Coppelia/Don Quixote Hlts [Import]

I purchased this because I wanted to have a recording of the Coppélia ballet in my music collection, but without being familiar with the music or knowing how much I would like it, I was reluctant to spend two or three times the price of this budget recording to get one of the high rated performances.

This recording is from a performance in January, 1977, recorded at the Salle Wagram in Paris. The recording quality is very good (it is an ADD recording if you pay attention to such things), and according to the booklet it has been remastered. Sound quality-wise, I am very satisfied.

Regarding the performance, given that this is my first exposure to this music, I am pleased but I do not claim to be an expert! The music is rythmic and lively, and I am enjoying listening to it as I become familiar with a composition that I have not been aware of previously, my ballet knowledge admittedly being limited to mostly Tchaikovsky - so that is why I am giving this a listen!

The two discs are very generously filled - over 78 minutes on each, with the result that the performance of Coppélia ballet requires only 23 minutes of the second CD. The remaining space is used to provide an extensive 55 minutes of highlights from the Minkus opera Don Quixote (the full performance is here: Minkus: Don Quixote, Paquita, La Bayadere, which by the way is another budget ballet recording in the same EMI series as this performance).

The documentation provided with the recording is very minimal. It has a short essay describing the plot of Coppélia, as well as Don Quixote, enough to give you an idea of the story but not much beyond that.

I am giving this 4 stars, which may be generous, but the budget pricing is a real plus as far as I am concerned, and the music and sound quality are both very good as I've stated above.

I am completely satisfied with my purchase and my conclusion is that this is worthwhile as a budget alternative to the much higher priced and higher rated alternatives. Certainly this is a good way to become introduced to Coppélia on a budget.

If you are interested in looking at other performances of this ballet which are highly rated, I believe that the following would be worth investigation as a start (and there are a number of others on Amazon that can easily be found):

- Delibes: Coppélia; Massenet: Le Carillon - this performance by the L'Orchestre de la Suisse Romande conducted by Richard Bonynge has been recommended by both Gramophone (in previous years) and is in the current The Penguin Guide to the 1000 Finest Classical Recordings: The Must-Have CDs and DVDs as the full box set of all three ballets (see following).

- Delibes: The 3 Ballets - as above but for just a few dollars more you get three full ballet performances and in top rated recordings. (This would have been my choice had I been willing to spend a bit more).

- Delibes: Coppelia / Ravel: Daphnis et Chloe - this performance, also by L'Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, is conducted by Ernest Ansermet, and is the recommended recording for Coppélia in the most recent The Gramophone Classical Music Guide 2012.

The 1977 recording we have here by conductor Jean-Baptiste Mari and the Orchestra of the Paris National Opera Theater is among the best, maybe the absolute best, ever made of it. Mari's interpretation is elegant and refined, but it in no way diminishes the robust energy of the work. Indeed, he enhances the long, graceful curves of the music, while providing all the beauty, mystery, and excitement it requires.

But here's the thing: When this complete recording of the score appeared on the scene in the late Seventies, I had a hard time finding it. Instead, what I eventually found was a two-disc set of lengthy excerpts from Mari's recording of Coppelia and his recording of Delibes's Sylvia, one disc devoted to each ballet. This wasn't such a bad thing, since there is much in the complete scores of both works that is redundant, and like Adam's Giselle, a little pruning helps. In fact, I doubt that anyone but a Delibes fanatic could tell what was deleted in the highlights discs. Nevertheless, it is nice now to have Coppelia so readily available in its unedited form.

Accompanying Coppelia is the ballet Don Quixote by one of Delibes's contemporaries, Ludwig Minkus (1827-1890). It's a more-conventional piece of music, here presented in highlights performed by John Lanchbery (who also adapted this particular arrangement) and the Elizabethan Trust Melbourne Orchestra in a 1972 recording. While it is still an enjoyable, melodic work, it hasn't nearly the endless stream of great tunes we find in Coppelia; so it comes as something of a filler rather than a competitor to the Delibes piece.

Although EMI recorded this music in the Seventies, they remastered the present set in 2009. Compared to their earlier mastering of Coppelia, this new one is marginally smoother and cleaner, with a touch less edge to the high end. In either case, the sound is quite fine, with a pleasant ambient bloom, a good degree of orchestral depth, and plenty of dynamic range. Perhaps the engineers could have picked up a bit more of the deep bass response, but it hardly matters in music so enchanting as this.

John J. Puccio
Classical Candor