One of the most memorable aspects of French composer Florent Schmitt’s musical output is his artistic work in the “orientalist” realm. In fact, it could be claimed with some justification that Schmitt had no peer, notwithstanding the efforts of other fine composers in France (Saint-Saens, Roussel, Ravel, Bizet, Lalo, etc.) and elsewhere – particularly the Russians.
In a string of compositions that started with the Psalm 47 in 1904 and continuing through many other impressive musical scores like La Tragédie de Salomé, Antoine et Cléopâtre and Salammbô along with numerous smaller tableaus like Danse des Devadasis and Danse d’Abisag, Schmitt was the major orientalist composer of his time.
His last foray in this realm also happens to be one of the least known: Oriane et le Prince d’amour, Op. 83 (Oriane and the Prince of Love), a ballet Schmitt composed in 1932/33 for the famed Russian prima ballerina Ida Rubinstein.
Russian prima ballerina — and creator of the “Oriane” role — Ida Rubinstein (1885-1960).
Mlle. Rubinstein was one of the dancers who had made Schmitt’s Salomé ballet a staple on the Parisian stage, having starred in the 1919 production at the Paris Opéra. It was only natural that in seeking another suitably exotic subject for a ballet in which she would be the femme fatale star, Rubinstein would look to Florent Schmitt again.
The manner in which the composer came to learn of the commission is amusingly recounted in Vicki Woolf’s biography of Ida Rubinstein, Dancing in the Vortex. In it, the author quotes Florent Schmitt in his own words.
[When Ida Rubinstein] came to tell him, she found he was far away in his country retreat at Artiguemy in Hautes-Pyrenees. Schmitt remembered:
“It was a beautiful summer afternoon. I was in Artiguemy lying under the apple trees facing an incomparable southern peak untouched by snow – completely at peace, thinking no evil thoughts – when a sound like an earthquake shattered the quiet. A motor car, foolishly tackling the goat path, had smashed itself around a great oak and hurled its two lady passengers onto the ground.
The oak tree had only a few scratches. As for Mme. Rubinstein, everyone knows she is above such calamities: Tracing the line of the oak tree, as erect, as high and still smiling, she scarcely realized that she had escaped the most picturesque of deaths. By her side, no less unscathed, was Mme. Fauchier-Magnan, a friend of Ida’s. They came 873 miles to offer me this ballet.”
And what a ballet it was: Originally to be called Oriane la sans-egale (Oriane the Incomparable – perhaps an indication of the high regard in which Mme. Rubinstein held herself), the story line went several steps beyond the “passion and blood” of even Salomé, Cléopâtre and Salammbô.
An overview of the ballet’s action suggests a tale similar to Mikhail Lermontov’s poem about Tamara, the bloodthirsty Circassian queen who availed herself of lovers nightly — only to dispatch them into the Daryal’s river gorge by the next morning – and which the Russian composer Mili Balakirev portrayed so effectively in his tone poem of 1882.
But I also see similarities to several of the ballets and operas of Alexander von Zemlinsky and Franz Schreker, two Viennese composers who were famously attracted to plot lines that were laced with psycho-sexual overtones.
In the Rubinstein/Schmitt ballet, the action, which is billed as a “choreographic tragedy” taking place in the 15th century near Avignon, is as follows:
Oriane is a noblewoman whose desire for carnal liaisons is insatiable: now a poet, next a rich Mongolian merchant, then others.
But she soon tires of these lovers, always seeking the thrill of the next conquest – and always attended to by a dwarf, her ever-loyal though completely ignored companion.
Oriane’s next target comes in the form of a handsome, mysterious knight-prince from the east. Once again, the “call of love” sounds in Oriane’s heart. But unlike her other liaisons, this man is different. Learning of her licentious lifestyle and unspeakable excesses, the prince rejects Oriane’s attentions and departs the palace.
And now comes the final denouement: Seeking to blot out this rejection, Oriane organizes a wild evening of revelry – replete with levels of debauchery heretofore unknown at the palace. As an angry mob descends on the castle, roused to action by the vile transgressions taking place therein, Oriane dances with her final partner – death.
In the end, it is left to Oriane’s ever-faithful dwarf to be the lone soul to mourn the princess’ demise.
Clearly, the Oriane ballet gave Florent Schmitt rich material with which to create a musical fresco of powerful drama, musical color and effects … and he does not disappoint!
Schmitt began with a full orchestra to which he added extra woodwinds, expanded percussion and keyboard instruments, along with a mixed chorus and tenor solo, in the process of creating a ballet score that lasts nearly an hour.
The instrumentation for Florent Schmitt’s ballet “Oriane et le Prince d’amour” is lavish – and it also includes a mixed chorus with solor tenor voice.
The premiere stage performance of Oriane et le Prince d’Amour wouldn’t happen until five years after its composition – on January 7, 1938 in a Paris Opéra production that also featured Serge Lifar as choreographer and ballet-master. The famed flautist and composer-conductor Philippe Gaubert directed the production.
But a concert suite Schmitt had prepared from the ballet had already been premiered the year before — in a February 12, 1937 Paris performance conducted by Charles Munch.
It is in this form that the music has had its one and only recording, made in 1987 by Southwest German Radio featuring the Rhineland-Palatinate Philharmonic Orchestra under the direction of Pierre Stoll and released on the Cybelia label.
While the orchestra is not first-rank, the Cybelia recording gives ample proof of the power and effectiveness of Schmitt’s score.
The distant fanfares that open the suite are some of the most ominous I’ve ever heard in any piece of classical music. They proclaim — in no uncertain terms — that this is going to be no ordinary musical experience!
What follows is an achingly beautiful “dance of love” … and then a ferocious “Dance of the Mongols,” portraying at once the voluptuous color and barbaric savagery of the rich Mongolian merchant’s retinue.
The French musicologist Michel Fleury has described this music in poetic terms:
“The languorous emanations that traverse the score – the Mongol coloring, the mystery of the night – in fact place Avignon in the Orient of the Arabian Nights. And 25 years later, Oriane reaches out to Salome, that other voluptuous lady equally marked by fate. Oriane is … a witness to the exemplary mastery of one of the greatest magicians in sound.”
And consider this observation from the French pianist Bruno Belthoise: He counts Oriane a favorite among all of Florent Schmitt’s works, expressing complete amazement at “the richness of his writing for the orchestra.”
The dearth of recordings of Oriane et le Prince d’amour represents a huge gap in the discography of Florent Schmitt. The 1987 Cybelia CD documentation of the suite is long out of print — and that performance suffers from less-than-polished ensemble work in any case. Plus … the fact that the full ballet score has never been recorded is even more unfortunate.
To my mind, several of Schmitt’s most ardent advocates in the conducting world today could do great things with the Oriane score: Stéphane Denève, JoAnn Falletta, Jacques Mercier and Yan-Pascal Tortelier.
Clearly, a work such as this would be “right in their wheelhouse.” Here’s hoping one of them will take up the cause of Oriane before long.
