Index

Opera Magazine January 2012

Gounod’s opera, based on a poem by Frederic Mistral and with a libretto by Michel Carre.

had an uncertain start in 1864 at the Theatre-Lyrique in Paris, its prima donna (who was

also the wife of the theatre director) ill at ease with the demands of the title role. From

then on, neither the addition of a virtuoso number for the soprano, nor the reduction of

five taxing acts to three, and even less the transformation of the ending from tragic to

happy, did more than brutalize a score the musical and dramatic content of which

received its due only when it was restored to its original form in 1939 for a staging at the

Opera-Comique.

This was the version directed by Tony Baker for New Sussex Opera, which, in spite of the

restrictions of Cadogan Hall preventing any evocation of the Provençal landscape,

captured the tensions of a tightly-knit rural community bound by its superstitions, the

peasant women dressed in the long black skirts and white shawls of the region, and their

severely black-suited and hatted menfolk as the rigid guardians of the traditional lifestyle.

The action was set on the extended forestage, which allowed room for chorus dancing

and a religious procession, and the orchestra was placed behind the singers, with the

conductor Nicholas Jenkins exercising taut control over the considerable numbers involved

and revealing the many musical strengths of Gounod’s neglected score.

The role that had overstretched the first Mireille, Marie Miolan-Carvalho, held no terrors

for the South African soprano Sally Silver, her joyous insouciant solos in the early scenes

capped by secure top notes, and the words of Hugh Macdonald’s English translation

keenly projected. She and the tenor Michael Scott, the latter rendered voiceless by a

vocal infection miming the role of Vincent, conveyed the lovers’ ardour, while Mark

Milhofer, dressed in black and almost invisible against a black screen, projected the tenor

role from the side of the stage, infusing it with a wealth of expression. Their ringing duets

were musical high points. As the wise woman Taven, finely sung and strongly

characterized by Sarah Pring foretells, storm clouds gather literally and metaphorically

when the bull-tender Ourrias (a heavyweight portrayal by Quentin Hayes) is rejected by

Mireille, to the rage of her domineering father Ramon (Robert Presley).