Reynaldo Hahn's opera L'île du rêve bears the date 1898 but was begun considerably earlier when the teenage composer was a student of Massenet at the Paris Conservatory. It was based on an 1880 autobiographical novel by Pierre Loti, detailing the author's liaison with a 15-year-old Polynesian girl; the novel was also a partial source for Léo Delibes' Lakmé. The novel was a prime document of French colonialism, but in the hands of Hahn and librettists André Alexandre and Georges Hartmann, it is toned down into a lightly ...
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Reynaldo Hahn's opera L'île du rêve bears the date 1898 but was begun considerably earlier when the teenage composer was a student of Massenet at the Paris Conservatory. It was based on an 1880 autobiographical novel by Pierre Loti, detailing the author's liaison with a 15-year-old Polynesian girl; the novel was also a partial source for Léo Delibes' Lakmé. The novel was a prime document of French colonialism, but in the hands of Hahn and librettists André Alexandre and Georges Hartmann, it is toned down into a lightly exotic short opera. There is a comic Chinese rival suitor, but L'île du rêve is not an operetta, although it occasionally leans in that direction. It is filled with strong romantic melodies and a natural way of setting speech in song that brings to mind Puccini more than any French composer, although it is not clear how much Puccini Hahn had heard. His manner here will be familiar to anyone who treasures Hahn's mélodies. Historical performance specialist Hervé Niquet leads the Münchner...
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