Bizet pecheurs de perles rolando villazon biography

Home / Celebrity Biographies / Bizet pecheurs de perles rolando villazon biography

In contrast to Rosenthal, Dervaux’s conducting is affectionate and flexible – I like it very much but does his prevailingly relaxed manner perhaps result in his missing some of the tension and excitement Cluytens finds in the score? There is an open, straightforward, direct emotiveness to his delivery which I find most appealing and depends upon a secure technique which allows him to sail full-voiced up to those top Bs without fudging them.

In an interview for Mexican television, Villazón told the story of how he was discovered as a tenor. The sound here is very acceptable for its age, if a tad distant and cavernous, and Leibowitz’ conducting is leisurely, sympathetic and idiomatic – really lovely. I now place it firmly at the head of the earlier, mono recordings.

Manuel Rosenthal – 1959; live radio broadcast, mono; Le Chant du Monde, Gala
Orchestre Radio-Lyrique
Chœurs de la Radio Television Française
Leila – Janine Micheau
Nadir – Alain Vanzo
Zurga – Gabriel Bacquier
Nourabad – Lucien Lovano

This is the first of Alain Vanzo’s three recordings of Nadir featured in this survey.

This would be a prime “historic” recommendation if his Nadir were more impressive.

Jean Fournet – 1953; studio, mono; Philips, Opera d’Oro, Malibran
Orchestre des Concerts Lamoureux
Chorale Elisabeth Brasseur
Leila – Pierrette Alarie
Nadir – Léopold Simoneau
Zurga – René Bianco
Nourabad – Xavier Depraz

This recording scores precisely where its predecessor fails with a superlative Nadir in Léopold Simoneau, whose light but penetrating timbre is ideally suited to Bizet’s music, even if for my taste he relies rather too much on slipping too easily into falsetto.

The first solo voice we hear is Luca Grassi and my observations regarding his Zurga are identical to those for that same preceding recording immediately above, except his vibrato has loosened somewhat eight years later. He nonetheless makes a credible job of his big aria opening Act III, expressing his remorse movingly, even if it still sounds like Verdi.

I am always ambivalent about Kraus’ rather plaintive, reedy tenor, but concede that he sings with his usual elan, interpolating the top C at the end of his aria. The opera is not as inventive or inspired as Carmen, written ten years later, and you can read some very condescending verdicts on it from snotty critics, but I find that its exotic atmosphere has great charm and it is replete with lovely melodies.

Habituated as we are to light coloratura French sopranos singing Leila, Maliponte’s full, creamy sound is almost disconcerting. His French, however, does not sound idiomatic, even though it improved later in his career; he distorts its vowels while squeezing out those top notes.  Bruscantini was an extraordinarily versatile baritone  with a handsome, if not large, voice – but he slides gingerly up to his top A-flat and there is something very Italianate about his hearty delivery; his French, too, is variable  – “me” emerges as “meh”, for example.  Campó’s bass is cloudy and tremulous.

His most recent album entitled Orfeo son io, recorded with Christina Pluhar and the acclaimed ensemble L’Arpeggiata, features music by Claudio Monteverdi and his contemporaries, is set for release in Fall 2025. Its coda, “Amitié sainte”, will come as a bit of a shock to the unprepared but it is what Bizet intended and is by no means disappointing – just different and more dramatic.

The back-ups to my two main choices are Prêtre and Fournet in 1953 – or if you can tolerate indifferent mono sound, Fournet in 1963.

Studio mono: Cluytens 1954
Live mono: Fournet 1963
Studio digital: Plasson 1989*

*First choice

Ralph Moore