MASSENET : CLEOPATRE

Radio New Zealand Concert Network
Sunday 11th of October 2015 at  6 - 8 pm

MASSENET: Cléopâtre, an opera in four acts
Cléopâtre.......................... Sophie Koch
Marc-Antoine................... Frédéric Goncalves
Octavie............................. Cassandre Berthon
Spakos.............................. Benjamin Bernheim
Sévérus............................. Jean-Gabriel Saint Martin
Charmion.......................... Olivia Doray
Ennius............................... Pierre-Yves Binard
L'Esclave de la Porte........ Yuri Kissin
Paris Opera Chorus, Mulhouse SO/Michel Plasson
(recorded in the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, Paris)

INTRODUCTION
SYNOPSIS
LIBRETTO (French)
RECORDING (2 Montserrats 2002)

Cleopatra. The face that sank a thousand ships, perhaps, or launched a score of operas, anyway, which sank without trace. But she has survived in Handel's Giulio Cesare, which might have been titled 'Caesar and Cleopatra' and which ends with the happy couple (Janet Baker and Valerie Masterson in my ENO recording) duetting thus: 'A vow I give you, my heart shall never leave you, if you are true as ever I shall prove'.

Yes, well, in Massenet's last opera Cléopâtre (first performed in 1914, two years after his death) it is Antony and Cleopatra, and no happy ending. Marcus Antonius (alias Marc-Antoine) wants nothing to do with this voluptuous courtesan with a crown, until he sees her and she looks at him. The glory of marrying Octavia, sister of Octavius, has no appeal to him now. In the end, it is a poisoned cup that is offered, but he dies by his own blade and she embraces her pet, a poisonous asp, asp.
'Make way for Caesar' are the closing words, but that is Octave César, and she has exclaimed with her final breath: 'Antoine, Cléopâtre à jamais réunis' (reunited for ever, that is, not for never).

And YouTube supplies a recording with Montserrat Caballé (Cleo) and her daughter Montserrat Marti (Octavie, the Roman girl Tony left behind him), from Rome, 2002 (no picture). This new one from Paris has Sophie Koch, who was in the NY Metropera Werther (also by Massenet).

The other twenty operas with Cleopatra in their title did not float for long. Handel wisely omitted her name and simply called his serious opera about her 'Julius Caesar', and while Caesar's boat sank in Act 3, Handel's opera is still keeping its head above water.

Let us not overlook the fact that Berlioz composed La mort de Cléopâtre, 24 minutes of it, but failed to complete the opera by adding a beginning and a middle, an Act 1 and an Act 2. It survived, though, and Janet Baker and Jessye Norman have recorded this scène lyrique.

This one is not in the top six of Massenet's 27 operas but his music is always tuneful.