Louise was a popular sensation upon its 1900 premiere and has been championed by divas from Mary Garden to Beverly Sills. Even so, it is infrequently encountered these days, though the popularity of its soprano aria "Depuis le jour" always keeps audiences curious about the rest of it. And the answer is that this starkly realistic story of a working-class Paris girl falling in love with a poet against her parents' wishes--like much verismo opera--has aged strangely. The novelty of its realism has worn off (the idealized vision of Paris is a tad corny), and its plainspoken sentiments play strangely amid the lush, Wagnerian orchestration. These characters aren't Tristan and Isolde, though the music sometimes seems to think so. Nonetheless, it's a great vehicle for singers, and this cast features both Ileana Cotrubas and Placido Domingo in the early spring of their careers. Jane Berbie and Gabriel Bacquier sing with Gallic authority as Louise's parents, and conductor Georges Prêtre surely knows his way around this music. --David Patrick Stearns
