Premiered at the Paris Opéra on 22 December 1841, La Reine de Chypre exemplified all the trademark features of French grand opéra at its peak: a tragic love story in five acts set amid political conflict of the late medieval European past, a cast of celebrity singers complemented by a large chorus and ballet, a full orchestra including unusual auxiliary instruments used to enhance ‘local colour’, meticulously researched costumes and décor, and spectacular stage effects. Librettist Jules-Henri Vernoy de Saint Georges, composer Fromental Halévy, and their collaborators took as their subject the historical figure of Catarina Cornaro, a fifteenth-century Venetian noblewoman who became Queen of Cyprus in an arranged marriage to Jacques de Lusignan, the so-called ‘bastard king’ who sought to strengthen his tenuous claim to the throne with political support from Venice. Saint-Georges drew on sources such as Pierre Daru's Histoire de la République de Venise (1838), summarizing his research in a prefatory ‘notice historique’ that appeared in the published libretto. He departed from history, however, by inventing Catarina's initial engagement to a French chevalier, Gérard de Coucy, a fiction that allowed him to position a love triangle as the opera's central romantic conflict.

La Reine de Chypre quickly garnered critical acclaim for the strong dramatic situations and exotic setting of Saint-Georges's libretto, the innovative harmonic language, melodic expression, and rich orchestration of Halévy's score, and the magnificence of its mise en scène. So, too, did the Parisian critics praise the performers who brought the opera to life, from supporting ensemble work by the orchestra, chorus, and corps de ballet to star turns by the Opéra's soloists. Singled out for particular recognition were not only the singers who interpreted the three leading roles – Rosine Stoltz as Catarina, Gilbert-Louis Duprez as Gérard and Paul-Bernard Barroilhet as Lusignan – but also the principal dancers featured in the divertissements, including Lucien Petipa, Auguste Mabille, Maria Jacob and the Dumilâtre sisters Adèle and Sophie. La Reine de Chypre remained in repertory at the Opéra until 1858 and was successfully revived in 1877–78, but it is largely forgotten today, eclipsed in both performance history and music historiography by Halévy's mega-hit La Juive (1835). Though La Reine de Chypre was once deemed a worthy ‘sister’ to La Juive by a Parisian critic (Le Corsaire, 24 December 1841), only the Act III tenor–baritone duet ‘Salut, salut, à cette France … Triste exilé’ has had any regular traction in recitals and recordings.

The recently released world premiere recording of La Reine de Chypre, the seventeenth entry in the French Opera series produced by the Palazzetto Bru Zane – Centre de musique romantique français, is therefore a most welcome and long overdue contribution. This limited edition two-disc set is attractively packaged in a hardcover book containing the libretto (French and English translation) along with several essays, the most valuable of which is Diana R. Hallman's contextualization of the opera and its depiction of mythicized Venetian tyranny within French political history, as well as Volker Tosta's discussion of his new edition of the score. The Palazzetto Bru Zane's mission is to promote the rediscovery of forgotten French repertoire from the long nineteenth century, and this recording makes a compelling case for the return of Halévy's long overlooked work to the concert hall and opera house.

There is much to admire here, both in Halévy's music and its interpretation. Beyond the famous Act III duet (beautifully sung here by Cyrille Dubois and Étienne Dupuis), other musical highlights include Gérard's Act I serenade ‘Le ciel est radieux’, one of the opera's true melodic gems, perfectly suited to Dubois's dulcet tenor and featuring a sensitive harp accompaniment by David Lootvoet; the thrilling Act I choral finale in which Catarina's uncle Andréa calls off her wedding to Gérard; and the climactic Act V quartet, particularly the protagonists’ spirited call to arms ‘Guerre, guerre à Venise’, punctuated by the treacherous Venetian senator Mocénigo's defiant cries of ‘Gloire à Venise’. Soprano Véronique Gens, a champion of unjustly neglected French repertoire who has collaborated with the Palazetto Bru Zane on several other recent projects, delivers a sensitive and nuanced portrayal of the titular heroine; her vocal and dramatic chemistry with Dubois is palpable even in a concert recording.

Despite Gens's unquestionable artistry, the decision to cast her as Catarina is a bit surprising, given that this role was originally written to showcase the particular strengths (and mask the limitations) of mezzo-soprano Rosine Stoltz. While Gens is certainly a masterful tragedienne in the tradition of Stoltz, the wide leaps and declamatory low-register passages characteristic of roles written for Stoltz – most prominently used in Catarina's Act II monologue – would likely have been more effective if executed by a true mezzo-soprano with a full, resonant low register. By a similar token, the role of Gérard was tailored to tenor Gilbert Duprez, renowned for his innovative and powerful voix du poitrine, but here the role is performed by Dubois, a light tenor. Yet, as mentioned above, Dubois's intimate rendering of ‘O ciel radieux’, impassioned delivery and sheer vocal beauty are worth the sacrifice of a more forceful sound in some of the character's intensely dramatic moments and large ensemble numbers.

The producers’ decision to fit the recording on two discs has, of course, necessitated some significant cuts to Halévy's score. The practice of making cuts is part of the reception and performance history of any opera – including La Reine de Chypre – and we should not be distracted by an artificially constructed Werktreue ideal or a misplaced obsession with producing a ‘complete’ recording. It might seem the most sensible choice is to cut any ‘decorative’ musical numbers that do not directly advance the dramatic action; yet, in so doing, we risk losing touch with what made grand opéra so pleasurable for audiences of the nineteenth century. Unfortunately, this otherwise admirable recording of La Reine de Chypre does just that by eliminating two richly colourful musical numbers that proved effective with audiences and critics alike: the offstage Venetian gondoliers’ chorus at the opening of Act II (praised by Berlioz as a ‘small masterpiece’) and the Cypriot courtesans’ exotic chœur dansé in Act III.

In addition to the Act III chœur dansé, the other two ballet divertissements are also cut (an Act I pas de trois celebrating Catarina's would-be wedding to Gérard and an Act IV set of national dances welcoming Catarina to Cyprus for her royal nuptials). While the exclusion of this dance music from the recording is understandable given time constraints, what is indefensible is music critic Gérard Condé's misleading and baseless justification of this decision, made in his contributed essay. Condé suggests ballet was not a significant feature of La Reine de Chypre and asserts ‘a later move to make [ballet] a necessary feature of grand opera (even though it hardly appears in Les Huguenots, La Juive, or even L'Africaine)’ (pages 14 and 55) – an inexplicably bizarre claim, given musicologist Marian Smith's long-standing scholarship demonstrating how ballet and grand opéra were intimately connected from the earliest examples of the genre. Moreover, the operas cited by Condé incorporated members of the Paris Opéra's ballet company in nearly every act, whether in danced divertissements, chœurs dansés, processions or pantomime roles.

In the case of La Reine de Chypre, ballet was no mere expendable decoration. Several critics commented on how effectively the ballet numbers were woven into the dramatic action, particularly the Act III chœur dansé: Richard Wagner, for one, effused in his fourth article on the opera for La Revue et Gazette musicale de Paris, ‘Sensuality and the frenzied desire for pleasure, which form the distinctive character of this entire tableau, reach their climax in the chœur dansé’. (Such enthusiasm must, however, be interpreted in light of the fact that Maurice Schlesinger, owner of the RGM and publisher of the vocal score of La Reine de Chypre, had commissioned both the piano reduction and a series of promotional articles from Wagner.)

Overall, this recording is an engaging, well-executed performance that one may hope will inspire a major opera company to invest in mounting a fully staged production, using Tosta's critical edition. Given the current taste for historical epics in popular culture, French grand opéra might find new audiences if given the chance – audiences not biased by Wagner's infamous claim of the genre's ‘effects without cause’. (Indeed, Meyerbeer's grands opéras have experienced a recent renaissance in Berlin, Paris and Brussels.) A production of La Reine de Chypre could well be a choice vehicle for a star mezzo-soprano wishing to depart from the stereotypical nineteenth-century mezzo roles of servants, grandmothers, temptresses, and witches. And, ideally, a fully staged production should include some of the choral and dance numbers that did so much to create an immersive, meaningful theatrical experience for nineteenth-century audiences.