Bluebeard / Ballet Suite / Les Patineurs

Rating:

- Ballet suites after oper(ett)as: zestful and fluffy
The liner notes are a bit misleading in calling these two orchestral suites arranged by Antal Dorati (better known as a conductor) from Offenbach scores, "suites from the ballet" Bluebeard and Helen of Troy. No, they are orchestral suites from ballet arrangements of two Offenbach operettas - "opera-bouffe" is what Offenbach called them both. The Bluebeard-ballet was first performed in Mexico City on October 27, 1941 - way too late for Offenbach to attend -, by the dance company called Ballet Theatre (originally established in 1937 as the Mordkin Ballet and renamed American Ballet Theatre in 1956) on a choreography by Michel Fokine, who years earlier had been one the stars choreographer of Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, before breaking off when Dhiagilev became infatuated with his new star, Vaslav Nijinsky. The original Offenbach Bluebeard was premiered in 1866 - way to soon for Fokine or Dorati to attend. Apparently the script to the ballet is slightly different from the one Meilhac and Halevy originally devised for Offenbach. Part 1 of the ballet stages events that in the operetta take place before the beginning. Some of the names have been changed as well. Not that it matters.

Helen of Troy is in fact the "opera-bouffe" La Belle Helène (Fair Helen), composed by Offenbach two years before Bluebeard, and given in its Dorati-arranged ballet form a year after the Bluebeard ballet, in November 1942. Fokine started working on the ballet's choreography with the Ballet Theatre, but then he died (August 1942) and David Lichine - a member of the company another Russian-born become American dancer and choreographer - brought the work to completion.

Apparently Dorati's arrangement work implied not only choosing the excerpts and doing some cuts, but also entirely (re) orchestrating. I doubt that Offenbach's orchestra had such a jazzy trombone as the one featured track 16. The two ballet-suites were recorded in 1954 by the Ballet Theatre Orchestra under its music director Joseph Levine (a former student of pianist Josef Hofmann and of conductors Fritz Reiner and Arthur Rodzinski a the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia), so the interpretations have all the zestful, dynamic, balletic credentials and hallmarks of "authenticity" required. Their balletic context is now just a historical reference, of course, but these recordings can serve, like the numerous Carmen-suites or Ring Without Words, for those wanting to revel in the purely orchestral experience of Offenbach, without being distracted by - oh yeech! voices. The original Bluebeard is seldom recorded anyway - I wonder why, it is as good as anything Offenbach wrote. That said, as zestful as it is, I'm not sure Offenbach's orchestral writing is as interesting and as self-sufficient as Wagner's or even Bizet's, even in Dorati's arrangement (never heard of Verdi or Rossini Senza Parole, either), and anyway the 1954 mono sound, as good as the transfers are, is too unidimentional to allow for complete enjoyment. As long as you are going to bask in the orchestra's sounds and timbres, it should really surround you, not be just a sonic poster on the wall of paradise-island.

Very detailed liner notes with complete synopses of the two Offenbach ballets, but they are entirely silent on Meyerbeer's Les Patineurs (The Skaters) - British composer Constant Lambert's 1937 arrangement of Le Prophète, written for the London Royal Ballet and originally choreographed by Sir Frederick Ashton. It was recorded in 1956 by the same forces.

TT 70 minutes, but it is really 70 minutes of fluff - that said with no intent at disparaging fluff.

Rating:

- Scintillating
This is the only recording of the Offenbach-Dorati Suites. I'm surprised that Dorati never recorded them in his career, but he would have had a tough time surpassing these performances. Joseph Levine was an excellent ballet conductor. His album of Tchaikovsky ballet music is one of the best ever. He approaches the Offenbach-Dorati Suites with zest and precision. His orchestra is excellent, and the 1954 recorded sound is clear if somewhat distant. The sound on the 1956 Meyerbeer-Lambert ballet is better, and it too receives an excellent performance, better than the Kunzel/Cincinnati Pops performance that was on Vox. For those who don't know the Offenbach-Dorati scores, they are in the same vein as Manuel Rosenthal's Gaite Parisienne, although Bluebeard uses less familiar Offenbach music. The plots to both ballets are delightfully convoluted, and are recounted in the enjoyable program notes. For some reason, no program notes have been included for the Meyerbeer. That said, this is a collection no ballet music afficianado will want to be without.

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