Gounod: Mireille (2-DVD) – Inva Mula, Charles Castronovo

Composer: Charles Gounod
Artists: Inva Mula, Charles Castronovo, Franck Ferrari, Alain Vernhes, Sylvie Brunet, Anne-Catherine Gillet, Sébastien Droy, Nicolas Cavallier, Amel-Brahim Djelloul, Ugo Rabec, Orchestre e Chœur de l’Opéra National de Paris
Conductor: Marc Minkowski
Director: Nicolas Joel
Format: NTSC
Language: French
Subtitles: French, English, German, Japanese, Korean
Region: All Regions
Number of Discs: 2
Studio: Naxos
DVD Release Date: June 11, 2021
Run Time: 151 minutes

Charles Gounod was enchanted by the young Provençal-born Frédéric Mistral’s epic love poem Mirèio and enlisted the distinguished Michel Carré to fashion a libretto. Against the grain of prevailing operatic practice in the 1860s, and its promotion of glamour and spectacle, Gounod relished instead the lives of modest country people and their idyllic world. He utilizes folk dances and a shepherd’s lament to chart the story of his tragic heroine, whose desire to marry her true love ends in her death.

“Everything feels true to the opera’s pastoral spirit,” wrote Gramophone about this production, which marked the opera’s first appearance at the Paris Opera.

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