Les diamants de la couronne (review)

Fair warning: in order to enjoy this release, you must really like French opera. This caveat is inspired partly by the nature of the work under consideration and partly by the way it is presented here.

Auber's Les diamants de la couronne (1841) is a true opéra comique: i.e., it is for all practical purposes a spoken play, with musical numbers inserted at certain points. The proportion of speech to song is, in this case, approximately fifty-fifty. Traditionally, when such works are performed on records, the spoken dialogue is eliminated altogether or reduced to the bare minimum required to create an illusion of dramatic continuity between the musical numbers. Mandala, obviously an enterprising label, has not taken this easy way out. Lacking access to an authoritative score, I cannot state with certainty that what is heard here is the complete original score and "book." I think it is safe to assume, however, that this performance is musically uncut, or close to it. In addition, the performance includes a great deal of dialogue—one stretch, in act 3, goes on for all of ten minutes—and, although some of it may have been "edited" (i.e., updated), much of it is convincingly nineteenth-century in tone.

Mandala's booklet, handsomely printed (and free from the embarrassing misprints that plague some larger labels' productions), includes an interesting essay about the composer, a detailed plot synopsis, the libretto (including the full spoken text), and bios of the personnel—not just the conductor and the singers, but the chorus master, the coach, the director of the staged production upon which the recording is based, etc. Unfortunately, all of this material is in French. The essay about Auber and the plot summary are translated into English (and quite well); the rest is not. As a result, trying to follow the performance with the French-only libretto in hand, translating it for yourself as you go along, can be a bit of a test—especially during some of the rapid-fire spoken exchanges, where it's easy to lose your place. If you know enough French to know (for example) what a faux monnayeur is, or what a line such as "On ne tutoie pas La Catarina" means—well, then you're in business; and this recording will provide an excellent opportunity to brush up on the language. If not, then you're strictly on your own.

Now that I've gotten that out of the way, I must also inform you that you pass up this recording at your peril—because the music is a delight, and so is the performance.

There's no need to rehearse the plot in detail: that would spoil your pleasure in discovering its twists and turns. Suffice it to say that Donizetti's La fille du régiment isverismo by comparison. But, briefly: the action of Les diamants de la couronne takes place in a mythical Brazil. The king has just died, and it is anticipated that his daughter will succeed him. A young aristocrat named Don Henrique is on his way to marry his cousin Diana (an arranged marriage), when he is captured by a gang of bandits. Their leader is a dashing young woman named La Catarina, who also dispenses her own form of vigilante justice throughout the countryside (the booklet's synopsis aptly describes her as "a sort of female Zorro"—p. 14). La Catarina agrees to let Henrique go, provided he swears not to tell anyone about his adventure for one year, and also, should he meet La...