RECORDINGS

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Halka. Stanisiaw Moniuszko

Halka: Stefania Woytowicz Jontek: Wiataw Ocbman Stdnik: Bernard Ladysz Zofia: Anna Malewicz-Madey Janusz: Andnej Hiolski Dziemba: Andrzej Saciuk A Bagpipe PlayerlA Mountaineer: Kazhnierz Rozewuz Symphony Orchestra ofthe National Polish Radio Chorus of the Radio-Television of Cracow Jerzy Semkow, conductor Le Chant du Monde (distributed by Harmonia Mundi USA) LDC 278 889.90 (2 CDs)

According to a Polish musician friend of mine, these days Stanisiaw Moniuszko is primarily noted in his native land for being the author of Songbooks finHome Use, many of the melodies from which have passed into the national consciousness to the point of being mistakenly considered real folk material. Be that as it may, it was with the opera Halka that the composer originally became famous, and in Warsaw it racked up 150 performances before his death in 1872. By 1900 the count had reached 500, and by 1935 1,000, testimony to an abiding affection for the piece by local audiences and an elevation in the popular mind to the status of "Polish National Opera"all this even though some of the composer's later stage pieces are by general consensus stronger musically and dramatically. His Straszny dw6r {Haunted Manor) leaps to mind in this context. For such a successful work, it is interesting to see the travails the composer went through to get a performance. The text by Wlodzimierz Wolski was controversial to begin with, dealing as it did with a peasant girl who is cruelly dumped by an elegant nobleman whose child she carries, while her childhood village sweetheart can only rail against die evils perpetrated by the upper classes: strong stuff for the 1840s in Poland and evoking audience association with the peasant revolt in the southern provinces in 1846, not to mention the widespread European upheavals of 1848. Many a patriotic tear would doubtless have been shed at the hyperromantic finale, as the wretched pregnant heroine casts herself into the waters to die even as her beloved is marrying his upper-crust bride in an adjoining church. The opera first appeared in a two-act format in 1847, this for a private concert hearing, as to Moniuszko's disgust the score had to wait until 1854 for a public staged performance. Reasons for the delay are now presumed to be related to the controversial subject matter, although the author attributed it to the entrenched taste for Italian opera in the Polish theaters. In any event, by 1858 the composer had rewritten the work, and his changes were extensive. The original material was rescored, tightened a little and made more vocally idiomatic, but more importantly much new music was added, puffing the opera up to four acts with protracted folk-dance sequences and some big arias for all the leads. Along the way the village sweetheart got his tessitura boosted, thereby creating a more normal casting scheme in what had been a

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tenorless opera. It is this later, four-act version that has been recorded. Though the leanness of the original has much to recommend it, the padded version with its mazurkas and mountain dances quickly found an enthusiastic public, with its indigenous echoes of childhood musical memories to which every Pole could respond on a deep level that understandably defies transportation to other cultures. To the non-Slav, however, the opera can be a bit of a trial. Musically, Moniuszko was facile and talented (he wrote a textbook on harmony) but no genius, nor was he the successor to Chopin that his friends and pupils proclaimed him to be. Basically, he was no real theater composer, and in case after case Halka misfires through leaden timing. Examples abound. In act i Halka comes onstage, sings a lengthy folk song reflecting her sadness, and only then notices that her lover Janusz, whom she is desperately seeking, is standing there politely waiting for her aria to be over so their scene may begin. Likewise in act 3, when Jontek returns with Halka to their village neighbors, the latter ask (and spend many measures doing it, too) who this strange girl may be. Informed of her identity by the tenor, they comment that her sorrow has made her unrecognizable, a clumsily handled romantic conceit. After a few more sad solos for Halka, Jontek relates to the villagers the plot of acts i and 2 (which we have, after all, just seen) and this, plus the aforementioned mountain dances, comprises the entirety of the act. Indeed the whole piece, with its endlessly sufFering heroine, reminds a listener more of a Harlequin romance than a searing social document: Moniuszko was certainly no Janlcek. Still, the popularity of Halka was sufficient to inspire a sequel in 1926, when one Boleslaw Wallek-Walewski composed Pomstajontkowa (Jontck's Revenge), not a first in the opera world to be sure (Goethe's Zaubetflote II comes to mind), but nonetheless a stunning gesture toward the original's staying power and ability to capture the Polish imagination. The musical vocabulary ranges from Lortzing to Smetana, with a smattering of leitmotivic process in recitative passages and a lot of Suppe"-like glitter in the orchestration, especially in the dance sequences and (rewritten) overture. There is also evidence in some of the accompaniment patterns and vocal lines of an ear that has heard Donizetti. This all adds up to a score whose day has perhaps come and gone, but whose historical standing and niche in the development of Slavic opera must remain secure. The recording in question features Jerzy Semkow leading soloists, the Chorus of the Radio-Television of Cracow, and the Symphony Orchestra of the National Polish Radio. It was first taped in 1973 and has recently appeared on CD, distributed by Harmonia Mundi USA. The cast includes the ungainly soprano of Stefania Woytowicz in the tide role. Her voice has that identifiable Slavic wobble we have heard from so many Eastern singers, and as a result she is unable to suggest Halka's youth and vulnerability. As Jontek, Wieslaw Gchman has a solid house-tenor sound, his routine but not tired voice hitched to a good deal of dramatic flair. His is by far the most interesting of

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all die characters, and also the best performance. As the noble cad Janusz, baritone Andrzej Hiolski does sound tired and has little vocal panache; compounding his problems, the role lies low for him. His fiancee, Zofia, is adequately tackled by mezzo Anna Malewicz-Madey, while bassos Bernard Ladysz and Andrzej Saciuk (as the Stolnik and Dziemba) lend the strength one expects of this voice category in Slavic lands. The cast is rounded out by tenor Kazimierz R6zewicz in the two bit parts of a mountaineer and a bagpipe player. The set comes with a trilingual libretto (French, English, Polish) and maddeningly brief background material. All in all, then, this is a flawed but listenable rendition of a flawed but listenable operaa near-must for all Slavophiles. Dennis W. Wakding
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Lheure espagnole. Maurice Ravel

Concepcidn: Elisabeth Laurence Gortzalve: Tibere RaffkUi Tbrquemada: Micbd ShUcbal Ramiro: Gino Quilico Don Jnigo Gomez: Francois Loup Nouvel Orchestre Philharmonique Armin Jordan, conductor Erato ECD 75318 (1 CD)

Maurice Ravel composed two musical dramas, both operatic miniatures in style, form, and length. The earliest, L'heure espagnole (1907), is a one-act domestic comedy in twenty-one scenes set in a mystical clock shop run by a timekeeper whose romantically inclined wife receives suitors while her husband makes his weekly rounds resetting Toledo's official timepieces. The focal point of the libretto is the virile prowess of the muleteer Ramiro as he wins with brute strength the pleasures of the timekeeper's wife. It is urbane, subtle humor without moral judgmenttypical Ravel. When the fastidious Ravel auditioned the piano score (singing all the vocal parts himself) for the librettist Franc-Nohain, the composer hoped the French playwright could imagine the juxtaposition of music and drama so as to appreciate Ravel's concept. Lacking the composer's enthusiasm, "the old playwright looked at his watch and said, Tifty-six minutes.' This was his only comment."1 The premiere was delayed three years. Yet in this short hour we are treated to the only glimpse Ravel ever chose to reveal of his rather hidden feelings toward women, love, and poetry. Ravel exposes his latent Basque machismo, where the strong, simple hero gets the girl. The vocal writing is lyrical by early twentieth-century standards, though mostly recitative in structure. There are only two extended arias: in scene 16 Ramiro extols what he perceives as the native charm of woman, followed by an aria in scene 17 for Concepcidn complaining of this "pathetic adventure." In scene 19 Inigo's and Gonzalve's interjections come close to forming a duet