Reynaldo Hahn: L'île du rêve Münchner Runddfunkorchester & Hervé Niquet

• Reynaldo Hahn (1874 - 1947): L'île du rêve, Acte 1:
• 1L'île du rêve, Acte 1: I. Scène. Ô pays de Bora-Bora03:32
• 2L'île du rêve, Acte 1: II. Scène. Quel est ce bruit ? Alerte !00:30
• 3L'île du rêve, Acte 1: III. Scène. Ô belle enfant, vers qui montent mes plaintes01:31
• 4L'île du rêve, Acte 1: IV. Scène. Amis, voilà le salon de l'île du rêve02:52
• 5L'île du rêve, Acte 1: V. Scène. Que ton chagrin soit bercé par nos chants !03:27
• 6L'île du rêve, Acte 1: VI. Duo. Enfant, demeure04:39
• 7L'île du rêve, Acte 1: VII. Restons encor, les paupières mi-closes03:32
• L'île du rêve, Acte 2:
• 8L'île du rêve, Acte 2: I. Prélude03:31
• 9L'île du rêve, Acte 2: II. Scène. Or, Adam que venait de bercer un long rêve05:44
• CL'île du rêve, Acte 2:
• 10CL'île du rêve, Acte 2: III. Scène. Trêve de paroles !01:40
• L'île du rêve, Acte 2:
• 11L'île du rêve, Acte 2: IV. Scène. Cherche à qui cet homme ressemble04:02
• 12L'île du rêve, Acte 2: V. Duo. Jalouse !...04:05
• L'île du rêve, Acte 3:
• 13L'île du rêve, Acte 3: I. Prélude et Choeur. Tihi 'ura teie03:31
• 14L'île du rêve, Acte 3: II. Scène. Hélas ! Nous te quittons demain02:09
• 15L'île du rêve, Acte 3: III. Scène. J'ai tressé pour ma couronne01:39
• 16L'île du rêve, Acte 3: IV. Arioso. Ne plus te voir, ô ma petite case01:47
• 17L'île du rêve, Acte 3: V. Scène. La princesse !01:39
• 18L'île du rêve, Acte 3: VI. Duo. C'est moi, chère petite05:25
• 19L'île du rêve, Acte 3: VII. Scène. Non, Mahénu...05:17
• Total Runtime01:00:32

Info for Reynaldo Hahn: L'île du rêve

"To have written that, you must be a poet", Massenet told Reynaldo Hahn when he read through the score of L Île du rêve. Composed when the young man was not yet eighteen years old, this curtain-raiser already had the qualities of the great works of the period. It reveals the colouristic talents of Bizet, the passionate outbursts of Massenet and even the prosodic originality of the young Debussy. The plot recounts a French naval officer's love affair with a young Polynesian girl he has to abandon. This subject also treated musically by Puccini (Madama Butterfly) and Delibes (Lakmé) is approached in an almost Symbolist style: the Romanticism of the music contrasts with a contemplative, introspective treatment of the narration. This is where the youthful Hahn particularly shines: in the very first bars (the hymn to Bora-Bora), in the various love scenes for Loti and Mahénu (notably the duet Restons encore les paupières mi-closes ) and even in the neo-Handelian prelude to Act Two.

Hélène Guilmette, soprano (Mahénu)
Artavazd Sargsyan, tenor (Tsen Lee)
Cyrille Dubois, tenor (Loti)
Anaïk Morel, mezzo-soprano (Oréna)
Thomas Dolié, baritone (Taïrapa, Henri and another officer)
Ludivine Gombert, soprano (Téria and Faïmana)
Chorus of „Le Concert Spirituel“
Münchner Runddfunkorchester
Hervé Niquet, conductor

Recorded 24 and 26 January 2020 at the Prinzregententheater, Munich, Germany

Münchner Runddfunkorchester
Founded in 1952, the Munich Radio Orchestra can look back on a history of nearly 70 years during which it has evolved into an ensemble with a vast artistic range and a versatility that ensures its place in Munich’s orchestral landscape. Concert performances of opera with outstanding vocalists (in the Sunday concerts) and sacred music of the 20th and 21st centuries (in the Paradisi Gloria series) are no less part of its philosophy than educational outreach concerts for children and young adults, entertaining thematic concerts in its ‘Wednesday at 7:30’ series and live performances of film scores. Its other crossover programmes, from jazz to video game music, demonstrate time and again that the Munich Radio Orchestra stands at the cutting edge of our era.

Hervé Niquet
pursued his musical studies with Marie-Cécile Morin, a former pupil of Marguerite Long and Maurice Ravel who was friend of Samson François. Due to this artistic imprint searching for the original intentions of the composer his painstaking musical activity developed complying strictly the original manuscript of the musical works.

Following his widespread education as a harpsichordist, organist, pianist, singer, composer, choir-master and conductor, Hervé Niquet collected essential experience as a vocal-coach at the Opéra National in Paris. Especially when working with choreographers like Rudolf Nureyev and Serge Lifar he evolved into an expert of musical sources off the beaten track of traditional interpretations.

In 1987 he founded Le Concert Spirituel intending to revive the great French motet. Le Concert Spirituel has meanwhile won recognition in the international music-world as one of the leading ensembles performing baroque music and focussing its repertory on different styles and genres from sacred music to symphony and opera. The ensemble thus also discovered and revived totally unknown works by French, English and Italian composers of that period.

Hervé Niquet meanwhile also conducts main international orchestras with the same wholeheartedness when playing the 19th and early 20th century repertory. He is convinced that French music remained unique throughout the centuries. As a musical pioneer Hervé joined the formation of the Palazzetto Bru Zane – Centre de musique romantique française in Venice 2009, a foundation he meanwhile managed to realise numerous projects with. He took part in numerous major re-discoveries, conducting Herculanum by Félicien David, Dimitri by Victorin Joncières, La légende des ours by Marie Jaëll and La Reine de Chypre by Fromental Halévy.

With passionate enthusiasm for opera Hervé Niquet frequently conducts stage-productions, either with Le Concert Spirituel or as a guest-conductor. He has worked with stage-directors of most diverse styles such as Mariame Clément, Georges Lavaudant, Gilles and Corinne Benizio (alias Shirley and Dino), Joachim Schlömer, Christoph Marthaler or Romeo Castellucci (Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice in 2014 at the Théâtre Royal de La Monnaie in Brussels) and Christian Schiaretti (Rameau’s Castor et Pollux 2014 at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris).

Hervé Niquet is musical director of the Vlaams Radio Choir and first guest-conductor of the Brussels Philharmonic Orchestra. Under his baton both ensembles are intensely involved in a CD-project in co-operation with Palazzetto Bru Zane focussing on the recording of cantatas from the Prix de Rome. So far works by Claude Debussy, Camille Saint-Saëns, Gustave Charpentier, Max d’Ollone and Paul Dukas have been published as well as opera rarities by Victorin Joncières and Félicien David (Herculanum, awarded an Echo Klassik in 2016).

Furthermore his personal commitment concerning next generation educative initiatives in music (Académie d’Ambronay, Jeune Orchestre de l'Abbaye aux Dames, Schola Cantorum, CNSMD de Lyon, McGill University in Montreal) as well as master-classes and lectures are of greatest importancce for him. It is an essential part of his professional engagement to spread and to forward the results of his research and interpretation, the most updated discoveries of musicology and both reality and demands of a musician’s life.

In 2019 Hervé Niquet was awarded a honorary prize from the prestigious "Deutsche Schallplattenkritik".

Hervé Niquet is Chevalier de l’Ordre National du Mérite and Commandeur des Arts et des Lettres.

Booklet for Reynaldo Hahn: L'île du rêve