-96 Remastered using Pristine Audio's 32-bit XR technology Scroll down for PDF covers and cue-sheet download For FLAC playback and conversion support see our Help pages Download price category:	##title## ##time## Opening of Act 1 Not working? click here

Perhaps the definitive recording of Debussy's only opera

Désormière's classic 1941 Pelléas et Mélisande in fabulous 32-bit XR remastering

• DEBUSSY Pelléas et Mélisande [notes/score]
  Recorded at Salle de la Conservatoire, Paris on 12, 17, 19, 20, 25 & 26 May; 8 October, 16 & 18 November, 1941
  Issued as La voix de son maître 78s:
  Matrix Nos: 2LA 3404, 3525-3545
  Cat. Nos. DB.5161, 5172-80
  Transfer from La voix de son maître LPs 2C 153-12513 - 12515, EMI France
  
  Jacques Jansen Pelléas
  Irène Joachim Mélisande
  Henri Etcheverry Golaud
  Germaine Cernay Geneviève
  Paul Cabanel Arkel
  Leila Ben Sedira Yniold
  Emile Rousseau Le berger
  Armand Narçon Le médecin
  
  Chorus Yvonne Gouverne
  Orchestre Symphonique
  
  Roger Désormière conductor
  
  

 

Review (from Gramophone Good CD, DVD & Download Guide, 2007):

"The strength of the performance owed much to the fact that Irene Joachim, Jacques Jansen and Henri Etcheverry had already sung the work many times under Désormière at the Opéra-Comique. Irene Joachim had studied the role of Mélisande with its creator, Mary Garden; and both she and Jansen had been coached by Georges Viseur, who with Messager had been the repetiteur for the opera's first performance. Jansen with his free, youthful-toned production and Joachim with her silvery voice and intelligent response to every verbal nuance, set standards for the doomed lovers that, though nearly equalled, have never been surpassed; but even more impressive is Etcheverry's interpretation of Golaud, a role in which, arguably, he has yet to be rivalled. Leila ben Sedira gives one of the most convincing portrayals ever heard of the child Yniold; and Germaine Cernay and Paul Cabanel (who alone is just a trifle free with the text in places) fill the parts of the older characters with distinction. In this recording, the placing of the voices is such that every single word is crystal clear. More important every word is invested with meaning by a native French cast - in other versions allowances sometimes need to be made for non-French singers - which had immersed itself totally in the emotional nuances and overtones of the text. Every shade of expression is caught, but nevertheless the overall feeling is of subtle Gallic understatement - with Golaud's self-tormenting jealousy and Pelléas's final inability to resist declaring his love for his brother's mysterious, fey wife creating the great emotional climaxes."

 

Memories of Pellées et Mélisande's beginnings

"The singers read through Pelléas at my house, with no one else present. Debussy played his score on the piano, singing all the roles in that deep, cavernous voice of his which often meant transposing lines an octave down, but whose delivery gradually became irresistible. The impression produced by that music on that occasion was, I believe, unique. To begin with there was a kind of mistrust, a resistance, then an ever closer attention, with the emotional temperature rising until the last notes of 'Melisande's death', which fell amid silence and tears. At the end all of us were carried away with excitement, burning to get down to work as soon as possible.

During the weeks that followed, rehearsals took place amid growing enthusiasm; each scene was gone over twenty times without any of the singers showing the least sign of temper in the face of the composer's demands - and he was very difficult to satisfy. With the first orchestral read-through began a series of gloomy days and discouraging rehearsals. Debussy had had the generous but unfortunate idea of getting the orchestral material copied by a friend who was hard up, but who was a mediocre copyist and a somewhat rudimentary musician, and it took three or four rehearsals simply to get the corrections sorted out. In the meantime a new difficulty had arisen, of some seriousness, to do with the changes of scene. Although the stage of the Opera-Comique looks fairly large, it has such small exits and such narrow wings that it is impossible to manoeuvre even a flat through them, and we were having to make on average three rapid changes per act! Debussy, imagining that these changes would be more or less instantaneous, had linked the different scenes with music that was far too short. He had to return to work, grumbling and raving, and I went to see him every day to snatch away the notes he had written between one rehearsal and another; that is how he wrote the wonderful interludes which provide such a moving commentary on the action."

Andre Messager, 'Les premieres representations de Pelleas,' ReM, 7, 1 May 1926, pp. 110-12, as quoted in from "Debussy Remembered" by Roger Nichols

 

Notes on the recordings:

This recording was one of a number suggested and supplied to me by devoted collector John Philips, and I'm grateful to him for an excellent, near-mint set of French EMI LPs to work from. It's not unusual for LP reissues to provide excellent source material for 78rpm remastering, especially where the LPs were made using the best possible transfers from original metal master parts and then not subjected to major processing.

This is the happy case here - the EMI transfers were generally very well carried out, with perhaps two sides falling down slightly quality-wise across the entire opera. At times I've had to deal with varying amount of swish, but overall the sound quality has been excellent, especially after re-equalisation in the XR remastering process. This tonal correction has completely transformed what is already regarded as the reference performance of this opera. I've also been able to correct the tendency on some sides for the pitch to gradually drift downwards, using Capstan technology to eliminate wow and make other general pitch corrections.

The end result is a full-sounding 1941 recording, with real depth and an extended upper range, that is a far cry from its dim, thin and somewhat sharp (A4=450Hz) starting point.

Andrew Rose

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