Rossini’s Moses: the French Version

One week from today Naxos will release a recording of Gioachino Rossini’s opera Moïse et Pharaon, ou Le passage de la Mer Rouge (Moses and Pharaoh, or the crossing of the Red Sea). The full title of this four-act opera, completed in 1827, distinguishes it from its 1818 predecessor with an Italian libretto, Mosè in Egitto (Moses in Egypt). Moïse et Pharaon was first performed in the Salle Le Peletier of the Paris Opera. As usual, Amazon.com has created a Web page for pre-orders:

courtesy of Naxos of America

As can be seen above and on the Amazon.com site, the packaging of this new release is likely to be a bit perplexing to those aware that the opera has two versions. Moïse is presented as the title on both the front and the back covers, and any mention of Moïse et Pharaon does not appear until the second booklet essay on the sixth page (written by Reto Müller, translated into English by Sue Baxter). Presumably, the packaging team figured that most customers would know the subtle difference between the Italian “Mosè” and the French “Moïse.”

That said, there is still much to enjoy in the music on this new recording. Neither the conductor, Fabrizio Maria Carminati, nor the vocalists and choristers are likely to be familiar to most readers. Nevertheless, this is a well-paced performance, leading one to believe that the admiration of the music by conductors such as Riccardo Muti definitely has merit.

The one instance of familiarity only arises about fifteen minutes before the end of the entire opera with the “choral prayer” “Des cieux où tu résides” (from the skies where You reside), which is also in the 1819 revision of the Italian version. This is better known because Niccolò Paganini wrote a set of variations for violin and piano on the theme. (There is also a more eccentric set of variations that Bohuslav Martinů composed for cello and piano in 1942.)

As one might guess, the French libretto by Luigi Balocchi and Victor-Joseph Étienne de Jouy has about as much to do with the Book of Exodus as does Cecil B. DeMille’s 1956 cinematic epic The Ten Commandments. (Charlton Heston fans will probably approve that Rossini wrote the role of Moses for a bass voice.) However, this is the sort of listening experience that does not have to depend on the narrative; and, if three hours feels like a bit too much, one can always enjoy each of the four acts on the basis of its own merits.