Robert le diable (review)

Robert: Alain Vanzo	Alberti: Jean-Philippe Marlière
Bertram: Samuel Ramey	Paris Opéra Orchestra and Chorus
Raimbaut: Walter Donati	Thomas Fulton, conductor
Isabelle: June Anderson	Live recording, 1985
Alice: Michèle Lagrange	Adonis (distributed by Qualiton) 85003 (3 CDs)

Robert le diable is, on the whole, not the most easily appreciable of Meyerbeer's operas—perhaps because of the current lack of a craze for all things devilish that clearly helped launch the work's spectacular nineteenth-century career, or more specifically because those devils we do still like tend to be presented as part of more fin-de-siècle, psychologized male (mostly tenor-bass) relationships. ¹ (I am thinking especially of Verdi's Iago and Boito's earlier Mefistofele, though one could also cite Robert's more obvious lyric successor, Gounod's Faust.) Meyerbeer's first work for the Paris Opéra—it was premiered there in 1831—is, in contrast, a piece in which the devil-figure, Bertram, has to work his evil amid a host of other characters—characters who, though not unusual in their populousness for Meyerbeer, seem less well-balanced as a group than in later Meyerbeer works. (This may be due to Robert's opéra comique origins, which resulted in the introduction of "comic" as well as "serious" characters, who, in the transformation to grand opéra, were only partially pared down.) They include Bertram (bass) and his half-devil son, Robert (tenor), Robert's foster-sister Alice (soprano), Alice's beloved Raimbaut (tenor), then Robert's would-be lover, Isabelle (soprano)—all significant roles, ones that by 1832 had brought together three singers who, in the ensuing years, came practically to personify opera of the grand Parisian type. ² It is difficult to find (or afford) such a group today, and it is this, along with more musico-dramatic issues, that must be kept in mind when wondering why, in these historically aware times, Meyerbeer has been so slow to reenter the repertory.

In capturing June Anderson and Samuel Ramey at their peak, singing live at the Paris Opéra in 1985, Adonis's recording of Robert probably has some of the star quality of those early productions, especially when compared with the other French Robert recording that has appeared in recent years (issued on the Dynamic label, with better sound quality but far less interesting singers). ³ Anderson is so polished that one almost has to fault her in the first half of the work, where her supremely poised bel canto seems ill-suited to the initially playful act 2 Isabelle-Robert duet; and, in the grand air that precedes the duet, the limitations of the Opéra's orchestra and female chorus are evident. By Isabelle's second aria, "Robert, toi que j'aime," Anderson has softened a little, providing a technically unimpeachable yet also searing rendition that by itself is worth the price of this recording. All credit to Anderson for treating the number as if it were one of the great soprano arias—which in a sense it is, as well as a moment when, much more than in the gimmicky "frozen" chorus earlier in act 4, time seems temporarily suspended.

Since 1985 Ramey has become known for diabolical roles (with recordings in particular of Boito's devil), and so it seems only fitting that he should now be available as Bertram. As Sarah Hibberd has pointed out, one of the distinguishing features of this devil is that he has fathered an heir and is therefore susceptible to paternal feelings—and this "human" side accords well with Ramey's natural warmth of tone and even slightly baritonal character. ⁴ As usual, Ramey's enunciation is impeccable and, especially in his act 3 duet with Alice, he exploits an astonishing range of vocal color. Even the fact that he upstages most of the cast is not without dramatic purpose, adding to a sense of Bertram as, if not without a human aspect...