Michel Legrand (1932-2019): 6-10/1/25

[vinteuil]

Most recently, Castor and Pollux at ENO (2011, Kosky, Curnyn) was critically received, for sure, but absolutely not because the English text didn't work. It did..

from Paul Guest's review at the time -

"His orchestra clearly lost, Maestro Curnyn still valiantly, and quite brilliantly, managed to salvage what he could. The chorus were in the same boat as the orchestra, this time through a lack of clarity in their singing: nothing was clear. They sang lines in almost a legato manner at which point they lost touch with the score and inevitably Rameau himself. From the first few phrases, I loathed the English translation, and that is all there is to be said, I wish they’d kept it in French. / ... /
My expressions of discontent toward the musical treatment of this production, though strong, should not be taken too hard. I actually rather enjoyed this new, quirky staging. Next time, though, let’s just keep it French chaps? Ça marche?"

[Master Jacques]

from Paul Guest's review at the time -

"His orchestra clearly lost, Maestro Curnyn still valiantly, and quite brilliantly, managed to salvage what he could. The chorus were in the same boat as the orchestra, this time through a lack of clarity in their singing: nothing was clear. They sang lines in almost a legato manner at which point they lost touch with the score and inevitably Rameau himself. From the first few phrases, I loathed the English translation, and that is all there is to be said, I wish they’d kept it in French. / ... /
My expressions of discontent toward the musical treatment of this production, though strong, should not be taken too hard. I actually rather enjoyed this new, quirky staging. Next time, though, let’s just keep it French chaps? Ça marche?"

As I said, sensible critics liked the translation - and certainly didn't condemn it after "the first few phrases", like this particular amateur blogger, who doesn't even realise that ENO does everything in English, as part of their charter. How RVW would have "loathed" him!

Rather than listen to such ramblings (or mine) I suggest you hear it for yourself, instead of relying on shady bloggers. Because here is something on this untrustworthy Paul Guest chappie:

https://operacreep.wordpress.com/2012/11/20/a-story-of-deception-paul-j-guest/

[Master Jacques]

Oh, and here is something rather more worthy, from David Karlin - a genuine reviewer, not a con-man, and one of the founders of Bachtrack:

All the singers showed great diction, for which a fair chunk of the credit must go to translator Amanda Holden. For the first three quarters of the opera, the metre of the English words tightly matched the phrasing of the music - no clever linguistic tricks, merely simple, poetic language chosen perfectly for its purpose (the last quarter wasn't as good, leading me to speculate, perhaps unfairly, that Holden had to rush to meet deadlines). I have distinctly mixed feelings about seeing opera in translation, but I would have few qualms at all if the translations were always of this quality.

And this from a reviewer who is more "on your side" than not!

[Ein Heldenleben]

We certainly have Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet (Cranko version especially) to bear out your thought royally.

Shakespeare deals in stage pictures doesn’t he . The opening of Lear : The King with the Crown and surrounded by cronies and relatives . The end - no Crown , tattered clothes and a stage strewn with corpses.
I once read of a performance of Macbeth done in English in Africa to an audience that didn’t speak the language . They could pretty much follow hats was happening.

[Ein Heldenleben]

Did they? Wondrous nonsense, if it's true! Who was this "someone"? Any such idea is quite patently absurd - like the oft-repeated nonsense speaking of Siegfried as "the scherzo of The Ring". A scherzo, incidentally, featuring spooky woods, poisoning, murders, fights to the death with dragons, nightmare-sequences and pathological fear of women. Yes, that sort of scherzo.

It’s not a wholly absurd idea .

This very good conductor can see some merit in it

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/may/27/ring-the-changes-my-asuterity-wagner-with-opera-north

but it’s stretching things too far really.

Although Wagner wasn’t much of a composer of symphonies it’s not wide of the mark to say that he thought symphonically - in large scale tonal contrasts, using constant thematic development. Bit it’s all a long way from Mozart . The only one of the cycle that really seems Symphony- like to me is Gotterdamerung. But Symphony doesn’t do it justice. I honestly don’t think there’s anything else like it - largely because it constantly reflects back to previous musical thoughts and transforms them. It almost plays with memory in a novelistic way. You can find any analogy really it’s so all encompassing,

[Serial_Apologist]

Although Wagner wasn’t much of a composer of symphonies it’s not wide of the mark to say that he thought symphonically - in large scale tonal contrasts, using constant thematic development. Bit it’s all a long way from Mozart . The only one of the cycle that really seems Symphony- like to me is Gotterdamerung. But Symphony doesn’t do it justice. I honestly don’t think there’s anything else like it - largely because it constantly reflects back to previous musical thoughts and transforms them. It almost plays with memory in a novelistic way. You can find any analogy really it’s so all encompassing,

The overture to Meistersinger is a masterpiece in elaborated sonata form, however, I think.

[Master Jacques]

Although Wagner wasn’t much of a composer of symphonies it’s not wide of the mark to say that he thought symphonically - in large scale tonal contrasts, using constant thematic development. Bit it’s all a long way from Mozart . The only one of the cycle that really seems Symphony- like to me is Gotterdamerung. But Symphony doesn’t do it justice. I honestly don’t think there’s anything else like it - largely because it constantly reflects back to previous musical thoughts and transforms them. It almost plays with memory in a novelistic way. You can find any analogy really it’s so all encompassing,

"Thinking symphonically" is one of those phrases which seems to make sense when you hear it, with regard to opera, but which proves hard to pin down in practice. Of course 19th-20th century opera composers (including Legrand in Les parapluies...) use symphonic techniques: counterpoint, "progressive tonality", and thematic development to construct through-written sequences. But formally it stretches the symphonic idea beyond even metaphorical breaking point, to talk of any of Wagner's four operas - let alone The Ring as a whole - as contained, rounded symphonic structures. It may be true for rounded, individual scenes (e.g. the quiz show for Mime and the Wanderer) but that's about as far as we can take it.

They are robust dramatic structures, of course, just like Shakespeare's Macbeth: though Das Rheingold is much the most interesting of the four formally, a radical operatic model from which he stepped back in the three remaining evenings of the cycle, towards more conventionally "operatic" forms in the grand, French tradition (with German romantic content).

As for Leitmotif, after Das Rheingold Wagner also backtracked: one sometimes has the feeling that he wished he'd never gone down that route in the first place! In the end, he relies on thematic reminiscence, just as many operatic composers do. Stern analysts are prone to twist themselves into knots trying to account for why he brings back this-or-that motif, when simpler explanations work better. Take the so-called "Liebeserlösung" motif (roughly "redemption through love" in English) at the very end of Götterdämmerung. The label is not Wagner's of course, but comes from the critic Wolzogen. When Sieglinde sings it, the meaning is a very human "motherly feeling", but Wolzogen realised that wouldn't fit Götterdämmerung's decidedly inhuman cleansing of the earth by water, so complicated and obfuscated it, by dragging in something he thought fitted with Wagner's idea of "redemption". Yet when Sieglinde sings it, "redemption" is not a card in the pack, though sacrifice and love are.

In performance, the thematic reminiscence at the end of the Tetralogy has a simple, direct impact on listeners ... something vaguely but powerfully to do with life-forces which won't be denied, human or natural, but nothing more precise. It works because it's a wonderful operatic tune in the moment, not because it makes any formal or progressive-melodic-symphonic, retrospective "sense", and not because it is tied to this-or-that complex, abstract concept.

[Master Jacques]

Shakespeare deals in stage pictures doesn’t he . The opening of Lear : The King with the Crown and surrounded by cronies and relatives . The end - no Crown , tattered clothes and a stage strewn with corpses.
I once read of a performance of Macbeth done in English in Africa to an audience that didn’t speak the language . They could pretty much follow hats was happening.

Quite so. I remember a teasingly rich comment from one of my professors at University, where I was studying English (before researching on Dryden's collaboration with Purcell). I asked him what kept bringing him back to see Hamlet. He thought for a moment, then said with decision, "the swordfight"!

[MickyD]

Can anyone push this conversation onto a separate thread and let us continue with Mr Legrand ?

[Ein Heldenleben]

Can anyone push this conversation onto a separate thread and let us continue with Mr Legrand ?

The best way of doing that is by posting something about him . I suspect not many people on the forum heard the recent COTW . I heard most of it but I’ve run out if things to say . I will say however that his work has done rather well in translation. Even when as with Le Chanson de Maxence from Lee Demoiselles de Rochefort the new song You Must Believe In Sprinf bears no relation to the original .
That movie barely featured in the COTW - a pity as it’s a really intriguing one . There’s an interesting behind the scenes film about it on YouTube where it’s evident that one of the stars ,Gene Kelly , knows rather more about directing dance sequences than auteur Jacques Demy.

[Master Jacques]

The best way of doing that is by posting something about him . I suspect not many people on the forum heard the recent COTW . I heard most of it but I’ve run out if things to say . I will say however that his work has done rather well in translation. Even when as with Le Chanson de Maxence from Lee Demoiselles de Rochefort the new song You Must Believe In Sprinf bears no relation to the original .
That movie barely featured in the COTW - a pity as it’s a really intriguing one . There’s an interesting behind the scenes film about it on YouTube where it’s evident that one of the stars ,Gene Kelly , knows rather more about directing dance sequences than auteur Jacques Demy.

Disappointing that COTW neglected it, though it's not a showcase for Legrand at his best, as a whole. Les demoiselles de Rochefort is intriguing, if not very satisfying. It would be more welcome, of course, if it didn't fall so far short of Les parapluies de Cherbourg. Proof that it's dangerous to go to the same well twice, with the exception of Gene Kelly's coolly understated (quite perfect) performance.

[MickyD]

The best way of doing that is by posting something about him . I suspect not many people on the forum heard the recent COTW . I heard most of it but I’ve run out if things to say . I will say however that his work has done rather well in translation. Even when as with Le Chanson de Maxence from Lee Demoiselles de Rochefort the new song You Must Believe In Sprinf bears no relation to the original .
That movie barely featured in the COTW - a pity as it’s a really intriguing one . There’s an interesting behind the scenes film about it on YouTube where it’s evident that one of the stars ,Gene Kelly , knows rather more about directing dance sequences than auteur Jacques Demy.

The contribution of the highly talented young choreographer Norman Maen to Les Demoiselles is not given all the credit it is due, either. He was an old mate of mine and he spoke with great affection about the shooting of the film. He later went on to stage big shows in Vegas and the West End .

[Master Jacques]

The contribution of the highly talented young choreographer Norman Maen to Les Demoiselles is not given all the credit it is due, either. He was an old mate of mine and he spoke with great affection about the shooting of the film. He later went on to stage big shows in Vegas and the West End .

Goodness, the choreographer of that wonderful Swine Lake sequence with Nureyev and the Muppets! What a full and interesting career he had.

[french frank]

The best way of doing that is by posting something about him . I suspect not many people on the forum heard the recent COTW . I heard most of it but I’ve run out if things to say . I will say however that his work has done rather well in translation. Even when as with Le Chanson de Maxence from Lee Demoiselles de Rochefort the new song You Must Believe In Sprinf bears no relation to the original .

As far as whether the thread should continue with its original focus, I am open to suggestions. When the answer is Yes and No, I tend to do nothing. But I struggle to comprehend the sense of the sentence: "Even when as with Le Chanson de Maxence from Lee Demoiselles de Rochefort the new song You Must Believe In Sprinf bears no relation to the original." No matter

[Master Jacques]

It’s not a wholly absurd idea.
This very good conductor can see some merit in it
but it’s stretching things too far really.

Far too far. You might as well say Les parapluies de Cherbourg was "a symphony for voices"!

What's interesting, is why a good conductor such as Richard Farnes gives vent to such fantasies. I suppose it relates to defensiveness when faced with British sniffiness towards opera generally, i.e. that a Wagner opera - let alone a filmic one by Legrand - is not so far up the high artistic pecking order as a Brahms symphony.

The idea is patently absurd, of course, as it's not a competition. But I suspect that something like the idea of rendering opera more artistically "respectable" for middle-class readers lies behind these sorts of statement.