Gounod: Cinq-Mars
Sheet Music

SKU: NX.ES1024

By Andrew Foster-Wiliams, Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Mathias Vidal, Munchner Rundfunkorchester, Tassis Christoyannis, Ulf Schirmer, and Veronique Gens. By Charles Francois Gounod. Classical. Listening CD (2 discs). Published by Naxos (NX.ES1024).

ISBN 9788460866428.

Alfred de Vigny's Cinq-Mars, published in 1826, is regarded as the first great historical novel in French. The action is set in the seventeenth century: the Marquis de Cinq-Mars gains the esteem of King Louis XIII by organising a movement of opposition to Cardinal Richelieu. But manipulations, betrayals and plots force the monarch to abandon his champion and allow Richelieu to triumph and condemn Cinq-Mars and his friend De Thou to death. It was at the request of the director of the Opera-Comique Leon Carvalho, attracted by the idea of a musical setting of the novel, that Gounod agreed to return to the forefront of the operatic scene in 1877, after an absence of ten years. He produced a work that renounces none of the musical charms of Romeo et Juliette or Faust, but tends very clearly in the direction of historical grand opera. Indeed, the second version of the piece, revised for the Opera de Lyon, transforms the spoken dialogue into recitatives in order to enhance the fluidity of the discourse and the noble tone of the action. It is this final version of the opera that is presented here in a recording of its first production in modern times.

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