Claude Achille Debussy: Pelleas et Melisande
Broadcast on the BBC Third Programme, 1 June 1951
Pelleas....................................Camille Maurane
Melisande .................................Suzanne Danco
Golaud........................Henri-Bertrand Etcheverry
Genevieve ..............................Oda Slobodskaya
Arkel .........................................Andre Vessieres
Yniold....................................Marjorie Westbury
Le Berger; Medicin ..........................Ernest Frank
BBC Chorus
(chorus-master: Leslie Woodgate)
Philharmonia Orchestra (leader: Max Salpeter)
conducted by Desire-Emile Inghelbrecht
Desire-Emile Inghelbrecht (Paris, 17 September 1880 - 14 February 1965) was brought up in a family of musicians. His father was a viola player with the Paris Opera Orchestra; a fact worthy of mention since Inghelbrecht was always attuned to middle voices. He undertook his musical studies without great enthusiasm until the revelation of Pelleas et Melisande - he was present at the Paris Opera at the premiere of the work under Andre Messager on 30 April 1902 - opened up new horizons to him.
Musical theatre became Inghelbrecht’s great interest. In 1908 Jacques Rouche entrusted to him the orchestra of the Theatre des Arts, with whom he performed, amongst others, Florent Schmitt’s La Tragedie de Salome.
In 1912 he was appointed musical director of the Theatre des Champs-Elysees, where he directed remarkable operatic performances, notably those devoted to Boris Godunov which became his favourite opera alongside Pelleas. There followed in 1924 a first appointment as musical director of the Opera-Comique (a role to which he returned in 1932), a period with the Pasdeloup, and in 1934 the founding of the Orchestre National de la Radiodiffusion Francaise, with whom he would be associated right up until his death.
Desire-Emile’s mother was English. Is this maybe the reason he was so fond of the Melisande of Mary Garden. And would we be wrong to find in Suzanne Danco (1911-2000) something of the poetry and also the spirit which characterised the unfailing charm of Garden. Inghelbrecht confirmed that the Belgian soprano was, after the Scottish singer, his ideal Melisande.
With the Golaud of (Henri)-Bertrand Etcheverry (1900-1960) the same degree of mastery, not to say invention, is achieved. Like Camille Maurane, Bertrand Etcheverry was trained at a choir school, from where comes the elegance and expressiveness of his French, his sense of verbal colour.
One performer often heard in London joins this francophone cast. I confess to being under the charm of Oda Slobodskaya (Vilnius, 1888 - London, 1970), a well-composed Genevieve whose absence of affectation and consistent line, despite a well-used voice, evokes none other than Claire Croiza.
Excerpt from the booklet note by Jean-Charles Hoffele ( TESTAMENT )
