Composer: Adolphe Adam (1803–1856)
Work: La Filleule des fées — ballet (1849)
Performers: Queensland Symphony Orchestra / Andrew Mogrelia
Label: Marco Polo 8.223734-35
Recorded: ABC Studios, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, February 1996
Timing: CD 1: 67:52; CD 2: 58:41
Adolphe Adam still tends to live in the public mind as the composer of Giselle and, outside the ballet world, as a gifted purveyor of tuneful nineteenth-century theatrical charm. La Filleule des fées reminds us that he was capable of something larger: a full-length ballet on an expansive scale, conceived for the sort of elaborate stage spectacle Paris relished in the mid-nineteenth century. This is not merely a sequence of pleasant dance numbers but a substantial theatrical construction, one whose very size suggests the ambition behind it.
On disc, the work’s chief strength is Adam’s unfailing melodic instinct. Even when the music is operating in the realm of decorative fantasy, he knows how to keep a line buoyant and how to move a scene forward with rhythmic poise. The score offers exactly what admirers of French Romantic ballet hope to find: grace, sparkle, atmosphere, and an easy command of theatrical pacing. Adam may not probe emotional depths in the manner of later ballet composers, but he understands color, momentum, and the art of making a stage picture dance in the mind.
That makes this Marco Polo set valuable on more than archival grounds. It opens a window onto a repertory that is too often left in the shadows, and it does so with welcome generosity. Spread across two discs, the recording gives the listener a chance to experience the work as a broad dramatic span rather than as a mere anthology of excerpts. This is rescue work of a very worthwhile kind: the revival of a neglected Romantic score that proves far more engaging than its obscurity might suggest.
Andrew Mogrelia has long shown an affinity for exactly this kind of repertoire: music that can sag if treated too dutifully, but that springs to life when conducted with alertness, affection, and a feel for its theatrical pulse. In a score like this, the conductor’s task is not to inflate Adam into something he is not, but to let the music charm, glitter, and sing without apology. The Queensland Symphony Orchestra proves a fitting vehicle for that approach, presenting the ballet as a living entertainment rather than a museum piece.
What finally emerges is a persuasive case for La Filleule des fées as more than a curiosity. No, this is not revolutionary music, nor is it meant to be. Its pleasures are those of craft, elegance, and melodic abundance. But those pleasures are real, and when a neglected ballet is this expertly laid out before the listener, one begins to wonder why it vanished from regular circulation in the first place.
For collectors of Romantic ballet, French orchestral theater music, or the recorded byways of the nineteenth century, this release has obvious appeal. More broadly, it stands as a reminder that the ballet tradition between Auber and Delibes was richer than standard repertory would suggest. Adam, in works like this, deserves to be heard not just as a historical name but as a composer who knew exactly how to delight an audience.
