La dame blanche
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La dame blanche (The White Lady) is an opera in three acts by the French composer François-Adrien Boïeldieu (1775-1834). The libretto was written by Eugène Scribe and is based on episodes from no less than five of the works by Scottish writer Sir Walter Scott, including his novels The Monastery and Guy Mannering.
La dame blanche has typical elements of the Romantic in its Gothic mode, including an exotic Scottish locale, a lost heir, a mysterious castle, a hidden fortune, and a ghost, in this case benevolent. The style of the opera influenced Lucia di Lammermoor, I puritani and La jolie fille de Perth. La dame blanche was one of the first attempts to introduce the fantastic into opera. It was also a model for works such as Meyerbeer's Robert le diable and Gounod's Faust.
The opera was first performed in Paris in 1825 at the Opéra comique. It was a major success. It became a standby of the nineteenth century operatic repertory in France and Germany.
La dame blanche is rarely performed today. Fortunately, it has been revived in France by Marc Minkowski and well recorded (see below).
The song from the opera that is most often performed today in recital is the tenor aria, “Viens, gentille dame” (“Come, Gentle Lady”). The opera also interestingly makes use of Scottish folk tunes.
[edit] Recordings
The following recordings of La dame blanche are currently available:
- A 1964 recording with Nicolai Gedda, Mimi Aarden, Sophia Van Sant, Guus Hoekman, Erna Spoorenberg, Henk Drissen and Franz Vroons with Jean Fournet conducting the Hilversum Radio Chorus and Hilversum Radio Orchestra. There are two issues of this version:
- Melodram catalog #: 50033
- Opera D'Oro catalog #: 1364
- A 1996 recording with Rockwell Blake (Georges Brown), Annick Massis (Anna), Mireille Delunsch (Jenny), Jean-Paul Fouchécourt (Dickson), Laurent Naouri (Gaveston), Sylvie Brunet (Marguerite), conducted by Marc Minkowski with the Choeur de Radio France and the Ensemble Orchestral de Paris (1997 EMI Classics catalog #: 56355
