Among her best known films of the 1930s include A Certain Mr. Gran (1933), Barcarolle (1935), The Detours of the Beautiful Charles (1938) and People from Variety (1939), where she was naive blonde rival of La Jana.
barcarolle | Barcarolle |
Three works were premiered in 2011 : “Night Rides” for the London Sinfonietta; “No Man’s Land”, to a text by Christopher Reid, for the City of London Sinfonia with soloists Ian Bostridge and Roderick Williams; and “Grand Barcarolle” for the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and Riccardo Chailly as part of their Beethoven cycle presented in Leipzig, Vienna, Paris and London in autumn 2011.
Delibes also composed various operas, the last of which, the lush orientalizing Lakmé (1883), contains, among many dazzling numbers, the famous coloratura showpiece known as the Légende du Paria or Bell Song ("Où va la jeune Indoue?") and The Flower Duet ("Sous le dôme épais"), a barcarolle that Patricia Rozema made famous in her film "I've Heard the Mermaids Singing" and later used by British Airways commercials.
There are no extractable "numbers" from this opera to speak of, although highlights include the orchestral passages that suggest the rustic scenery with a kind of barcarolle, and the intimate Latin prayer near the end (a setting of "Ave Maria"), which is reminiscent of the composer's art songs.