'Lakme,' by Leo Delibes
From the Montreal Opera
Tenor Frederic Antoun is Gerald and soprano Aline Kutan plays the title character in Lakme, by Leo Delibes, in a production by the Montreal Opera. Photo: Yves Renaud/Courtesy of Montreal Opera hide caption
Who's Who?
Aline Kutan .................. Lakme
Frederic Antoun ........... Gerald
Randall Jakobsh ..... Nilakantha
Mireille Lebel ................ Mallika
Thomas Macleay ............. Hadji
Montreal Metropolitan Orchestra
Jean-Francois Rivest, conductor
THE HIT SINGLE
The "Flower Duet" from Act 1 of Lakme has been a musical star everywhere from movies, to TV ads, to cell phone ringtones.
Soprano Aline Kutan and mezzo-soprano Mireille Lebel sing the "Flower Duet" at the Montreal Opera
The "B" Side
In Act 2, Lakme's father urges her to sing the spectacular "Bell Song," as part of his plan to entrap Gerald, Lakme's illicit, English lover.
Aline Kutan with the "Bell Song"
Even people who say they never listen to classical music most likely encounter it nearly every day.
Tunes from the concert hall and the opera house often turn up in places where you might not expect them. In 1945, Frank Sinatra recorded the hit tune "Full Moon and Empty Arms" — which you can listen to right here if it doesn't immediately come to mind. Its soaring melody first appeared more than 40 years earlier, in Sergei Rachmaninoff's Second Piano Concerto.
In 1953, Robert Wright and George Forrest had a Broadway hit with the musical Kismet. The show was adapted from the works of Russian composer Alexander Borodin, and one of its tunes tends to overshadow the others. The melody to the hit song "Strangers in Paradise" was originally a dance number in Borodin's historical opera Prince Igor. After Forrest added the words, any number of singers took it up. Alfred Drake sang it in the original cast, and Tony Bennett helped to make it a pop standard.
Still, there may be no classical tune — operatic or otherwise — that turns up in more varied places than the other-worldly "hit single" from this week's featured opera, Lakme by Leo Delibes.
In the drama's first act, with the plot barely underway, the title character and one of her servants pause by a river to gather flowers. Delibes gave them a duet, to help establish the opera's exotic atmosphere, and that "Flower Duet" (audio) has become one of the most familiar numbers any composer, in any genre, has ever written. You can hear it at the movies, on television shows, in elevators and shopping malls, and in all manner of commercials. Recently, it became a sort of TV theme song for British Airways ads, as the peaceful accompaniment to a jetliner floating through calm skies and wispy clouds. You can even download the number as a ringtone for your cell phone.
This week on World of Opera, we'll hear the duet straight from the source. Host Lisa Simeone brings it to us in a complete performance of the 1883 opera by Delibes, produced by the Montreal Opera at the Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier.
Web Resources
The Story of 'Lakme'
Composer Leo Delibes wrote his hit opera Lakme in 1883, for a premiere at the Opera-Comique in Paris. hide caption
Tenor Frederic Antoun and soprano Aline Kutan play the ill-fated, cross-cultural lovers in Leo Delibes's opera Lakme. Photo: Yves Renaud hide caption
BACKGROUND: The story of the Brahmin girl Lakme was based on a novel by Frenchman Pierre Loti, who had traveled in the Orient and brought back stories filled with exoticism. Librettist Edmond Gondinet suggested the story to composer Leo Delibes. Gondinet wanted to write a libretto specifically for a young American soprano named Marie van Zandt who had starred in another French opera, Ambroise Thomas's Mignon, in 1880. Gondinet gave Delibes a copy of Loti's novel, to read on a train ride, and Delibes loved it. He composed the score in a year's time.
Lakme brings together many popular themes of opera in the 1880s: an exotic location — already in vogue thanks to Bizet's The Pearl Fishers — mysterious religious rituals, the beautiful flora of the Orient, and the general novelty of Western colonials living in a foreign land. Composers Jules Massenet and Giacomo Meyerbeer wrote operas with similar elements, and those dramas were also popular in Paris.
Act One: Lakme is set in British India in the 19th century. Nilakantha, a Brahmin priest, is bent on rebelling against the occupying British, who have forbidden him from practicing his religion. When Nilakantha goes to attend a gathering of the faithful, his daughter Lakme and her servant Millika are left behind. The two go off toward a river to gather flowers and sing the famous "Flower Duet." As they approach the water, Lakme removes her jewelry and leaves it on a bench.
Nearby, British officers Gerald and Frederic are on a picnic with two young English girls and their governess. The girls notice Lakme's jewelry and want sketches of the pieces. Gerald agrees to stay behind to make the drawings.
Lakme and Mallika return, and Gerald hides. Then Mallika goes off, leaving Lakme alone. When Lakme spots Gerald, she's frightened and cries out. But when people come to help, she sends them away. Lakme's heart is doing flip-flops over this young stranger, and he's taken with her as well. But Lakme knows it's dangerous for them to be seen together, and she tells Gerald to forget he ever saw her. When Nilakantha returns, he's furious at finding Gerald with Lakme and says the officer will pay for his affront to Lakme's honor.
Act Two: Nilakantha is in a marketplace, among a crowd of English soldiers and Indians, and he has a plan. He asks Lakme to sing, knowing Gerald will be drawn to her voice. She sings the "Bell Song," an aria famous for its exotic musical colors and spectacular, high coloratura.
The song does attract Gerald, but when Lakme sees him, she stops singing and faints. When Gerald rushes to help her, Nilakantha steps out of the crowd and stabs him. Seeing that Gerald is only slightly injured, Nilakantha flees. Lakme and a servant, Hadji, take Gerald to a safe hiding place.
Act Three: Gerald is recovering in the forest, with Hadji watching over him, when Lakme arrives. They hear singing far in the distance, and Lakme tells Gerald it's a band of lovers going to drink from a sacred spring whose waters confer the gift of eternal love. Lakme wants to get water from the spring herself, and when she leaves, Gerald's friend Frederic turns up. He reminds Gerald that he's been ordered to a new post, far away. Gerald knows he must fulfill his duty and leave Lakme behind.
When Lakme returns from the spring, she senses what's happening. Knowing she's about to lose Gerald, she finds a flower that's known to be poisonous and swallows it. Overwhelmed by her act of devotion, Gerald drinks from the cup of sacred spring water. Doing so is a holy declaration of love — a vow of fidelity that even Nilakantha can't revoke. The poisonous blossom takes effect, and Lakme dies in Gerald's arms as her father looks on.