FULL LE JONGLEUR DE NOTRE-DAME Sapporo 2022 Makoto Tanaka, Satoshi Nakahara, Masato Noritake

Information on the Performance

• Work Title: Le Jongleur de Notre-Dame  
• Composer: Massenet Jules  
• Libretto: Maurice Léna    Libretto Text, Libretto Index
• Venue & Opera Company: Sapporo Sunplaza Concert Hall, Japan  
• Recorded: March 2022
• Type: Staged Opera Live
• Singers: Makoto Tanaka, Satoshi Nakahara, Masato Noritake, Asami Igarashi, Chieko Tanaka, Noriko Hagiwara, Mariko Ishida Mezz
• Conductor: Makiko Tokioka   
• Orchestra:
• Stage Director: Kunihito Nakatsu  
• Stage Designer: Yukiko Sakamoto  
• Costume Designer: Okamoto Ikuko  
• Lighting Designer: Masakazu Takahashi   

Information about the Recording

• Published by: NPO Sapporo Chamber Opera  
• Date Published: 2024  
• Format: Streaming
• Quality Video: 4 Audio:4
• Subtitles: yessubs, jpsubs, gensubs  
• Video Recording from: YouTube     FULL VIDEO
•  

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ON THIS PERFORMANCE

Le jongleur de Notre-Dame is a three-act opera (labelled in the programme as Miracle in Three Acts) by Jules Massenet to a French libretto by Maurice Léna. It was first performed at the Opéra Garnier in Monte Carlo on 18 February 1902. It is one of five operas Massenet set in the Middle Ages, the others being Le Cid (1885), Esclarmonde (1889), Grisélidis (1901), and Panurge (1913).

At this stage of his career, the concierge of Massenet’s Paris home would normally sort out speculative libretti submitted to the composer, but the concierge being absent Massenet unexpectedly received the package from Léna and read it through on the train to his country home in Égreville. It is based on the story of the same name by Anatole France in his 1892 collection L’Étui de nacre, which was in turn based on a 13th-century medieval legend by the monk and troubadour Gautier de Coincy, c. 1220. Massenet had previously used France as a source for his 1894 opera Thaïs. In Le jongleur, uniquely for this composer, there are no roles of substance for women: the angels are off-stage and the virgin is mute. The work was composed in the spring of 1901, it became the first of his operas to receive its premiere at the Opéra in Monte-Carlo run by Raoul Gunsbourg.

In a centenary survey of the operatic output of Massenet, Rodney Milnes noted that “Le Jongleur is written off by too many because of its sentiment”, despite the humorous characterization of the rival monks; the work also has Brother Boniface’s Légende de la Sauge which recounts how the sage herb safe-guarded the infant Jesus from the soldiers during the Flight to Egypt. The work alternates morality and comedy, devotion and character portrait, and through different tones and colours avoids mawkishness and melodrama. Massenet inscribed the words Heureux les simples, car ils verront Dieu at the top of the manuscript score; Milnes noted that “simplicity was the guiding light without which this sentimental ‘miracle in three acts’ could have been a little sticky. As it is, it is profoundly moving, though of course one should not take the simplicity at face value – Massenet’s infallible sense of theatrical effect lies behind every bar.”

Despite its setting and cast list, a researcher has commented on the difficulty in pinning down real quotes from liturgical music in the score, although “parts of the opera convey the impression that they use existing material”, because of what is described as “Massenet’s technique of approximation and transformation”. Jean’s Alléluia du vin in act 1, or the monks’ Benedicite are both hard to match with an existing setting, and while they “may sound like real sacred music, it is virtually impossible to verify any specific origin”.

Synopsis
Place: France Time: Medieval period
Act 1, Place de Cluny
There is singing and dancing in front of the monastery; Jean, a juggler, wants to earn money entertaining passers-by. Rejecting his clumsy tricks, they demand a profane song ‘Halleluiah to wine’. He resists at first but then sings it. The prior appears and takes Jean to task but seeing that Jean is filled with remorse, the prior asks him to join the monks, to save his soul and body.

Act 2, the cloisters
Inside the monastery the monks undertake their various duties. Jean sees that although they honour the Virgin with beautiful Latin prayers, he is unable to offer her any thing. The other monks quarrel as they offer to take him as a pupil. Befriended by the monastery’s cook, Boniface sings him the legend of the sagebush which humbly opened its branches to shelter the Infant Jesus as He slept. When Jean sees that the other monks are offering lavish and beautiful gifts to the newly completed statue of the Virgin Mary, he, having no real gift, resolves to do what he can do best.

Act 3, in the chapel
The painter and sculptor monks admire their newly completed statue of the Virgin. As Jean enters the former hides behind a pillar, and watches as the juggler takes his habit off and puts his old street clothes on, at which the hidden monk goes to warn the prior. Playing his hurdy-gurdy, he dances, until the other monks enter, horrified, and are about to seize Jean to reprimand him for blasphemy. Boniface stops them as the statue of the Virgin comes to life, holds out her arms and blesses Jean. Jean falls to his knees as a heavenly light glows from the altar the Virgin ascends to Heaven. As the prior sings the words Massenet placed at the top of his score Heureux les simples, car ils verront Dieu (Blessed are the poor in spirit for they will find God), Jean dies, and the other monks, and angels, sing Amen.