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Barber of Seville (The) (Highlights)

Franco de Grandis

Classical - Released July 24, 1997 | Naxos

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Le Siège de Corinthe (Intégrale)

Lorenzo Regazzo

Opera - Released June 3, 2013 | Naxos

Booklet Distinctions Choc de Classica
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Bizet: Carmen, WD 31

Herbert von Karajan

Classical - Released January 1, 1964 | Sony Classical

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Bizet: Carmen, WD 31 (Live)

Wiener Philharmonic Orchestra

Opera - Released October 12, 2018 | Orfeo

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Camille Saint-Saëns: Phryné

Hervé Niquet

Opera - Released February 11, 2022 | Bru Zane

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Everyone knows Camille Saint-Saëns has a great sense of humour thanks to his Carnaval des Animaux in which no one escapes ridicule, not even him. Now the Palazzetto Bru Zane Foundation and Hervé Niquet have unearthed Phryné, a forgotten comic opera from 1893 enriched with recitatives composed by André Messager three years later.Received with immense and lasting success in its time, this brilliant work eventually fell into the abyss, never to be seen again. Fortunately, fans of Saint-Saëns made great efforts to rediscover his works on the centenary of his death in 2021. Phryné captures the "Grecomania" that was prevalent in all the arts in France at this time, especially in Offenbach’s music and even in architecture (just think of the beautiful Parisian district of New Athens in the 9th arrondissement). Ironically, and perhaps a little cheekily, Saint-Saens confessed that he was “working on this little piece with infinite pleasure” and was infatuated with this courtesan musician who had served as a model for the sculptor Praxitele.Always keen to discover a forgotten repertoire, Hervé Niquet brought together a few singers, Florie Valiquette, Cyrille Dubois, Anaïs Constans and Thomas Dolié, to breathe some life back into Phryné with his Concert Spirituel, with the aim of producing a concert version to be performed in the Opéra de Rouen Normandie in 2021. Though Lucien Augé’s libretto may seem tasteless today with its hefty dose of misogyny, Saint-Saens’ music is simply delicious, with a succession of arias and ensembles. This modest and charming opera-comedy, which Charles Gounod so enjoyed, offers a less serious and less academic take of a composer that well and truly deserves to be rediscovered. © François Hudry/Qobuz
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Offenbach: La Princesse de Trébizonde

Paul Daniel

Opera - Released September 22, 2023 | Opera Rara

Hi-Res Distinctions Gramophone: Recording of the Month
The Opera Rara label and company, true to their name, resurrect forgotten operas. There is an abundance of those in the output of Jacques Offenbach, who wrote some 100 operettas and opéras bouffes, few of which are remembered today. Opera Rara made a good pick with La Princesse de Trébizonde (1869), and this release made classical best-seller charts in the autumn of 2023. Offenbach is as full of good, Arthur Sullivan-like tunes as ever, and he even discarded a number of them from the operetta's original production in Baden-Baden in the process of preparing a new version for Paris. Those discarded pieces are included here, and there could hardly be a better testimony to Offenbach's melodic fecundity. Better still is the action, taking place in a carnival sideshow and suggesting all kinds of ideas for a production set in modern times. It is gloriously preposterous even by operetta standards. A girl, Zanetta, accidentally breaks the nose off a wax figure of the Princess of Trébizonde and agrees to stand in for the figure herself. A prince (a pants role) -- who has dropped a lottery ticket into the till in lieu of paying admission -- falls in love with the "Princess." Meanwhile, the lottery ticket, with a castle as the prize, comes up a winner and overturns the relationships between rich and poor. The comic scenes thus spawned are handled with the needed high spirits by the cast and the several choruses (executed by Opera Rara's remarkable house chorus), and conductor Paul Daniel is ideal in this genre, consistently pushing the tempo just slightly in order to bring the forward momentum. This recording is based on a 2022 London production but is a "cast recording," not a live one, and it is quite clear sonically. La Princesse de Trébizonde has been recorded only twice before, once in Russian (!) and once for French radio in 1966; this sprightly performance is much needed.© James Manheim /TiVo
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Monteverdi: Daylight. Stories of Songs, Dances and Loves

Rinaldo Alessandrini

Classical - Released November 5, 2021 | naïve

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Aux étoiles - French Symphonic Poems

Orchestre National De Lyon

Classical - Released October 20, 2023 | Bru Zane

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This double-album release from the specialist Palazzetto Bru Zane label, better known for opera but doing fine here with orchestral music, landed on classical best-seller charts in the autumn of 2023, and this is really no wonder. The album puts together many attractive features, beginning with fine work from the beefy (34 violins) Orchestre National de Lyon under conductor Nikolaj Szeps-Znaider. The album comprises a little history of the French tone poem from the third quarter of the 19th century to the second decade of the 20th, and it includes many works that will be unfamiliar to all but specialists, along with a few hits (Saint-Saëns' Danse macabre, Op. 40, Paul Dukas' L'apprenti sorcier ["The Sorcerer's Apprentice"] in a brisk, colorful performance, Emmanuel Chabrier's España, and perhaps Franck's Le chasseur maudit). As for the rest, there are no fewer than four works by women composers: Lili Boulanger, Augusta Holmès, Mel Bonis, and Charlotte Sohy; the Danse mystique of the latter is perhaps both the most obscure and the most compelling. Several works by better-known male composers also seem well worth removal from the historical scrap heap; sample Ernest Chausson's hushed Viviane, Op. 5, or Vincent d'Indy's Istar, Op. 42, the tone poem Wagner never wrote. Or the title work by Henri Duparc, much more familiar as a song composer. More generally, one is impressed by the cohesion of the program as a whole, even as French styles underwent fundamental change. Most of the composers try to show a mastery of the large orchestra and of the big tune as second subject. This is a highly listenable group of pieces that hearers will be glad to know better.© James Manheim /TiVo
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Ravel : Complete Works for Solo Piano

Bertrand Chamayou

Classical - Released January 15, 2016 | Erato - Warner Classics

Hi-Res Booklet Distinctions 5 de Diapason - Gramophone Editor's Choice - 4 étoiles Classica - 5 Sterne Fono Forum Klassik
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Atys

Christophe Rousset

Opera - Released January 5, 2024 | Château de Versailles Spectacles

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Backed by the Sun King despite a lukewarm audience reception at first, Lully's Atys (1676) went on to become one of the composer's most successful operas, with revivals at French court theaters as late as 1753. In modern times, however, it is a considerably rarer item due to the massive forces and time required. Christophe Rousset was in the pit as harpsichordist when conductor William Christie gave the first modern revival of the work in the late '80s. That experience marks this 2024 release, which made classical best-seller lists at the beginning of that year. That is not common for a hefty five-act Baroque opera, but even a bit of sampling will confirm why it happened: Rousset, from the keyboard, brings tremendous energy to the opera. He pushes the tempo in the numerous dances and entrance numbers, and the musicians of Les Talens Lyriques and the singers of the Choeur du Chambre de Namur, all of whom have worked closely with Rousset in the past, keep right up. The singers in the solo roles are all fine; haut-contre Reinoud Van Mechelen in the title role and Ambroisine Bré as the goddess Cybèle, who sets the tragic plot in motion, are standouts. The sound from the increasingly engineering-expert Château de Versailles label is exceptionally clear in complex textures, and the sensuous cover art (representing, it is true, not the Roman mythological figure of Atys but Hippomène and Atalante) is a bonus. In the end, this is Rousset's Atys, and that is a very good thing.© James Manheim /TiVo
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Ravel: L'Œuvre pour piano

Philippe Bianconi

Solo Piano - Released September 15, 2023 | La Dolce Volta

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Ravel's piano works include some of the most popular keyboard pieces of the 20th century, so pianist Philippe Bianconi has plenty of competition for this double-album complete cycle. Of course, one advantage of the complete set is that it can include the less common pieces like Ravel's musical impressions of Borodin and Chabrier and the Menuet en Ut dièse mineur ("Minuet in C sharp minor"). These lesser-known works, mostly miniatures, fit Bianconi's style beautifully; he is a precise, concise player who brings out Ravel's considerable rhythmic subtlety. His Ravel performances tap into a long French tradition stretching back to Robert Casadesus and his wife, Gaby, who was one of Bianconi's teachers. Imbued with the French conservatory values of clarity and restraint, Bianconi sacrifices mood for clean execution. In Le Tombeau de Couperin, he is wonderful, one of the very best available, catching the ways Ravel stretches the Baroque rhythms in a really uncanny way. Many pianists can handle the technical challenges of Gaspard de la nuit these days, but few can seem as effortless while doing so. In music that depends more on extramusical references, such as the four-hand Ma mère l'Oye (recorded with Clément Lefebvre), some listeners may want a bit more color, while others will find Bianconi's approach bracing and fresh, with an evocative Miroirs. Sample several different works. Most listeners will agree that the La Dolce Volta label's sound, from the Grande Salle at the Metz Arsenal, is ideal for the music and the music-making here. © James Manheim /TiVo
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Spontini: La vestale

Les Talens Lyriques

Classical - Released May 12, 2023 | Bru Zane

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Gaspare's Spontini's French-language La Vestale is probably the most often heard of his operas, but that is not saying much; the work was sung by Maria Callas in the 1950s, but performances are sparse. Here, it is revived in period style by Les Talens Lyriques and conductor Christophe Rousset, and a very good case is made for further attention. The story is action-packed; Julia, in the absence of her lover, General Licinius, becomes una Vestale, a Vestal Virgin and guards a sacred flame. When Licinius returns to town, the flame goes out, and Julia is sentenced to be buried alive. Licinius rallies his troops, vowing to kidnap Julia, and the flame is reignited later by a lightning strike. Spontini's orchestration of this tale is Beethovenian in its dimensions, and despite the difficulties of natural horns, it is exciting to hear this opera as Napoleon (thought to be the model for Licinius) and Josephine (who backed the opera) heard it. The singers are not Callas-level, but throughout, and especially in the choruses, there is a commitment to the text and its meaning that is rare in any kind of recording. Marina Rebeka, in the role of Julia, is fully involved in the character's plight, and the smoky-voiced Aude Extrémo as La Grande Vestale is worth the price of admission on her own. The singers are aided by clear, spacious studio sound engineering from the early opera specialist label Palazzetto Bru Zane, whose high standards are perhaps even exceeded here. © James Manheim /TiVo
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David & Jonathas

Gaétan Jarry

Classical - Released June 9, 2023 | Château de Versailles Spectacles

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Après un rêve (Belle Époque: Nights at the Piano)

Emmanuel Despax

Classical - Released June 16, 2023 | Signum Records

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It is hard to figure out what pianist Emmanuel Despax had in mind for the concept of this album. Its various titles offer three ideas: Après un rêve comes from the title of a Fauré song Despax transcribes for his program opener, plus there is "Belle Époque: Nights at the Piano." None of these is of much use; few pieces other than the Fauré are particularly dreamy, and the largest piece, Poulenc's Soirées de Nazelles, is from the nervous 1930s and nowhere near the Belle Époque in time or mood. As for "Nights at the Piano," that fits the Poulenc nicely but not the concluding Gaspard de la Nuit of Ravel, which is an imposing virtuoso concert work carrying none of the connotations of "Nights at the Piano." Really, Despax excels in none of these three ways but rather in a fourth: he hits on an intriguing mix of familiar standards and unusual works. Among the latter group are the Soirées de Nazelles, which Poulenc disclaimed and, perhaps for that reason, have been seldom heard. They are delightful pieces that bear titles describing qualities, like the numbers of a Baroque French suite, but actually seem to have been devised by Poulenc to describe members of a group of his friends, like Elgar's Enigma Variations. The result is a work that distills the hint of improvisation that pervades some of Poulenc's keyboard music and songs, and Despax gives it the right lively, spontaneous feel. The Nocturne, Op. 165, of Cécile Chaminade and the keyboard version of Henri Duparc's Aux étoiles are also nice finds. As for the more heavily trodden works, Debussy's Clair de lune is pleasantly moody, although no one would select this album for the rote Gaspard de la Nuit or the rather un-macabre Danse Macabre, Op. 40, of Saint-Saëns. For Poulenc lovers, however, this is an important find. © James Manheim /TiVo
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Pancrace Royer: Surprising Royer, Orchestral Suites

Les Talens Lyriques

Symphonic Music - Released May 5, 2023 | Aparté

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Beyond the neglect of French Baroque music in general, it is a bit hard to understand why composer Pancrace Royer was almost completely unknown until Christophe Rousset came along to champion him, first in harpsichord music and now, with these suites of music drawn from operas, in orchestral music. In the 18th century, Royer was quite well known and admired among others by Rameau, whose music he helped along considerably. Royer certainly inhabited Rameau's stylistic world, but from the evidence here, his music is distinctive and merits the adjective "surprising" that Rousset has attached to it. It is colorful, given to unexpected turns of harmony, and vivid in its evocation of the exotic scenes of French opera. Sample the "Air pour les turcs" ("Air for the Turks") from Zaïde, reine de Grenade, with its crackling percussion. Royer challenged his orchestra with virtuoso ensemble writing in the likes of the "Premier et second tambourins" from Almasis, and Rousset and Les Talens Lyriques step up with precise, vigorous readings that one imagines would have made the composer overjoyed. The inclusion of two alternate versions for movements from Zaïde is also unusual and gives insight into the compositional thinking of the day. Essential for specialists and enthusiasts interested in the French Baroque, this album is a lot of fun for anyone, with only overdone church sound detracting from the overall effect. © James Manheim /TiVo
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Elisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre: Céphale et Procris

Reinoud Van Mechelen

Classical - Released February 9, 2024 | Château de Versailles Spectacles

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Psyché

Christophe Rousset

Classical - Released January 13, 2023 | Château de Versailles Spectacles

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Marais: Ariane et Bacchus

Le Concert Spirituel

Classical - Released March 24, 2023 | Alpha Classics

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Stravinsky: Histoire du soldat (version française), Élégie, Duo concertant

Isabelle Faust

Classical - Released August 27, 2021 | harmonia mundi

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Jean-Baptiste Lully : Amadis

Christophe Rousset

Opera - Released September 22, 2014 | Aparté

Hi-Res Booklet Distinctions 4F de Télérama - Diamant d'Opéra - Choc de Classica - 5 Sterne Fono Forum Klassik