Victorin Joncieres: Dimitri

These are worth every penny, beautifully presented

This has everything you would think any French grand opera would have. Philippe Talbot has a clear tenor voice rings out from the first note. The principles and chorus of Act 2 Scene 5 (track 19) is huge. It is one of those robust tableaus where everyone is on stage singing away. The weak point is Nora Gubisch. Her voice is a bit wobbly, as if she is forcing it a bit to keep up with everyone else. A real plus is that this isn't one of those live recordings in a provincial opera house; no one is coughing in the background and the singers and orchestra are well balanced. I looked Joncieres up my copy of The Oxford Dictionary of Music, and he didn't get a mention, which is a little odd because this really is entertaining and one of my favorites of the Palazzetto Bru Zane label.

Excellent....delivery was as promised and the opera is well sung, recorded and presented. Not a masterpiece but in every way enjoyable...totally recommended

Sollte auch mal in den Opernhäusern gespielt werden

Yes, I must agree, this is a wonderful recording of a grossly neglected French Grande Opera. The previous reviewers have been terribly unhelpful, either through brevity or not understanding how amazon.com works, so I will play the Lilac Fairy and try to soften the curse as it were. I did not expect the book format, although I quickly fell in love with it for its originality and frankly academic-like style. I am a grad student in History and so the formating spoke to me. I originally purchased this recording after years of holding off for the price to go down because I wanted to compare it to Dvorak's Dimitrij, which has the distinction of being the only opera (in Czech or otherwise) for which I have purchased two different recordings. While Joncieres' librettist does take liberties with historical reality, as did Dvorak's, it does give the narrative a certain political cohension lacking in the more Romantic and passion driven Czech version, although the French opera does suffer from being just as episodic as any other Grande Opera. To a certain extent the plot is simplistic, and requires the audience to believe that Dimitri is so terrible at murdering people that he tried and failed to kill the same man twice. Marina is no longer the power-hungry Cathoholic of Mussorgsky or the passion driven murderess/women's lib representative of Dvorak's TWO versions, she is the innocent girl in love, running away from home with the gypsies to find the man she loves and escape forced matrimony with the serial killer/contract killer Count of Lusatia, then showing up at his "mother's" castle in Russia. Dvorak's and to a much lesser extent Mussorgsky's Xenia is gone, Boris even although mentioned is basically an empty threat, but instead we have the sex starved (power hungry?) Vanda, cousin of the King of Poland who will to anything to have have Dimitri and then do anything to destroy him. The Poles are not demonised here either, no one really is actually except maybe the Count. Even Vanda's murderous intentions are driven by her spurned pure love for Dimitri, although the well researched essays reveal that she did have some political ambition in her as well. Musically, it is not Dvorak, but Joncieres did manage to replicate Meyerbeer, Verdi, Wagner, and Gounod's respective styles in his own unique voice successfully though. I can not choose a specific section that I loved the most, it was all very entertaining. The overture stands out as a composite of most of the themes from the opera, minus references to Marfa. It ironically focuses on Vanda musically, who does not appear until the second act and who may very well be the anti-heroine of the entire piece. It is very hard to like her though, because we meet Marina first and she and Dimitri are obviously so much in love. The lone tenor part of Dimitri certainly has the most music, which is logically in relation to the title, and Philippe Talbot sings the part exceptionally well. Nora Gubisch has a beautifuly showy contralto aria in O Nature, toi si douce. The brief ballet is wonderful and the first act includes a baritone-bass duet which is one of the few of its kind that I actually enjoyed listening to. The love music, between Marina and Dimitri (Acts 1 and 5) and (filially) between Dimitri and Marpha (Act 4) capture the essence of the relationships they are trying to depict. Did anyone notice that the Act 2 finale has a theme that seems to parrallel Delibes in the second act of Lakme? The other act-final emsembles need no comment other than that they are gorgeous and satisfy. My only complaint might be wanting more, after all Dvorak's Dimitrij is over an hour longer. Yet it may be unfair to compare Joncieres with Dvorak, they came from the story from different perspectives and although both utilised librettos based on the unfinshed Dimitrius by Schiller, neither is all that close to the source text. As far as French Grand Opera as a genre is concerned, Dimitri is just as effective as Dvorak. Since only 3000 copies of this limited recording were made, I do not expect everyone to go off and fight over the 2999 not in my personal possession, but if you are lucky enough to grab one, and you love French opera, you will not be disappointed by this expertly crafted set!

Beautiful french opera.