Gabriella Swallow, Richard Bonynge and Sally Silver

other well-known composers, among them Fauré and Delibes.
Massenet continued to write songs throughout his career. His choice of poets was wide-ranging,
with several great literary names (eg. Victor Hugo, Anatole France and Alphonse de Lamartine) rubbing
shoulders with less well-known writers. All his songs show great sensitivity to the setting of text, with
melodic lines and piano accompaniments encapsulating the emotions of the poetry with great skill. There
are simple, strophic songs with unobtrusive, non-melodic accompaniments (eg. Avril est amoureuse
and Guitare); more complex, through-composed narratives (eg. Ma petite mère a pleuré and Sonnet);
quiet, almost aphoristic expressions (eg. Crépuscule and Que l’heure est donc brève) contrasting with
more extrovert, expansive songs (eg. Enchantement and Ivre d’amour) or even dramatic, quasi-operatic
compositions (eg. Jamais plus!). His final proper cycle, Quelques chansons mauves, appeared in 1902 to
three poems of André Lebey. This cycle shows an ever greater inventiveness and freedom in the word
setting and open-ended musical forms. Phrases and even entire songs end harmonically inconclusively,
and the vocal line ranges from a simple parlando on one pitch to soaring melody where single syllables are
drawn out over two bars.
His last collection of songs, the Expressions lyriques were published in 1913, a year after his death.
Here the word setting is at its most varied: lyrical style, recitative, melodrama or what Massenet called
‘déclamation rythmée’, which seems to anticipate the Sprechstimme of Schoenberg. There is only one cycle
on this disc, the short Quelques chansons mauves, most of the other songs being individual compositions.
Two (Crépuscule and Que l’heure est donc brève) come from other cycles, the Ave Maria is based on the
Méditation from Massenet’s opera Thaïs, and one, La Verdadera Vida, was completed by the composer
Marc Berthomieu and not published until 1933.
Although interest in Massenet’s music declined soon after his death, Manon, Werther and Thaïs have
remained firm favorites in the opera repertoire. Esclarmonde is perhaps Massenet’s most ambitious work
for the stage and is his most Wagnerian in style and scope. The opera has been revived sporadically in the
modern era, most notably in 1974 in San Francisco, in 1976 at the Metropolitan Opera, New York and
in 1983 at the Royal Opera House in London with, on all occasions, Joan Sutherland in the title role,
conducted by her husband and long term Massenet champion Richard Bonynge.
Throughout his career Bonynge has conducted in most of the world’s leading opera houses.
By doing some research and reading up on Massenet, Richard Bonynge discovered Massenet’s own statement
about his opera Esclarmonde being his ”best achievement.” This filled Bonynge with curiosity, even more because
Esclarmonde had sunken almost into total oblivion and had hardly been performed at all since the end of the 19th
century. He obtained a vocal score of it in Paris and subsequently bought the full orchestral score from an auction
in New York City. Although his wife, initially, was skeptical about it, Richard Bonynge became an enthusiast of
the work and eventually convinced her that she should perform the role of ”Esclarmonde” herself. And so the San
Francisco Opera, the Metropolitan Opera and the Royal Opera House Covent Garden premieres of it took place
in 1974, 1976 and 1983 respectively.
In 1977 he was the founding Music Director of Vancouver Opera Orchestra (at its creation), when he
conducted Le Roi de Lahore staged there (in which also his wife took part).
Bonynge made his Metropolitan Opera debut in 1966 with Joan Sutherland performing the title role in Lucia
di Lammermoor. Over the last five decades, Bonynge also performed with many of the word’s great singers. He
worked extensively with Tebaldi, Caballé, Scotto, Te Kanawa, Gruberova, Horne, Bartoli, Cossotto, Berganza,
Domingo, Pavarotti, Kraus, Bergonzi, Aragall, Corelli, Gobbi, Siepi, Milnes, Ghiaurov and Ramey, etc. In the
beginning his speciality (until early 1970s) was music of 18th and early 19th century, mostly in bel canto repertoire
(Rossini, Bellini and Donizetti). He then gradually added also middle Verdi (La Traviata, Rigoletto, Il Trovatore),
Offenbach (Les Contes d’Hoffmann), then also Massenet (Esclarmonde and Werther). He has also recorded over
50 operas as well as Delibes’s three ballets – La Source, Coppélia and Sylvia and Tchaikovsky’s three ballets – Swan
Lake, The Sleeping Beauty and The Nutcracker plus countless others.
Since 2007, he has conducted a series of performances in opera houses around the U.S. and performed
regularly with Opera Australia where he was Musical Director from 1976 - 1986. During his tenure he introduced
works previously unheard in the 20th century: Alcina, Semiramide, Les Huguenots, Lucrezia Borgia, Maria
Stuarda, I Masnadieri, Dialogues of the Carmelites and Fra Diavolo. Over the past two years he has conducted a
new production of Bellini’s La Sonnambula for Opera Australia, La Flûte Magique for the Cuban Ballet Festival
and three Donizetti operas, Roberto Devereux, Maria Stuarda and Don Pasquale, in London and Athens and
returned to Sydney to conduct a concert version of Handel’s Rodelinda at the City Recital Hall Angel Place.
Richard Bonynge was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for his services to music
in 1977. In 1983 he was made Officer of the Order of Australia, and in 1989 a Commandeur de L’Ordre Natioanl
des Arts et des Lettres. Made ”Socio d’onore”, R. Accademia Filarmonica di Bologna in 2007. In 2009 Bonynge
was awarded the Sir Richard Heinze Memorial Award and in 2010 the Patron’s Award within the Critics’ Circle
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