Hahn: Ciboulette

Beautiful music. Charming and quintessentially French! While it would have been nice to have had the libretto, for a French speaker (such as myself) the diction was polished and very clear! Definitely worth repeated listens!

Lovely. Belongs to a specific period, France end of the 20th century, and is very interesting because it shows the taste of the time.

There is copious dialogue in this airy operetta. Perhaps I am mistaken but the dialogue voices do not seem to match Gedda nor Van Dam's quite-familiar speaking voices. If actors are speaking for any or all of the singers, it would have been respectful to identify them in the accompanying booklet. The singing is delightful, the vocal acting rather cliché. I'm planning to listen again, on my computer & skip the dialogue, which is clearlly indicated in the track listings.

Gesucht und zu fairem Preis gefunden. Kann man anraten!

Ciboulette Music by Reynaldo Hahn Lyrics by Robert de Flers and Francis de Croisset Reynaldo Hahn was born in Caracas, Venezuela in 1874, one of a prosperous family of twelve children. His parents moved to Paris when he was three years old on account of local political turmoil. The boy was quickly recognised as a child prodigy, making his first public appearance singing Offenbach whilst accompanying himself on the piano at the age of six. He was admitted to the Paris Conservatoire aged only 10 where his teachers included Massenet, Gounod and Saint-Säens. Fellow pupils included Maurice Ravel and pianist Alfred Cortot. Massenet was to remain as Hahn's mentor and supporter for the rest of his life. Hahn made an extraordinarily early impact when at the age of 13 he composed Si mes vers avaient des ailes (If My Verses Had Wings), the highlight of the song cycle Twenty Melodies, book 1 (1888-1896) which remains one of his finest achievements. Between 1887 and 1890 he went on to write the memorable song cycle Chansons grises to words by Verlaine. Like Gluck (Bavaria), Lully (Florence), Offenbach (Cologne) and Franck (Liège) Hahn was a foreign-born Frenchman who came to epitomise the music of France of his time and eventually became the ultimate Parisian. In 1894 Hahn met the writer Marcel Proust and they fell deeply in love. They were to remain the closest of friends until the death of Proust in 1922. He composed Four Portraits of Painters setting the words by Proust including Albert Cuyp, Paulus Potter, Anton van Dyck and Antoine Watteau and in turn was celebrated in Proust's monumental novel, In Search of Lost Time in which he was portrayed as the character Henri de Réveillon (the initials RH reversed). He enjoyed a wide social circle and was on everyday terms with Stravinsky, Sarah Bernhard, Debussy, Saint-Säens, Diaghilev and Nijinsky. Hahn staged his first opera, L'île du rêve (1893) at the Paris Opéra-Comique followed by a further six operas before he created his most popular stage work, Ciboulette in 1923. He was to go on to compose a further nine operas, both comic and serious, up until 1942. Hahn was always inclined towards song and keyboard writing and admitted he wasn't particularly interested in composing instrumental work, despite the success of his 1931 Piano Concerto. His finest mélodies are as inspiring as the best of Chausson or Fauré and widely celebrated in France yet not as well known as they should be this side of the Channel. Songs such as the Bach-inspired À Chloris or L'Énamourée, L'Autommne, Tyndaris, Fêtes Galantes and not forgetting the youthful Si mes vers avaient des ailes find Hahn at his best and deserve a much wider hearing. Amongst his other claims to fame are his many piano works, especially his Le Rossignal Éperdu (The Bewildered Nightingale), a collection of 53 pieces written between 1902 and 1910. Hahn was active in the defence of Alfred Dreyfus during the course of that shameful affair and the officer's wrongful imprisonment. In the same period he began to receive invitations to conduct, including directing Don Giovanni in Salzburg. In 1913 he embarked upon a series of lectures on singers and singing and a book entitled Du Chant followed (translated into English as On Singers and Singing). He was conscripted into the army at the outset of the Great War in August 1914, earning two citations as well as the Croix de Guerre. After the war he was engaged to conduct his beloved Mozart, directing Don Giovanni and The Magic Flute in Paris. In 1920 he was appointed professor of song by Alfred Cortot at the newly formed L'École Normale de Musique in Paris and the following year he was contacted by his longstanding friend, Robert de Flers, recently appointed as the editor of Le Figaro, who invited him to write a traditional operetta set around Les Halles market in Paris, which was to emerge as his major success, Ciboulette.. He was already well known from his time as the music critic for the periodical L'Excelsior. In 1924 he was awarded the rank of Officer of the Legion d'honneur. The following year he agreed to write an opera entitled Mozart from a libretto by the actor and playright Sacha Guitry featuring Guitry's wife at the time, the singer Yvonne Printemps in a trouser role as the young Wolfgang. The project turned out to be a great success. During the Second World War his works were banned in France by the Pétain regime under the pretext that Hahn had a Jewish background; then in 1942 a planned revival of Ciboulette was cancelled by the authorities. As a consequence Hahn moved to live in Monte Carlo in the Free Zone with the singer Ninon Vallin. Just after the War he was appointed Director of the Paris Opéra but he died in January 1947 before he was able to fully put into place the reforms he had planned. Hahn's music is essentially intimate and most suited to the salon. Anyone hoping for grand gestures in Ciboulette will be disappointed. Besides a couple of numbers which have the lively whiff of Offenbach about them ("Nous avons fait un beau voyage...") the genuine voice of Hahn comes out in his understated solos and duets. The contemporary writer Romain Rolland suspected he knew why. He complained that music in France was confined to, and seen as the possession of, the aristocracy and their salons because: "Paris has not yet a concert hall, as the smallest provincial towns in Germany have; and this shameful indifference, unworthy of the artistic renown of Paris, obliges the symphonic societies to take refuge in circuses or theatres, which they share with other kinds of performers, though the acoustics of these places are not intended for concerts." Ciboulette is a three act amusement of an opera based in the Second Empire period and set in and around the Les Halles market in Paris. In a bar near the market the tenor hero, Antonin, is in the process of being jilted by his partner, Zénobie, who runs off with an officer, Roger - to the approval of Roger's men ("Nous sommes six hussards..."). Left to his own devices, Antonin finds himself in the market itself and arriving late at that moment comes soprano Ciboulette, a young orphaned country girl with her wagon full of vegetables. To the accompanying chorus ("Nous sommes les bons maraichers...") she is told by the old market manager, baritone Duparquet, that she has arrived too late to sell her goods and so her wagon has to be reloaded. Just before she does so, old and wizened Màre Pingret appears and reads her palm. She makes three strange prophecies: first, her intended will appear from underneath a cabbage; second, a woman who tries to take him will turn white and, third, she will receive a proposal of marriage in a tambourine. Ciboulette (literally, the herb chives) laughs this off and sets about reloading her wagon. Unbeknown to her Antonin is in a deep sleep in the back of the wagon and he is covered by vegetables. Act Two is set in Ciboulette's home, a farm house outside Paris owned by her uncle and aunt. They are longing for her to be gone and married, for now she is 21 and besotted with boyfriends. She arrives late accompanied by Duparquet and receives a torrent of criticism for missing the sales deadline at Les Halles. Her uncle insists that unless she finds a fiancé within the hour, she can pack her bags. She is about to begin unloading her wagon when a cabbage begins to move and reveals the sleepy Antonin. The first prophecy has come true. Ciboulette persuades Antonin to pose as her fiancé for the sake of her uncle and the ruse appears to work and she avoids eviction. A group of officers arrive to picnic at the farm, and the party (of course) includes Roger and Zénobie but Zénobie taunts Ciboulette and it is clear she remains a rival. It is also clear that Antonin has yet to get over Zénobie and so Ciboulette locks him in a cellar. Eventually, Ciboulette can stand the taunts no longer and so confronts Zénobie who turns deathly pale. The second prophecy has come about but Antonin is furious when let out of the cellar and storms off. At this point the mood of the opera changes as Duparquet, nostalgically recalling his youth and lost love, advises Ciboulette to bide her time and suggests she leaves for Paris to seek fame and fortune. Act Three is set in the Paris studio of the impresario Métra. The masked Ciboulette is performing disguised as the Spanish star, Conchita Ciboulero. Antonin is in the audience and falls head over heels for "Conchita". She laughs at him and tells him the trouble is that he isn't very bright. He replies that a girl called Ciboulette once said the same to him and so Conchita tells him to write down that he is no longer in love with Ciboulette. He refuses and at that moment realises that Conchita and Ciboulette are one and the same. In conclusion, it turns out that earlier in the evening Antonin wrote a love letter to Ciboulette and this is delivered to the table by Métra in a bouquet of flowers in the shape of a tambourine. The final prophecy has come about and Ciboulette and Antonin live happily ever after. Ciboulette has enjoyed a number of revivals since it received its premiere in April 1923 at the Théâtre Variétés in Paris starring Edmée Favart in the title role supported by Henry Defreyn as Antonin. It was restaged in 1926 with the same lead singers. It has never really gone out of fashion. In 1986 Pierre Jourdin directed a TV film version of the opera starring Agnès Host in the title role with Antoine Normand as Antonin. This followed a 1933 film version directed by Claude Autant-Lara and featured Simone Berriau as Ciboulette and Robert Bernier as Antonin. The TC channel France2 broadcast the opera on New Year's Eve 2013 and the Opéra Comique of Paris staged Ciboulette at the beginning of that year. The L'Opéra Théâtre, Saint Etienne is scheduled to perform the opera in their current season.

Très bien!

Une perle de l'opérette française, j'adore, super son, génial. Je le recommande vivement. Ne pas hésitez, prix très attractif en mp3 et cd.

Ciboulette? Reynaldo Hahn? Nie gehört? Die Wiederauflage der alten EMI-Aufnahme aus dem Jahr 1983 könnte dem abhelfen. "Ciboulette", immerhin erst 1923 uraufgeführt, nennt sich Operette, hört sich aber eher an wie eine späte opéra comique. Alles ist sehr fein ausgeführt, leicht und delikat, in den Modulationen eindeutig schon ein Werk des 20. Jahrhunderts. Jedoch: alles, was eine Operette z.B. des Silbernen Zeitalters mitteleuropäischen Zuschnitts auszeichnet, fehlt: große Emotionen mit großen Melodien, das Tänzerische, die Ohrwürmer - aber auch die musikalischen Schablonen und der Kitsch. Vielleicht hat Reynaldo Hahn den Mangel an wirklich Mitreißendem selbst empfunden - so lässt er es (selten) ein bisschen knallen, dann lässt Offenbach grüßen. Die vorliegende Aufnahme ist eine Gesamtaufnahme in französischer Sprache, Spielzeit 115 Minuten, davon nahezu 25 Minuten Dialoge. Sie ist mit Gedda, van Dam und Mesplé hochkarätig besetzt; das Orchester unter Cyril Diederich musiziert - scheint mir - ein wenig pauschal. Das beiliegende Booklet bietet eine kurze Biographie des Komponisten und eine Inhaltsangabe (beides leider nur in Englisch und Französisch). Man muss "Ciboulette" nicht kennen, aber die Gourmets unter den Musikfreunden werden sich daran erfreuen.