Cinq-Mars is an 1877 opera by Charles Gounod, written a dozen years after his last big hit, Roméo et Juliette. It's based on a historical novel by Alfred de Vigny about the Marquis of Cinq-Mars, a nobleman who attempted to rally resistance to Cardinal Richelieu and in 1642 was executed for his pains. The work harks back to the tradition of French grand opera and was never very successful. It fell into a series of numbers at a time when audiences were getting a taste of a different way of doing things, not just from Germany, ...
Read More
Cinq-Mars is an 1877 opera by Charles Gounod, written a dozen years after his last big hit, Roméo et Juliette. It's based on a historical novel by Alfred de Vigny about the Marquis of Cinq-Mars, a nobleman who attempted to rally resistance to Cardinal Richelieu and in 1642 was executed for his pains. The work harks back to the tradition of French grand opera and was never very successful. It fell into a series of numbers at a time when audiences were getting a taste of a different way of doing things, not just from Germany, but from Verdi also. But it does contain numbers that show Gounod's undiminished melodic gift: sample the "Cavatine" of the Princess Marie Gonzaga, the linchpin of the wholly fictitious romantic subplot added by Gounod and his librettists. Marie is sung by Véronique Gens, who leads a cast of uniformly strong singers, and this live performance, with the Munich Radio Orchestra and Bavarian Radio Choir under the direction of Ulf Schirmer, has plenty of energy. The recording is...
Read Less