Eloquence Classics

Through scholarship, performance and recording, Richard Bonynge has done more than any other modern-day musician to advance the cause of Daniel-François-Esprit Auber, the foremost composer of opéra-comique in nineteenth-century Paris. What he wrote was ‘Simple, joyous and unsophisticated music,’ according to Bonynge: this is his sole recording of a complete opera by Auber.

‘Le Domino Noir’ is a tale of amorous intrigue in royal Madrid, set in the theatrically promising context of a masked ball and a convent. Drama and libretto were fashioned by Eugène Scribe who later worked with Rossini, Bellini, Verdi and many others but he formed an especially long-lasting and fruitful partnership with Auber. This is one of their joint masterpieces: the embodiment in music and drama of the witty, polished and worldly Parisian life of the time. The music sparkles; it has lightness and facility; it is essentially graceful and elegant.

When it was first released in 1995, this Decca recording was universally welcomed as a significant marker in the revival of Auber’s reputation: he was writing for singers of virtuoso technique with a lightness and grace that is not commonly found in our own time but Bonynge assembled a cast which was more than equal to the challenge.

In the booklet notes, Jeremy Commons sets ‘Le Domino Noir’ in the context of Auber’s long career and his happy partnership with Scribe. There is also a synopsis and a performance note in which Bonynge explains his decisions to cut and reshape the dialogue and to elaborate some of the vocal lines after the common practice of Auber’s day. A complementary issue on Eloquence (482 7730) surveys Bonynge’s quarter-century of Auber on record in arias, overtures and ballet music.