Haymarket Opera Company: Joseph Bologne: L'Amant Anonyme
Cedille Records

Last year, Joseph Bologne (1745–1799), also known as the Chevalier de Saint-Georges, received renewed attention when Rachel Barton Pine released Violin Concertos by Black Composers Through the Centuries, itself a reissue of an album that had appeared in a slightly different form in 1997 and featured her sterling performance of Bologne's Violin Concerto in A major, Op. 5, No. 2 (1775). But while Pine emphasized his instrumental side on her project, Chicago's Haymarket Opera Company has now ushered his operatic artistry into the spotlight with a terrific world-premiere recording of his third comic opera, L'Amant Anonyme (The Anonymous Lover) (1780).

The booklet within the attractively designed package augments the libretto (in French and English) with in-depth commentaries by Chase Hopkins, the company's General Director, and by Marc Clague, Professor of Musicology at the University of Michigan Ann Arbor; further to that, Cedille has issued the material in a three-CD format: the first two discs present the two-act opera in its complete form, with dialogue interspersed throughout; the bonus third features the musical numbers only. With dialogue included, the opera is a still-easily digestible 100 minutes; with it omitted, L'Amant Anonyme is an even breezier seventy-two. Lavish production photos show the live presentation to have been visually ravishing.

Despite the fact that the prolific Afro-French composer wrote six operas, two symphonies, fourteen violin concertos, fourteen sonatas, eighteen string quartets, and more than 100 songs, his music has been largely neglected, something that mystifies all the more given its superior quality. That he was called “The Black Mozart” is easy to comprehend when the music of L'Amant Anonyme invites the comparison so readily. Bologne, also a violin virtuoso and champion fencer, was born in Guadeloupe to the wealthy planter Georges Bologne and his wife's slave Anne. While early musical promise led to postings in Paris (where he and his father had moved in 1753), racism proved a determining factor in his career aspirations. For example, when he applied in 1776 for the position of director of the Académie royale de musique (later the Paris Opéra), he was rejected despite being a strong candidate when three of the Opéra's leading ladies petitioned against him, contending that their honour would be compromised if they were forced, in Clague's words, “to take orders from a mulatto.” L'Amant Anonyme is the only full operatic score by Bologne known to have survived, and for this recording a modern score was carefully prepared using the only extant manuscript of the work as a guide.

Set in the rural French countryside, the story-line is fairly simple, dealing as it does with a noble-born widow, Léontine (soprano Nicole Cabell), and Valcour (tenor Geoffrey Agpalo), her friend and secret suitor; that in the end love prevails hardly surprises. The performance, conducted by Craig Trompeter, complements the leads with bass-baritone David Govertsen (Ophémon), soprano Erica Schuller (Jeannette), tenor Michael St. Peter (Colin), and soprano Nathalie Colas (Dorothée). Cabell and Agpalo are exemplary in the lead roles, while their vocal partners are superb too. Govertsen performs splendidly as Valcour's co-conspirator, as does Colas as Léontine's friend. Jeannette and Colin, villagers and a second pair of lovers, act as a parallel to the lead characters and present a model of love and devotion. Irony and comic moments are plentiful, and the proceedings are enriched by a number of dances.

The opera opens with a brilliant three-part Italian overture, with the Haymarket Opera Orchestra's strings, woodwinds, and horns illuminating Bologne's writing effervescently. While the ensemble comprises a modest nineteen players, its sound achieves the splendour of a larger outfit. The first act begins with an aria featuring Valcour alone, Agpalo effectively conveying the character's anguish over hiding his love for Léontine. A brief dialogue ensues during which Ophémon encourages a hesitant Valcour to openly declare his feelings, the emotional shadings of their exchanges clearly conveyed by the interlocutors and the contrasts in their voices showcased as vividly in the melodic duo “Tant de constance.” Léontine, having received a bouquet and letter from the “Anonymous One,” now appears and has Valcour, ironically, read his own ghostwritten letter, after which Cabell impresses with the impassioned ariette “Son amour, sa constance extrême.” As happens throughout, Bologne's music deftly mirrors the fluctuating inner states of the characters, in this case the dramatic extremes Léontine oscillates between. Schuller and St. Peter have a magnificent moment in the spotlight when they share their thoughts on love with Léontine, after which “Quinqué” concludes the act with a dazzling display of vocal counterpoint featuring Léontine, Valcour, Ophémon, Jeannette, and Colin.

The plot thickens in the second act, with the uptick in emotional intensity intimated by the turbulence with which the orchestra introduces the first recitative. At this stage of the story, an agitated Léontine, now open to love's possibility, is torn between her attraction to the secret suitor and devotion to Valcour. The distance between the two figures lessens when Ophémon tells her the concealed admirer looks somewhat like Valcour and then sings an impassioned duet, “Ah! Finissez de grâce,” with the conflicted widow. An inarguable highlight of the opera's second half is Léontine's B-flat major ariette “Du tendre amour,” whose vocal melismas are delivered by Cabell with finesse. As powerful as the ariette is, the intertwining duo featuring Léontine and Valcour that follows, “Non, non, je ne puis rien entendre,” is as transfixing. The revelation about the anonymous lover's identity arrives thereafter and in turn leads to a double wedding and celebratory dances. “Aimons-nous sans cesse,” a joyous affirmation of love's enduring power sung by Léontine, Valcour, Jeannette, and Colin, concludes the vocal dimension of the work.

It's to the singers' credit that their expressive dialogue exchanges are as compelling as the singing episodes, which are consistently elevated by Bologne's captivating melodies. It's a compliment to him that the instrumental passages, the rousing “Ballet” and “Danse” in the first act, the four dances in the second, and the folk-inflected, opera-concluding “Contredance Générale,” are as engaging as the vocal parts. As woefully reductive as it is, that “Black Mozart” label is supported by melodies that one imagines could have come from the pen of his better-known counterpart. All praise to Haymarket Opera Company, then, for doing their part to return Bologne's name to public awareness and even more for giving this remarkable opera the attention it has been too long denied and so rightfully deserves.

March 2023