OPERA GUIDE

New Zealand Listener, Volume 36, Issue 913, 8 February 1957, Page 11

OPERA GUIDE

This is the first of a series of programme notes designed to introduce listeners to. new or unfamiliar operatic broadcasts from NZBS stations. The first is the little-known "Mireille" by Gounod which will be heard from the YC stations at 7.0 p.m. on Sunday, February 17. OUNOD’S other operas, of which he wrote many, have never been as successful as Faust but in France there is one work, which still holds its place in the repertoire of the many opera companies, This is Mireille, a tragic opera with a libretto based on a poem by the Provencal. poet Mistral. It was written in Provence while Gounod was staying with the poet, and in his memoirs Gounod describes how easily the ideas of the opera came to him and how stimulating he found the atmosphere of Provence. The first performance took place at Saint Rémy-de-Provence in 1863 and the following year it was introduced to Paris. Here the work failed, so Gounod reduced it to three acts and made other changes which in the end brought him

success. The opera now exists in both three and five act versions, both of which have been performed in various parts of the world. Adelina Patti sang Mireille in New York in 1865 but. it was not until 1919 that the work was first performed at the Metropolitan when it served as a vehicle for the brilliant Maria Barrientos. This was the first New York production in French but even a cast that included Barrientos, Kathleen Howard, Charles Hackett and Leon Rothier could not keep it in the repertoire for more than five performances. In the late 1930s the Opéra Comique staged a revival prepared by Reynaldo Hahn from Gounod’s original production and it is this version, produced at the 1954 Aix-en-Provence Festival, that listeners will hear. The performance took place in the open air at Les Baux in the Val d’Enfer where part of the opera is set. Mireille is not a tragic opera in the serious sense but it is, with its sunny overture, pastoral scenes and traditional dances a work of considerable freshness and charm.