Halevy Discography

The recordings of the operas of

JACQUES FROMENTAL HALÉVY

by Tom Kaufman

The Operas of JACQUES FROMENTAL HALÉVY

Biography of JACQUES FROMENTAL HALÉVY

New York Times review of OONY La Juive

At the turn of the previous century (about 100 years ago) Halévy and Auber were practically household words, with several of their operas still being given. As a result, a number of excerpts from these operas were recorded on 78 rpm records--some as late as the 1920s. But the revival of Italian ottocento operas (Bellini, Donizetti, Mercadante, Pacini, etc.) did not arouse a similar interest in France in their own musical history. It seems that while some Auber was performed, especially in Compiégne and by French radio, this enthusiasm did not carry over to Halévy. His La juive was performed occasionally in cities like New Orleans, New York, Vienna and Barcelona, but rarely in France or Belgium.

Thus, while we do have several recordings of La juive, (plus an LP of L'eclair in execrable sound, as well as a tape in excellent sound, both of the latter being in German), nothing recent is available from the other works. At this point, the Meyerbeer Fan Club is planning to release the Eclair tape on CD.

LA JUIVE - Casts of recordings

Recording	Rachel	Eudoxie	Eléazar	Léopold	Cardinal Brogni	Conductor
Philips 420 190-2	Julia Varady	June Anderson	José Carreras	Dalmacio Gonzalez	Ferruccio Furlanetto	Antonio de Almeida
Legato LCD 224-2	Ilona Tokody	Sona Ghazarian	José Carreras	Chris Merritt	Cesare Siepi	Gerd Albrecht

Several other complete recordings of La juive had been available on LP and in the early days of CDs. Most prominent among these are a London performance starring Richard Tucker, another performance with Tony Poncet, as well as commercial highlight discs with each of them. An even earlier version with Miklos Gafni should also be mentioned.

To return to the two recordings listed in the above table, both of these feature Jose Carreras as Eléazar. Both are heavily cut, the cuts being somewhat different in each. Thus, there is much more of the final trio in Act II in the Legato recording with Merritt as Leopold, while the Phillips recording with Gonzalez as Leopold has two verses of his serenade to one in the Legato. The Phillips also has more of the great confrontational duet in Act IV between Eléazar and Brogni.

My own personal view is that, for anyone who appreciates La juive as much as I do, both of these, as well as the Tucker (if you can find it) are essential.

Finally, there is an old LP of excerpts with Richard Tucker, These are poorly chosen in my opinion, since the big confrontational duet is missing, as are the act endings.

As said before, very little has been recorded from Halévy's other works. What there is is listed below:

L'eclair Aria: "Quand de la nuit" Jerry Hadley: in RCA CD 09026-68030

La reine de Chypre Duet: "Triste exilé" Henri Beyle and Hector Dufranne in Rubini RS 302 Charles Fontaine and Jean Noté on Cypres CD

Charles VI Aria: "Guerre aux tyrans" Charles Noté on Cypres

Les mousquetaires de la reine Duet: "Saint Nicolas o mon patron" 78 rpm

Le val d'Andorre: "Chanson di vieil chévrier" 78 rpm

Link to Tom Kaufman's Bel Canto Page

Note:

Recording (CD) of L'Eclair will be available in early 1999 to Meyerbeer Fan Club members only -- go to Membership for information, or e-mail to meyerb@meyerbeer.com