Michel Dens was a famous French baritone in the post WWII-period. When listening to him, I can hear the freedom of the air when he sings. In other words, he is “singing on the breath”. Dens’ diction is excellent. His rendition of Duparc’s “L’invitation au voyage” is the best that I have ever heard. He signs the duet from The Pearl Fishers with Henri Legay. It makes a real difference to have native French speakers sing French music.
Duparc, “L’invitation au voyage”
Baudelaire, poète
Mon enfant, ma sœur,
Songe à la douceur
D’aller là-bas vivre ensemble!
Aimer à loisir,
Aimer et mourir
Au pays qui te ressemble!
Les soleils mouillés
De ces ciels brouillés
Pour mon esprit ont les charmes
Si mystérieux
De tes traîtres yeux,
Brillant à travers leurs larmes.
Là, tout n’est qu’ordre et beauté,
Luxe, calme et volupté!
Vois sur ces canaux
Dormir ces vaisseaux
Dont l’humeur est vagabonde;
C’est pour assouvir
Ton moindre désir
Qu’ils viennent du bout du monde.
-Les soleils couchants
Revêtent les champs,
Les canaux, la ville entière,
D’hyacinthe et d’or;
Le monde s’endort
Dans une chaude lumière.
Là, tout n’est qu’ordre et beauté,
Luxe, calme et volupté!
Duparc, “L’invitation au voyage”
Baudelaire, poet
My child, my sister
Dream of the sweetness
To go down there and live together?
Loving at leisure
Loving and dying
In the land that resembles you!
The dripping suns
From these burnished skies
For me have the charms
As mysterious
As your traitorous eyes,
Shining through their tears.
There, everything is border and beauty,
Luxury, calm, and sensuousness!
See on these canals
The sleeping ships
Vessels intrinsically roving
It is to satisfy
Your smallest desire
That they come from the ends of the earth
– The setting suns
Clothe the fields,
The canals, the entire city,
In hyacinth and gold;
The world falls asleep,
In a warm light.
There, everything is order and beauty,
Luxury, calm, and sensuousness!
Bizet, Les pêcheurs de perles, “Au fond du temple saint”
ZURGA
C’est toi, toi qu’enfin je revois!
Après de si longs jours, après de si longs mois
Où nous avons vécu séparés l’un de l’autre,
Brahma nous réunit! quelle joie est la nôtre!
Mais parle, es-tu resté fidèle à ton serment?
Est-ce un ami que je revois ou bien un traître?
NADIR
De mon amour profond, j’ai su me rendre maître!
ZURGA
Oublions le passé, fêtons ce doux moment!
Soyons frères, restons amis toute la vie!
Mon cœur a banni sa folie!
NADIR
Oui, le calme est venu pour toi,
Mais l’oubli ne viendra jamais!
ZURGA
Que dis-tu?
NADIR
Zurga, quand tous deux nous toucherons à l’âge
Où les rêves des jours passés
De notre âme sont effacés,
Tu te rappelleras notre dernier voyage;
Et notre halte aux portes de Candi.
ZURGA
C’était le soir!
Dans l’air par la brise attiédi,
Les brahmines au front inondé de lumière,
Appelaient lentement la foule à la prière!
NADIR
Au fond du temple saint
Paré de fleurs et d’or,
Une femme apparaît!
Je crois la voir encore!
ZURGA
Une femme apparaît!
Je crois la voir encore!
NADIR
La foule prosternée
La regarde, etonnée,
Et murmure tous bas:
Voyez, c’est la déesse!
Qui dans l’ombre se dresse
Et vers nous tend les bras!
ZURGA
Son voile se soulève!
Ô vision! ô rêve!
La foule est à genoux!
NADIR et ZURGA
Oui, c’est elle!
C’est la déesse plus charmante et plus belle!
Oui, c’est elle!
C’est la déesse qui descend parmi nous!
Son voile se soulève et la foule est à genoux!
NADIR
Mais à travers la foule
Elle s’ouvre un passage!
ZURGA
Son long voile déjà
Nous cache son visage!
NADIR
Mon regard, hélas!
La cherche en vain!
ZURGA
Elle fuit!
NADIR
Elle fuit!
Mais dans mon âme soudain
Quelle étrange ardeur s’allume!
ZURGA
Quel feu nouveau me consume!
NADIR
Ta main repousse ma main!
ZURGA
Ta main repousse ma main!
NADIR
De nos cœurs l’amour s’empare
Et nous change en ennemis!
ZURGA
Non, que rien ne nous sépare!
NADIR
Non, rien!
ZURGA et NADIR
Jurons de rester amis!
Oh oui, jurons de rester amis!
Oui, c’est elle! C’est la déesse!
En ce jour qui vient nous unir,
Et fidèle à ma promesse,
Comme un frère je veux te chérir!
C’est elle, c’est la déesse
Qui vient en ce jour nous unir!
Oui, partageons le même sort,
Soyons unis jusqu’à la mort!
Bizet, The pearl fishers, “At the back of the holy temple”
ZURGA
So, I see you again at last.
After so many days, after so many months
which we spent far apart,
Brahma brings us together again, how happy we are!
But, tell me, have you faithfully kept your promise?
Do I now see a friend or a traitor?
NADIR
I have been able to overcome my deep love.
ZURGA
Let us forget the past and celebrate this sweet hour,
let us be brothers, let us remain friends for life;
my heart has banished its madness.
NADIR
Yes, you have found peace…
but oblivion will never come!
ZURGA
What are you saying?
NADIR
Zurga, when we both reach the age
in which the dreams of past days
have vanished from our souls,
you will remember our last journey
and our halt at the gates of Candi.
ZURGA
The evening had come!
Through the air, made tepid by the breeze,
the Brahmins, with their brows bathed in light,
were calling the crowd to prayers
NADIR
At the back of the holy temple,
decorated with flowers and gold,
a woman appears…
I can still see her.
ZURGA
A woman appears…
I can still see her.
NADIR
The prostrate crowd
looks at her amazed
and murmurs under its breath:
look, this is the goddess
looming up out of the shadow
and holding out her arms to us.
ZURGA
Her veil parts slightly;
what a vision, what a dream!
The crowd is kneeling.
TOGETHER
Yes, it is she, it is the goddess,
more charming and more beautiful;
yes, it is she, it is the goddess,
who has come down among us.
Her veil has parted,
and the crowd is kneeling.
NADIR
But through the crowd
she makes her way.
ZURGA
Already, her long veil
hides her face from us.
NADIR
My eyes, alas, seek her in vain.
ZURGA
She flees!
NADIR
She flees!
But what is this strange flame
which is suddenly kindled within my soul!
ZURGA
What unknown fire is destroying me!
NADIR
Your hand pushes mine away.
ZURGA
Your hand pushes mine away.
NADIR
Love takes our hearts by storm
and turns us into enemies.
ZURGA
No, let nothing part us!
NADIR
No, nothing!
ZURGA
Let us swear to remain friends!
NADIR
Let us swear to remain friends!
TOGETHER
Oh yes! Let us swear to remain friends!
We have seen her, she is the Godness
who today led you to me,
and from now I’ll keep you my promise,
close as brothers we shall be!
Great Godness, Heaven descended,
she today has led you to me!
Now we shall tread one single path,
never again to part till death!
Massenet, Thaïs, “Voilà donc la terrible cité!”
Voilà donc la terrible cité!
Alexandrie! Alexandrie!
Où je suis né dans le péché;
L’air brillant où j’ai respiré
L’affreux parfum de la luxure!
Voilà la mer voluptueuse
Où j’écoutais chanter la sirène aux yeux d’or!
Oui, voilà mon berceau selon la chair,
Alexandrie! O ma patrie!
Mon berceau, ma patrie!
De ton amour, j’ai détourné mon coeur.
Pour ta richesse, je te hais!
Pour ta science et ta beauté, je te hais! Je te hais!
Et maintenant je te maudis
Comme un temple hanté par les esprits impurs!
Venez! Anges du ciel! Souffles de Dieu!
Parfumez, du battement de vos ailes,
L’air corrompu qui va m’environner! Venez!
Massenet, Thaïs, “So here is the ghastly city!”
So here is the ghastly city!
Alexandria! Alexandria!
Where I was born in sin;
The glowing air where I breathed
The awful scent of lust!
Here is the voluptuous sea
Where I listened to sing the siren with golden eyes!
Yes, here is my cradle according to the flesh,
Alexandria! O my homeland!
My cradle, my homeland!
From your love, I turned my heart away.
For your wealth, I hate you!
For your science and your beauty, I hate you! I hate you!
And now I curse you
Like a temple haunted by impure spirits!
Come! Angels from heaven! Whispers of God!
Perfume, with the beating of your wings,
The corrupt air that will surround me! Come!
Fauré, Les berceaux, Op. 23, No. 1
Le long du Quai, les grands vaisseaux
Que la houle incline en silence
Ne prennent pas garde aux berceaux
Que la main des femmes balance
Mais viendra le jour des adieux
Car il faut que les femmes pleurent
Et que les hommes curieux
Tentent les horizons qui leurrent!
Et ce jour-là les grands vaisseaux
Fuyant le port qui diminue
Sentent leur masse retenue
Par l’âme des lointains berceaux
Fauré, “The cradles”, Op. 23 , No. 1
Along the quay the great ships,
That the swell silences
Pay no attention to the cradles
Rocked by women’s hands.
But the day of parting will come,
For it is decreed that women shall weep,
And that men with questing spirits
Shall seek enticing horizons.
And on that day the great ships,
Leaving the shrinking harbor behind,
Shall feel their hulls held back
By the soul of the distant cradles.
Michel Dens
June 22, 1911 – December 19, 2000
Michel Dens was one of the great lyric baritones of the period after the Second World War. Born in Roubaix in northern France, he studied the violin as a boy and planned to go into the textile business, but was urged to take his singing seriously, studied at the local Conservatoire and made his début in 1934 at Lille as Wagner in Faust. He learned his craft in such cities as Bordeaux, Grenoble, Toulouse, Marseille and Monte Carlo. Taken prisoner in 1940, he was held in Germany, but succeeded in escaping and joining the Toulouse Company (1942). His Parisian début in June 1947 at both the Opéra was as Albert in Werther, followed by Rigoletto, Iago, Valentin (Faust), Athanæl (Thaïs) and Rossini’s Figaro. His rôles at the Paris Opéra-Comique included Escamillo (Carmen), Frederic (Lakmé), Lescaut, Ourrias (Mireille) and Zurga (Les pêcheurs de perles).
As a guest artist he sang at many opera houses in France, Belgium, Switzerland, Canada and North Africa. Gifted with a high-lying voice of great beauty and flexibility, he was equally at home in the French repertoire and in such Italian rôles as Rigoletto and Figaro. He was also a wonderful singer of both French and Viennese operetta, and could even handle Tauber’s rôles in Lehár’s works convincingly. Dens had a long career and was still singing well at the age of eighty. Fortunately he made a vast quantity of recordings.