Charles Gounod: Mireille (Opera national de Paris 2009) [Blu-ray] [2011]

Gounod's Mireille received a long awaited revival at the Palais Garnier in Paris last year. Nicolas Joel a long time champion of the lesser known french repertoire directs a very fine production which has been captured very well on Blu Ray. There is no crazy camera work here, the like of which marred the recent Werther from the Bastille. A straight forward film of the production mixing wide stage shots and close ups provides for easy viewing, and, if Gounod's art is slightly diminished by the awkward story line of forbidden love and religious transfiguration, it still deserves a welcome today for some lovely music. The title role is taken by Inva Mula, a soprano very much in the Freni tradition, who rises to the emotional demands of the role with ease and is a fine actress. She is ably matched by Charles Castronovo as a handsome Vincent, lyrical in expression,and authentically French in style. The smaller roles are extremely well cast, and I thoroughly enjoyed, what to me was a little known opera. This is a highly recommended version of this work, and opera fans wishing to try something a little off the beaten track will find a great deal to enjoy here.

Mireille is based on a tragic romantic poem by Frederic Mistra highly evocative of the countryside of Province, simplicity, humility and the religious beliefs of the area.

Mireille (Inva Mula) the daughter of a rich landowner is falling in love with Vincente (Charles Castronovo) a penniless weaver, but her father has arranged for her to marry Ourrias (Franck Ferrari) leading to conflict between Mireille and her father, and Vincent and Ourrias.

Mula does a great job with the difficult role of Mireille, partnered by Castronovo who looks every inch the penniless handsome weaver as well as providing some fine singing and acting.

The staging is realistic with one exception, rising to great heights with the cornfield setting for the first Act. However the Act IV second tableau set in the Crau desert (actually a large flat plain) where Mireille struggles against a blinding sun abandons realism for a flat cream backdrop with a solitary circular spotlight representing the sun, a very jarring deviation into minimalism.

The aims of simplicity, humility, religion and the Provence countryside are captured by the production and opera in Act I, but the remaining four acts change into what I perceive as an understated melodrama. Opinion at premier in 1864 was highly critical of the five act format and Gounod (always the pragmatist) produced a three act version which probably improved the dramatic impact. However the comments on the disc of the conductor and directors enthusiastically promote the opera as a masterpiece, especially the religious quality of the drama, but apart from the first Act I just cannot agree and this concerns me.

I would recommend reading the article on the opera in Wikipedia before purchasing, and possibly renting first.

However whatever I feel about the opera itself this production fully deserves five stars.

There would appear to be some questions of the value of Gounod's forgotten 1864 opera and some risks involved in the director of the Paris opera, Nicolas Joel, reviving it for its Paris Opera premiere in 2009, but watching and listening to it now, restored as closely as possible to the original intentions of the composer, it seems extraordinary that Mireille has been overlooked so long and has never been part of the French opera repertoire.

Certainly Mireille and its subject matter are somewhat old-fashioned, the opera tied very strongly to its source in the romantic and bucolic 19th century Provençal poetry of Fredéric Mistral, but Gounod's musical interpretation of the material is practically perfect. The pastoral scenes of ordinary workers in the fields, their modest hopes and ambitions for nothing more than a pure love are elevated to a dramatically romantic level by the lush arrangements and beautiful arias, Gounod even introducing folk dances of the region into the score and the performance. In some ways it's a five-act version of Cavalleria Rusticana and ultimately, it's just as emotionally charged.

The Opéra National de Paris' production is equally as impressive, the staging concretely literal, Joel putting the sun-drenched fields of Provence right up there on the stage of the Palais Garnier. The themes are certainly of the kind that could perhaps bear a more abstract lyrical interpretation - the sun, the land and religious fervour or faith being dominant themes throughout - but there are no modernisations or clever concepts, and the style remains traditional, but no less amazing for it.

The stage is superbly and brilliantly lit to express the light and colours of a cornfield in the south of France in midsummer, darkened to evoke the Rhône at midnight, blazing at the key scene of the Le Crau desert, with sultry dusks and twilights in between. It's perhaps over-literal in this respect, the drama accordingly heightened with the exaggeration of the summer moods and taken to the extremes of religious fervour, but it seems perfectly in keeping with the nature of the region and the lyricism of the Provençal poets. Inva Mula is positively luminous as Mireille, capturing all the intensity of the extreme emotional journey she undergoes, brilliantly supported by the orchestra of the Paris opera, who are conducted with élan by Marc Minkowski.

The Blu-ray presentation, a Francois Roussillon production, captures the occasion perfectly in High Definition, the golden colours of the set and the lighting exploding off the screen. The DTS HD-Master Audio 5.1 mix catches the tone of the orchestration and singing well and disperses it beautifully. For some strange reason, the scene selection doesn't work on my copy, all selections taking you invariably to the beginning of the opera, but the chaptering allows you to get where you want without much difficulty. The BD comes with an interview featurette and a booklet with a synopsis.