Search - Ambroise Thomas, Richard Bonynge, Vancouver Opera Orchestra :: Thomas: Mignon

Beautiful recording of a wonderful opera

R. Broadhead | Southwestern USA | 07/13/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This Mignon was recorded live in Vancouver in 1977. This is truly a beautiful recording of a seldom performed and rarely recorded opera. The sound quality is excellent - clear, rich, and full with noticeable and pleasing stereo separation. The orchestra under Bonynge is strong and very smooth. Huguette Tourangeau is superb as Mignon with a powerful clear voice that has a wide range. Henri Wilden as Wilhelm Meister has a clear, sonorous and very sweet voice, not as strong as a Pavarotti or Domingo but somehow just right for the role. The other soloists fill their parts very well. Although there are many spoken parts in this opera, the soloists master the spoken roles and perform them with a genuine melodic quality.



The audience in this live recording can be heard applauding after some of the outstanding arias, but they are not heard during the singing and spoken parts.



This is an excellent recording of Mignon and is great entertainment."

Tourangeau in good live performance at bargain price

L. E. Cantrell | Vancouver, British Columbia Canada | 09/27/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"SOURCE:

Live performance at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, January 1977.



SOUND:

Quite good for a live performance. Both the voices and the orchestra are well-captured. The Canadian audience is (no surprise) generally quiet, restrained and polite.



CAST:

MIGNON - Huguette Tourangeau

WILHELM MEISTER - Henri Wilden

LAERTE - Antonio Santos

LOTHARIO - Pierre Charbonneau

PHILINE - Noelle Rogers

FREDERIC - Michael Philip Davis

GIARNO/ANTONIO - Edgar Hanson



CONDUCTOR:

Richard BONYNGE with the Vancouver Opera Orchestra and Chorus.



DOCUMENTATION:

No libretto. Allusive references to the plot but no full summary. A curiously apologetic history of the opera. Short biographical sketch of Huguette Tourangeau and thumbnail bios of Noelle Rogers and Henri Wilden. Track list that identifies characters singing and provides timings.



FORMAT:

Disk 1, Act I, 14 tracks; Act II, 7 tracks; 78:29. Disk 2, Act II (conclusion), 7 tracks; Act III, 6 tracks; alternative finale, 2 tracks; 72:28.



TEXT:

The final two numbers, deemed anticlimactic and cut out after early outings of this opera, are included in this performance. "Mignon," along with Gounod's "Faust" and Massenet's "Werther," are operatic proof of the fascination exerted by Goethe over the French. "Mignon" dates from 1866 when Louis Napoleon's ramshackle Second Empire was at its giddiest so, of course, the opera comique tacks a Gallic happy ending onto a Germanically gloomy tale.



COMMENTARY:

The Amazon listing notwithstanding, this is not a production of the Rome Opera House. This "Mignon" springs from my very own home town, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. It dates from those rumbustious and ultimately catastrophic years when Richard Bonynge and his Merry Pranksters used Vancouver as a tryout town. After all, who in the operatic world cared if Bonynge, Sutherland & Co. fell on their collective faces among the moose, mountains and Mounties?



As it happens, this is one of the successes from those otherwise dismal times. Tourangeau is excellent. She had a full but agile mezzo voice. Her sound was light and youthful, making her an excellent Adelgisa with Sutherland in "Norma" and an effective Nicklausse/Muse in the Sutherland-Domingo "Tales of Hofmann." Admittedly, she was in the shade cast by Joan Sutherland and Richard Bonynge, but I have never quite understood why her career did not blossom when apart from them. She is very much the star of this piece and is worth the price of the recording.



The rest of the cast, as is typical for a Vancouver Opera production, is competent and wholly forgettable.



Bonynge's conducting is neither more nor less than expected of him.



"Mignon" is a deservedly obscure opera that is lightly pleasing, mildly tuneful and single-mindedly second class. This recording is exactly what it purports to be: a well-recorded, enjoyable performance built around a fine mezzo soprano offered at an attractive price. For anyone interested in hearing "Mignon," this set is worthy of five stars.



LEC/AM/09-05"

BEAUTIFUL PERFORMANCE OF AN OUT-OF-VOGUE OPERA

L. Mitnick | Chicago, Illinois United States | 06/06/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Performances of Thomas "Mignon" were commonplace at the Metropolitan Opera until 1948, the year in which it was performed there for the last time to date. Celebrated sopranos and mezzo-sopranos like Lucrezia Bori, Gladys Swarthout, Jennie Tourel, and Rise Stevens sang Mignon at the Met all through the decades of the 1920's, 1930's, and 1940's. Then, quite quickly and quietly, the opera went out of the repertoire. It's not a masterpiece, but it does contain some very beautiful and lyrical music, all of which is heard with great clarity and presence on this recording.

Huguette Tourangeau, who began her career under Joan Sutherland's and Richard Bonynge's "umbrella", and who continued to support Sutherland in such operas as Maria Stuarda, Norma, Lakme, etc, had a fine enough mezzo soprano to have established a completely independent career. Moreover, she was a great artist and a beautiful woman. She is heard here in a role which could have been written for her. I am not acquainted with the other artists in this cast, though all of them are more than acceptable. This is a live performance from Vancouver in 1977, and the sound is quite listenable. There have been very, very few commercial recordings of this opera, and it has many beautiful moments. At the price being asked for it, it should provide many hours of enjoyment."