68

Ouvre ton coeur

Sérénade espagnole

97 bars

voice and piano

Poem: Louis-Michel-James Lacour-Delâtre (1815-93) in the ode-symphonie Vasco de Gama (1860).

La marguérite a fermé sa corolle

L’ombre a fermé les yeux du jour.

Belle, me tiendras-tu parole ?

La marguérite a fermé sa corolle.

Ouvre ton cœur à mon amour !

Ouvre ton cœur, ô jeune ange, à ma flamme,

Qu’un rêve charme ton sommeil !

Ouvre ton cœur !

Je veux reprendre mon âme,

Ouvre ton cœur, ô jeune ange, à ma flamme !

Comme une fleur s’ouvre au soleil,

Ouvre ton cœur !

Composition: The song was originally a Boléro in B minor sung by Léonard (soprano) in Vasco de Gama, composed in 1860. It had a refrain for male chorus. It was included in Act II of the opera Ivan IV in 1864-65 as no. 6 Sérénade, sung by the Jeune Bulgare (soprano) with supporting chorus. In this version, which was published with piano accompaniment in 1869, the words were slightly altered by one of the librettists, Henri Trianon. The original words were restored in the collection Seize Mélodies, published in 1883, where the chorus is omitted. Bars 50-52 and 97-99 have each been compressed into one bar, making it four bars shorter in all.

Autograph score: not known in the piano version.

Printed scores:

1
Choudens, as no. 2 of Seize Mélodies, 1883, as Ouvre ton cœur, Sérénade espagnole, in two keys (B minor and A minor). IMSLP.
2
Choudens, père et fils, 30 boulevard des Capucines, pl. no. A.C. 6562 (high), A.C. 6589 (low), p. 2–7, 1886, in two keys (Am and Bm). Later issued as Boléro chanté dans “CARMEN”. F-Pn Vm7 32708(1–2), GB-NWm (high voice).
3
Schirmer, New York, pl. no. 37129, 9 p., as Ouvre ton cœur (Open thy Heart) Spanish Serenade, in French and English (translated by Eugene Oudin). IMSLP.US-BLl, US-SLug.
4
Hansen, Copenhagen, pl. no. 12402, 5 p., 1898, in Swedish, French and Danish. D-B.

Arrangement for voice and orchestra:

1
Cecilia Music Concept, Cologne, 2013, as Souvenirs d'été, no. 7, arranged by Andreas N. Tarkmann.

Discography

J. MacDonald (78)
Georges Thill, M. Faure (78)
E. Sack (78)
C.A. Hallgren, in Swedish (78)
E. Bandrovska-Turska, in Russian (78)
G. Martinelli, 1952 (78)
Nan Merriman, Gerald Moore, 1955
Joan Sutherland, Suisse Romande O, Bonynge, 1970
Barbara Hendricks, 1996
Cecilia Bartoli, Myung-Whun Chung, 1996
Ann Murray, Graham Johnson, 1998

Bibliography

Curtis 130
Dean 155, 164, 168