Sorokina/Yang/Berchtold/Chemnitz Opera Chorus/Robert-Schumann-Philharmonie/Beermann
CPO, 4 CDs
This is not a newly discovered Meyerbeer opera, but a version of L’Africaine, his last stage work, posthumously premiered in 1865. Meyerbeer reworked it on and off for some 20 years, but was always dissatisfied with it, and was about to start another revision when he died in 1864. The score was edited for the first performance by François-Joseph Fétis, who made a number of changes, and his version has been the basis of most of its outings since. What we have here, however under the title Vasco de Gama, to distinguish it from the standard edition is the opera as Meyerbeer left it before Fétis’s changes.
Fétis’s alterations consisted largely of cuts and re-orderings, the aim of which, ostensibly, was to bring the opera within manageable length, and to improve narrative clarity, though the plot, by operatic standards, isn’t that difficult. Vasco de Gama, determined to make a name for himself for posterity, sets out on a quest to discover a new world east of Africa, during the course of which he seduces and destroys the Indian princess Sélika. Things are complicated by the presence of Inês, Vasco’s former mistress, initially trapped in a loveless political marriage, then widowed and available once more.
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SOURCE: Classical music | The Guardian – Read entire story here.