Delibes: Lakmé - Duo des fleurs (Flower Duet)
April 10, 2023 9:09 PM Subscribe
Performed by Sabine Devieilhe & Marianne Crebassa This is one of the most beautiful pieces of music that I have ever heard, performed here with perfection by Sabine Devieilhe & Marianne Crebassa.
I first heard it in the 1987 film I've Heard the Mermaids Singing, which easily edged its way into my heart.
Sheila McCarthy steals this movie; hard to have "a biggest heroine' in film but I sure do love her in this role -- an artist, a total dork, a heart of pure gold.
I can't let this post get away -- it's about The Flower Duet, and not the movies I've learned to love because of the song.
I first heard it in the 1987 film I've Heard the Mermaids Singing, which easily edged its way into my heart.
Sheila McCarthy steals this movie; hard to have "a biggest heroine' in film but I sure do love her in this role -- an artist, a total dork, a heart of pure gold.
I can't let this post get away -- it's about The Flower Duet, and not the movies I've learned to love because of the song.
Well, that expanded the world
posted by y2karl at 10:22 PM on April 10, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by y2karl at 10:22 PM on April 10, 2023 [1 favorite]
Wow. This is not the first nor the third time I've heard this, but they are extremely good, and extremely together, and extremely IN IT.
posted by amtho at 10:27 PM on April 10, 2023
posted by amtho at 10:27 PM on April 10, 2023
It is a beautiful piece, but it's been ruined for those of us in the UK. That's because British Airways adopted it as its TV advert theme about 25 years ago and have bastardised it in various ways in its ads ever since.
posted by essexjan at 1:41 AM on April 11, 2023 [6 favorites]
posted by essexjan at 1:41 AM on April 11, 2023 [6 favorites]
It is a beautiful piece, but it's been ruined for those of us in the UK. That's because British Airways adopted it as its TV advert theme about 25 years ago and have bastardised it in various ways in its ads ever since.
Essexjan, not just in the UK, I distinctly remember British Airways ads here in the US using the piece as well back in the 90s, though it seemed to be a loop of the chorus. Many thanks to dancestoblue for posting the whole song so that it recontextualizes the song for me.
posted by KingEdRa at 4:13 AM on April 11, 2023 [3 favorites]
Essexjan, not just in the UK, I distinctly remember British Airways ads here in the US using the piece as well back in the 90s, though it seemed to be a loop of the chorus. Many thanks to dancestoblue for posting the whole song so that it recontextualizes the song for me.
posted by KingEdRa at 4:13 AM on April 11, 2023 [3 favorites]
It's a lovely piece, and a great performance. Thanks for sharing!
posted by Harald74 at 5:40 AM on April 11, 2023
posted by Harald74 at 5:40 AM on April 11, 2023
Who'd have thought a lesbian love scene between Catherine Deneuve and Susan Sarandon would cement this beautiful duet in my heart for the rest of my life! While it hasn't aged well, the movie The Hunger has some amazing music in it, including this. The soundtrack of my teen years!
posted by cherryflute at 6:43 AM on April 11, 2023 [8 favorites]
posted by cherryflute at 6:43 AM on April 11, 2023 [8 favorites]
It's been the BA music for far longer than twenty-five years - I went into the classical specialist record shop in Newport in Gwent in about 1987 to ask after the piece (I'd heard it in a completely different and now forgotten television programme). After hearing my fragmented description, the woman behind the counter asked me "British Airways or Baileys?" (I think it was Baileys, anyway, and Baileys can stand for whatever it was - in any case it was Belle nuit, ô nuit d'amour from Tales of Hoffman). She sent me off with a Greatest Hits of Opera cassette which contained both, just to be on the safe side, and I was perfectly happy if a little chastened.
The most startling thing to me now is that once upon a time Newport was able to support one shop that sold nothing but classical music recordings.
posted by Grangousier at 7:24 AM on April 11, 2023 [6 favorites]
The most startling thing to me now is that once upon a time Newport was able to support one shop that sold nothing but classical music recordings.
posted by Grangousier at 7:24 AM on April 11, 2023 [6 favorites]
I've done this show. There are aspects of it that are likely to be ... problematic nowadays, to say the least.
With respect to the music, the other "hit piece" from the opera is the title character's "Bell Song." There seem to be innumerable videos on YouTube of Joan Sutherland singing it, but with all due respect to La Stupenda I think it's better done with a smaller voice that can dance more lightly. The rest of the show is meh.
posted by slkinsey at 7:42 AM on April 11, 2023 [1 favorite]
With respect to the music, the other "hit piece" from the opera is the title character's "Bell Song." There seem to be innumerable videos on YouTube of Joan Sutherland singing it, but with all due respect to La Stupenda I think it's better done with a smaller voice that can dance more lightly. The rest of the show is meh.
posted by slkinsey at 7:42 AM on April 11, 2023 [1 favorite]
Even though the Anna Netrebko and Elina Garanca duet from a New Year concert is more famous, I like this version performed with an orchestra with period instruments. The French pronunciation seems to flow better. Plus around 2:30 Sabine mispronounces a word to mean something dirty and Marianne suppresses laughter! Sabine realizes what she did too!
posted by indianbadger1 at 7:55 AM on April 11, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by indianbadger1 at 7:55 AM on April 11, 2023 [2 favorites]
They're just roommates, y'all.
posted by tigrrrlily at 8:14 AM on April 11, 2023
posted by tigrrrlily at 8:14 AM on April 11, 2023
Lovely! And reminded me to listen again to one of my own favorites: Nathalie Dessay singing Air des clochettes
posted by rrrrrrrrrt at 8:24 AM on April 11, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by rrrrrrrrrt at 8:24 AM on April 11, 2023 [1 favorite]
I have watched this video approximately one million times in the last year and one thing I really love about it is the lack of opera's usual bombast (says I, a non opera watcher). No giant stage, big costumes, supernumeraries, etc. Just these two women, dressed for a big day of doing nothing in particular, emitting the most lovely, lovely sounds.
posted by BlahLaLa at 8:39 AM on April 11, 2023 [6 favorites]
posted by BlahLaLa at 8:39 AM on April 11, 2023 [6 favorites]
Not to be confused with Canzonetta sull'aria from The Marriage of Figaro, which is the song Andy Dufresnes plays on the warden's record player in The Shawshank Redemption.
posted by Ben Trismegistus at 8:49 AM on April 11, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by Ben Trismegistus at 8:49 AM on April 11, 2023 [2 favorites]
cherryflute, I just picked up a used copy of The Hunger's soundtrack. I saw the movie around when it came out, but it was a visit to a friend's dorm room during a lovely spring day tripping near the shores of Lake Michigan that melted that version of the duet into my soul. He said "I need to share this with you right now", and I sat down on the floor in front of his boombox . . . wow. And always and forever . . . wow.
posted by pt68 at 9:13 AM on April 11, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by pt68 at 9:13 AM on April 11, 2023 [1 favorite]
This is much-needed stress relief during a super busy work stretch, thank you! Plus my late grandmother would be so pleased to know I am willingly listening to opera :)
posted by sleepingwithcats at 10:07 AM on April 11, 2023
posted by sleepingwithcats at 10:07 AM on April 11, 2023
Have you been listening to my work playlist, dancestoblue? This is the first piece on it! Weirdly, I got to it via it being sampled in a song I randomly stumbled over, Black Black Heart by David Usher.
posted by PussKillian at 1:38 PM on April 11, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by PussKillian at 1:38 PM on April 11, 2023 [1 favorite]
I do like the Flower Duet and have fond memories of singing it. I never get tired of that piece.
The show itself is almost never done nowadays. Its orientalism and exoticism go all the way back to the dubious source material; it's white French guys fetishising Indian women all the way down. Lakmé as a character exists to allure, then devote herself to, the male British Army officer protagonist, Gérald. He suddenly realises he cannot marry her because of Duty, and she very obligingly dies, and he is sad but goes back to the Empire, the end.
Add to this an opera where the two leading roles are both impossibly high and very hard to cast, and the expense of putting on a late nineteenth century Parisian opera with a huge chorus and an extended dance sequence in Act III* and it really isn't worth the trouble to stage.
(And speaking as a mezzo: Mallika has no story! She doesn't even get to have an opinion on her mistress falling in love with a coloniser! Or about her mistress's Dad wanting to kill her lover! She just disappears after the duet. The duet plus a couple of lines in the previous scene are the whole role.)
****************************
*Ballet in Act III: you can tell when an opera was written for Paris, because you have to have a ballet for the Opéra's corps of dancers, and it has to be late in the opera so the rich sponsors can have dinner and then stagger in reeling drunk and watch their mistresses dance. Wagner, who was famously an arse, loathed being required to put a ballet in Tannhaüser, and spitefully put it at the very beginning of the opera so the sponsors would miss it. He wasn't asked back.
posted by Pallas Athena at 3:22 PM on April 11, 2023 [13 favorites]
The show itself is almost never done nowadays. Its orientalism and exoticism go all the way back to the dubious source material; it's white French guys fetishising Indian women all the way down. Lakmé as a character exists to allure, then devote herself to, the male British Army officer protagonist, Gérald. He suddenly realises he cannot marry her because of Duty, and she very obligingly dies, and he is sad but goes back to the Empire, the end.
Add to this an opera where the two leading roles are both impossibly high and very hard to cast, and the expense of putting on a late nineteenth century Parisian opera with a huge chorus and an extended dance sequence in Act III* and it really isn't worth the trouble to stage.
(And speaking as a mezzo: Mallika has no story! She doesn't even get to have an opinion on her mistress falling in love with a coloniser! Or about her mistress's Dad wanting to kill her lover! She just disappears after the duet. The duet plus a couple of lines in the previous scene are the whole role.)
****************************
*Ballet in Act III: you can tell when an opera was written for Paris, because you have to have a ballet for the Opéra's corps of dancers, and it has to be late in the opera so the rich sponsors can have dinner and then stagger in reeling drunk and watch their mistresses dance. Wagner, who was famously an arse, loathed being required to put a ballet in Tannhaüser, and spitefully put it at the very beginning of the opera so the sponsors would miss it. He wasn't asked back.
posted by Pallas Athena at 3:22 PM on April 11, 2023 [13 favorites]
Anna Netrebko, and Elina Gāranća's version has been my standard for ever, the jewrlry, the dresses, their awesome voices! The Barcarolle rehearsal, um, such powerful vocal athletes! The flower duet is a lyrical masterpiece, of the highest order. I actually have a loyalty because of the joy they have brought me.
posted by Oyéah at 3:40 PM on April 11, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by Oyéah at 3:40 PM on April 11, 2023 [2 favorites]
British Airways adopted it as its TV advert theme
Don’t get me started on Rhapsody in Blue and United…
posted by staggernation at 4:39 AM on April 12, 2023 [2 favorites]
Don’t get me started on Rhapsody in Blue and United…
posted by staggernation at 4:39 AM on April 12, 2023 [2 favorites]
You've had the sublime, now for the ridiculous … Flower duet (Lakmé de Delibes) - Otamatone + Cello (3)
Austrian cellist Michael Dukhnych uses the Otamatone to great effect
posted by scruss at 8:40 PM on April 16, 2023
Austrian cellist Michael Dukhnych uses the Otamatone to great effect
posted by scruss at 8:40 PM on April 16, 2023
My first experience with this duet was here:
https://twitter.com/bbychakra/status/1418876701346570247
more formal here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_g9UY6K0saY
posted by andreap at 8:48 AM on April 17, 2023 [1 favorite]
https://twitter.com/bbychakra/status/1418876701346570247
more formal here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_g9UY6K0saY
posted by andreap at 8:48 AM on April 17, 2023 [1 favorite]
more formal here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_g9UY6K0saY
posted by andreap at 10:48 AM on April 17
andreap, thank you so much for that link, those spectacular singers; I'd favorite it 37 times if I could. Raised my evening, for sure.
posted by dancestoblue at 5:28 PM on April 19, 2023
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_g9UY6K0saY
posted by andreap at 10:48 AM on April 17
andreap, thank you so much for that link, those spectacular singers; I'd favorite it 37 times if I could. Raised my evening, for sure.
posted by dancestoblue at 5:28 PM on April 19, 2023
« Older Molten sulfur, like lava, crawled across the grass... | King of the Delta Blues Liars Newer »
This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
posted by neuron at 9:39 PM on April 10, 2023 [1 favorite]