Search - Giacomo Meyerbeer, Baldo Podic, Rosanna Didone :: Meyerbeer: Dinorah / Podic (1983)

A Francophone Opera in Italian

James S. Eisenberg | 06/11/2008

(3 out of 5 stars)

"Meyerbeer's DINORAH (1859) was once one of the most popular of all French operas. It is wonderfully tuneful and superbly orchestrated. Its spectacularly showy title role became a favorite of virtually every coloratura soprano , and its tenor and baritone leads get to show off too. (Operatic convention is reversed, the baritone is the slightly tarnished hero and the tenor is the sidekick-comic relief !) The soprano's big aria, known as "The Shadow Song" is still a great favorite in the concert repertoire, and the very exciting overture also turns up on concert programs occasionally.

Among several reasons the work disappeared is the silly plot. Based on Breton folktales, it tells of a young peasant woman who goes mad when she is abandoned at the altar by her beau after he is bewitched into seeking a buried treasure by an evil wizard. The heroine spends most of the opera searching for her lost pet goat. Her sanity is restored after she falls in a river and she (and goat !) are rescued by her boyfriend who just happens to be passing by at the crucial moment. He is released from the curse of the wizard and the pair are married a year to the day after the original wedding !

Written as an opera comique with spoken dialogue, Meyerbeer composed recitatives for an Italian version premiered in London. Thus the Italian version can be claimed to be authentic.

The singing of all three principals is really superb, especially Luciana Serra as Dinorah. She may not have as pretty a voice as Deborah Cook in the French language recording on Opera Rara, or as Isabelle Phillipe in a recent video, but her technique is really astounding. The supporting cast is first rate.

The sound recording is a little muffled, but passable.

Both discs clock in at over seventy-nine minutes, so this is a much better deal than the three disc Opera Rara set. There is a track listing only. No notes or texts are included."