Grisélidis by Jules Massenet - Interview with Vannina Santoni

‘Grisélidis’ by Jules Massenet
‘French opera’ series | volume 42 | 2025 | Bru Zane Label
Bilingual CD-book in French and English
2 CDs / book: 144 pages

💿 https://bit.ly/Grisélidis

Conte lyrique in three acts and a prologue.
Libretto by Armand Silvestre and Eugène Morand.
First performed at the Opéra-Comique, in Paris, on 20 November 1901.

Jean-Marie Zeitouni conductor
ORCHESTRE NATIONAL MONTPELLIER OCCITANIE
CHŒUR OPÉRA NATIONAL MONTPELLIER OCCITANIE
with Vannina Santoni, Julien Dran, Thomas Dolié, Tassis Christoyannis, Antoinette Dennefeld, Adèle Charvet, Adrien Fournaison, Thibault de Damas

Paris discovered Massenet’s Grisélidis at the Opéra-Comique on 20 November 1901.

The work is based on a medieval folktale retold by Boccaccio and Perrault, among others, and already set to music several times in the Baroque era. It gave Massenet the opportunity to handle the ‘Gothic’ colouring of which the early twentieth century could not get enough. The inventive libretto by Armand Silvestre and Eugène Morand explores unusually contrasted registers: the religious, the fantastical, the sentimental and the warlike. Above all, the presence of a scene-stealing Devil, saddled with a cantankerous wife, offers the possibility of contrasting the serious (or sublime) and the comic (or grotesque).

Massenet thus produced a rare example of cross-genre equilibrium, a jewel of French demi-caractère, typical of the Opéra-Comique repertory. Although the opera renounces spoken dialogue, theatrical declamation nevertheless creeps into a few particularly successful scenes. Two magnificent baritone roles – the Marquis and the Devil – oppose each other with the full trappings of Romantic vocality, while Grisélidis makes a noble and introspective heroine, the perfect model of the French soprano.

Recorded from 30 May to 2 June 2023 at the Corum – Opéra Berlioz in Montpellier (France).
Score published by Heugel.

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