Maurice Ravel, the Swiss watchmaker’s son, had to make do with the indifferent standards and the sometimes hostile attitudes of the French performers of his day. The original performance of his first opera, L’Heure espagnole, fell flat with audiences, in no small part due to the then novel approach that Ravel took to setting the libretto. Taking Mussorgsky’s aborted opera after Gogol, The Marriage, as an example, he modeled the singing lines of his score on the natural rhythms and cadences of spoken French. The virtuoso orchestral scoring, too, taxed the abilities of the old Opéra Comique ensemble that helped bring the opera into the world.
Flash forward some 100-odd years later and one encounters in the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra every bit the ideal Ravelian instrument: an ensemble of virtuosi that delight in their individual beauty of detail, yet can bring each of those parts whirring together with all the precision and efficiency of the finest clockwork. The opening moments of Ravel’s L’Heure espagnole opened under the baton of guest conductor Charles Dutoit as the very magical utterances the composer had surely intended. Ravel being Ravel, his orchestra does not content itself with being mere background for the singers, but – as the score’s numerous trombone glissandi and woodwind chattering demonstrate – often shares the spotlight itself, though Dutoit, an old hand at the composer’s music, judiciously balanced its contribution.
The singing cast was superb, with the agile tenor of Benjamin Hulett (Gonzalve) and the impeccable comic timing of the sonorous baritone David Wilson-Johnson (Don Iñigo) drawing especial attention. Very fine, too, were tenor François Piolino as the hapless, cuckolded Torquemada who guilelessly pulls one over his rivals by the opera’s close and baritone Jean-Luc Ballestra as the earnest, naïve Muleteer. Mezzo Isabel Leonard was fine, though a bit too rich voiced for a role better suited to a soubrette.