BaL 17.03 18 - Massenet: Manon

[Bergonzi]

Very interesting and informative post Bergonzi, thank you. I think it's rather like CGI in film and animation: somehow it doesn't quite feel right, compared against seeing huge numbers of real people in some of those 1950s and 1960s epics. I still thrill to seeing about half the Soviet Army seen going across screen in a haze of dust, during Ptushko's marvellous Ilya Muromets!

For myself, I have been revisiting the Plasson recording on EMI. Both Cotrubas and Kraus are memorably good, and the supporting cast (led by Gino Quilico and Jose van Dam) is every bit as communicative as Monteux's. The recording (early digital) is a bit two-dimensional and pallid in the current CD transfer, but you can hear everything clearly enough and Plasson manages the pace very well - if less luxuriantly than Monteux. If I had a doubt, it was whether the leading pair were really a vocal match: I felt Cotrubas might have meshed rather better with Monteux's youthful Henri Legay, and the noble, commanding Kraus with de los Angeles's heroine. We can but dream.... meanwhile, there are at least two very recommendable Manons in the catalogue.

Thanks for your reply, and I will try and listen to the Plasson recording or at least bits of it. Yes early digital had to overcome quite a few early problems, but I will be interested in making comparisons.

[Nick Armstrong]

Some people be saving their money today!

there are so many other works that I find so much more thrilling and absorbing that I want to hear first.

I've certainly saved my money! Only today attempted to catch up with this BAL - I'm afraid I could only last for 2 or 3 extracts before switching off. I simply find this sort of stuff unlistenable-to. Ferney, you put it very politely. As do I, actually - this post could have been a lot ruder had I used some of the words I used while listening to the programme

[verismissimo]

I've certainly saved my money! Only today attempted to catch up with this BAL - I'm afraid I could only last for 2 or 3 extracts before switching off. I simply find this sort of stuff unlistenable-to. Ferney, you put it very politely. As do I, actually - this post could have been a lot ruder had I used some of the words I used while listening to the programme

I found Massenet elusive for many years - not at all German sonata in form and a sort of short-breathed Puccini - but then in more recent times the penny has dropped and I find his music profoundly moving these days.