Franck – Stradella
Isabelle Kabatu; Marc Laho; Philippe Rouillon; Opera Royal de Wallonie; Paolo Arrivabeni
Dynamic 37692
A child prodigy, a brilliant piano player and composer already in his teens, with a career tightly controlled by his father – until he emancipated himself. No, I am not talking about W.A. Mozart. This unusual career path was also followed by César Franck. The Belgian composer is remembered for his organ compositions that constitute a goodly part of every organist’s repertoire. However, he was just as skilled as a composer of instrumental music with sonatas, a celebrated piano quintet, the Symphony in D Minor and the Symphonic Variations for piano and orchestra plus several operas.
Rarely, if at all staged, Franck’s operas nevertheless deserve our attention. Stradella, his first, was never fully orchestrated and the current recording represents its first public performance.
Alessandro Stradella, the 17th century composer murdered in Genoa, is only nominally connected to the libretto – as this is a work of fiction. Stradella seeks to woo Leonor with his beautiful singing, but not for himself – for the Duke of Pesaro. Of course, he falls in (reciprocated) love and the lovers elope to Rome, pursued by the vengeful Duke. The Duke hires assassins and instructs them to kill Stradella. Here is where this production by Jaco Van Dormael diverges from the original story: the opera actually has a happy ending, as the Duke is so moved by Stradella’s singing, he forgives the betrayal and blesses the union of Leonor and her love. Alas, Van Dormael has decided to reference the murder of the real-life Stradella and has Leonor dying of grief. Stradella then joins her in heaven, as joyous music, hardly appropriate for this tragic ending, plays on.
The staging is beautiful, though at times puzzling – a giant wading pool is the perfect setting for Venice flooded during the Carnival, but it makes less sense as the action moves to a church in Rome. Regardless of the dramatic choices in this production, the music of Franck and beautiful singing by Marc Laho as Stradella make this disc a keeper.
