Camille Saint-Saëns: Déjanire

The Palazzetto Bru Zane continues its brilliant work to uncover neglected Romantic-era operas with Déjanire, the last from the pen of French composer Camille Saint-Saëns. With its plot based around the infidelity and death of Hercules, the opera was reworked from an 1898 original version composed for outdoor performance and combining spoken drama and incidental music. By the time its second, full-opera version was premiered in 1911, music styles had moved on, witness Stravinsky’s modernist ballet Petrushka that appeared in the same year. And so Déjanire suffered from bad fortune and timing. On the evidence of this vibrantly performed and recorded release, however, it thoroughly deserves its second chance in the sun. The demanding solo parts are all excellently sung, the chorus is responsive, and it features the magnificently nimble Monte-Carlo Philharmonic Orchestra, the resident ensemble of the Monte-Carlo Opera who originally commissioned Saint-Saëns to revise Déjanire.