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Tchaikovsky: Eugène Onéguine (Diapason n°598)

Galina Vichnievskaia

Full Operas - Released September 25, 2010 | Les Indispensables de Diapason

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Lully: Armide

Les Talens Lyriques

Classical - Released March 24, 2017 | Aparté

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Véronique Gens. "Tragédiennes"

Véronique Gens

Classical - Released May 1, 2006 | Warner Classics

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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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Ravel: Ma Mère l'Oye, Tombeau de Couperin, Shéhérazade

Les Siècles

Symphonic Music - Released April 13, 2018 | harmonia mundi

Hi-Res Booklet Distinctions Diapason d'or - 5 Sterne Fono Forum Klassik
Recording Ravel's music on period instruments is the kind of thing that might raise a smile... until you realise just how much the production of instruments has changed in less than a hundred years: it's the return of catgut strings, skin drum heads, the French basson (and not the German system bassoon which is used across all the world's orchestras today), shaper tips, trumpets and trombones of French manufacture. At the head of his orchestra Les Siècles, François-Xavier Roth gives a new, orthodox, historically-informed version of Ma Mère l’oye (complete ballet), the Tombeau de Couperin and Shéhérazade, the long-neglected "ouverture de féérie" [Fairy Overture] which is pure Ravel. This return to the roots is clearly easier and more straightforwardly authentic for this period of music history, because, unlike earlier works, we possess recordings which date back to the 1920s, and even earlier, which can tell us about the style, the colours, the phrasing and the tempo. But it isn't enough just to have all this historical information to hand to make something interesting. What makes this record thrilling is that all the musicians in the Siècles are excellent, and François-Xavier Roth is a talented artist himself, who knows this music inside out. At which point, his complete recording of Stravinsky's Firebird has already struck us with its quality. This rediscovery of Ravel resounds with clarity and finesse; it is a feast of well-defined timbres which cuts against the "beautiful sound" which prevails in orchestras around the world today. © François Hudry/Qobuz
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Gloire Immortelle !

Hervé Niquet

Classical - Released November 17, 2023 | Château de Versailles Spectacles

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Meyerbeer: Robert le Diable

Orchestre National Bordeaux Aquitaine

Classical - Released September 23, 2022 | Bru Zane

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For his last season at the helm of the Opéra de Bordeaux, Marc Minkowski—always keen to conduct forgotten works which have, in some way, marked the history of music—sets his sights on Robert le Diable, Giacomo Meyerbeer's opera which was a true social phenomenon in 19th century France. The Palazzetto Bru Zane - Centre de musique romantique française has followed suit by officially publishing this concert version, which also features some excellent vocal soloists. Admired by Balzac, Sand and Dumas, this ‘grand opéra à la française’ (great French opera) faded into obscurity after the First World War. Its creator became a sort of pariah – one met with both condescension and mockery. With its ‘seductive and haunting melodies’ (Alexandre Dratwicki), it’s nevertheless a flamboyant work that greatly inspired his contemporaries, such as Verdi, who referred to it in La Traviata. The extraordinary impact of Robert le Diable was such that it was performed a great many times on every continent. A true one-man band, Marc Minkowski has invested himself entirely in this undertaking, learning this vast score practically by heart and conducting it with his usual power and conviction. The international cast is full of surprises thanks to their deep understanding of the work and the protagonists’ fantastic pronunciation. This new release, to the credit of the Bru Zane label, revitalises our knowledge of this work that’s scarcely mentioned in specialised dictionaries. © François Hudry/Qobuz
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Jean-Baptiste Lully : Amadis (Édition 5.1)

Christophe Rousset

Opera - Released September 22, 2014 | Aparté

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Berlioz: Symphonie fantastique & Lélio, ou Le retour à la vie (Live)

Riccardo Muti

Symphonic Music - Released September 11, 2015 | CSO Resound

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The Chicago Symphony Orchestra's label, CSO Resound, is noted for its extraordinary sound quality and its exciting performances, many of which are among the finest it has ever offered on disc. This double CD of Hector Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique and its intended sequel, Lélio, ou le retour à la vie, is a bit of a rarity because they are infrequently paired, due to the different forces required for each. Symphonie fantastique is a five-movement programmatic symphony for orchestra, while Lélio is a melodramatic cantata for narrator, vocalists, chorus, two pianos, and orchestra, which makes mounting a performance of the two works together a bit daunting (quite aside from the fact that Lélio fell into neglect after the Romantic era, while the Symphonie fantastique has always been a hit). For this performance, Riccardo Muti leads the CSO in a rousing, if solidly mainstream, interpretation of the symphony on the first disc, and he is joined on the second disc by actor Gérard Depardieu, tenor Mario Zeffiri, bass-baritone Kyle Ketelsen, and the Chicago Symphony Chorus, in a performance that conveys the extremes of lyricism and bombast that are so characteristic of Berlioz. It helps to know French, though the texts are provided, and Depardieu's highly dramatic reading communicates the intensity of Berlioz's passionate expressions. But listeners will be delighted by the variety and inventiveness of the music, both of which argue convincingly for Lélio's revival. Highly recommended for Berlioz devotees and collectors of CSO Resound releases. © TiVo
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Rameau: Castor & Pollux (Choruses & Dances)

Les Arts Florissants

Classical - Released March 8, 1993 | harmonia mundi

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David & Jonathas

Gaétan Jarry

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

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Psyché

Christophe Rousset

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

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Stravinsky Ballets

Sir Simon Rattle

Classical - Released March 25, 2022 | LSO Live

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Denied early in his career by Philharmonia Orchestra's management, Sir Simon Rattle realized his dream of programming a concert of these three early Stravinsky ballets in a 2017 festival that launched his time as the music director of the venerable London Symphony Orchestra. It is indeed an interesting concept as the audience is given a chance to hear the harmonic and stylistic changes of Stravinsky's writing in these ballets, which were, incredibly, written within five years. All three of these works were premiered at Paris' Ballets Russes. The Firebird, which premiered in 1910, launched a productive relationship between Stravinsky and Sergei Diaghilev, the company's founder. The music of The Firebird stole the show, prompting the composer to craft his own suites from the score, and it remains among his most popular and enduring works. After the success of The Firebird, Stravinsky began to compose The Rite of Spring, but he set it aside to work on a konzertstück for piano and orchestra with the images of a puppet come to life in mind. This imagery put the story of Petrushka in the eye of Diaghilev. Petrushka is set at an 1830s Shrovetide Fair and follows the exploits of a puppeteer who brings three puppets (Petrushka, the Moor, and the Ballerina) to life with his flute. Stravinsky uses folk songs cleverly throughout and departs from the more Rimsky-Korsakov-influenced writing of The Firebird, including the use of bitonality, which he took even further in The Rite of Spring. The Rite depicts a paganistic sacrifice to usher in spring, and its use of pulsating rhythms and brash harmonies famously created an uproar at its debut (the level of which is still debated). Rattle and the London Symphony perform Stravinsky's later revised versions of Petrushka and The Rite of Spring, and all three powerful and highly emotional works are well executed. © TiVo
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Debussy: La Damoiselle élue, Le martyre de Saint Sébastien & Nocturnes

Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France

Classical - Released April 1, 2022 | Alpha Classics

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The Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France and Mikko Franck continue their collaboration with Alpha Classics and here invite the Maîtrise and Chœur de Radio France to join them in a Debussy programme. This recording couples La Damoiselle élue, a work described by the composer as a "little oratorio in a mystical and somewhat pagan vein", the Nocturnes for orchestra, composed between 1897 and 1899, and the Symphonic Fragments from Le Martyre de Saint-Sébastien fashioned by André Caplet less than a year after the work’s first performance, and which ensured it would not be forgotten by posterity. © Alpha Classics
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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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Don Quichotte Chez La Duchesse

Hervé Niquet

Classical - Released September 23, 2022 | Château de Versailles Spectacles

Hi-Res Booklet Distinctions Choc de Classica - Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik
In 1743, two years before Rameau’s Platée, Boismortier created an extraordinarily modern and madcap "comic ballet", Don Quichotte chez la Duchesse. As the exuberant plotunfurls, Cervantes’ hero encounters monsters, enchanters, princesses and people from Japan, making for plenty of offbeat and audacious dances and choruses. Musical beautyrubs shoulders with satirical and irreverent comedy. A choice work for Hervé Niquet, who leads his Concert Spirituel with unparalleled energy! © Château de Versailles Spectacles
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Mio caro Händel

Simone Kermes

Classical - Released February 8, 2019 | Sony Classical

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While the German soprano follows in the footsteps of Cecilia Bartoli, her virtuoso voice separates her fans from the purists who prefer a less fanciful vocal-line. This long-awaited new album from Simone Kermes shows off her masterful voice in almost every register and there is no sign of the excessiveness for which she has previously been criticised. Typically referred to as a “Ba-rock” star, some people are irritated by her gestures and extreme theatrics during her concerts, but those mannerisms are long forgotten here in the absence of any images. The title of the album, “Mio caro Händel”, says a lot about the affinity Simone Kermes feels with the Saxon composer. She has selected his most popular pieces, such as Ombra mai fù(Largo of Love), Piangeró la sorte mia(I will lament my fate) and Lascia ch’io pianga(Let me weep), along with some much less well-known pieces, which are some of the most wonderful revelations and rare musical gems on the album. The singer recorded this testimony of love to Händel in Berlin’s famous Jesus-Christus-Kirche in 2018 accompanied by Amici Veneziani, an ensemble put together especially for her which mostly comprises of German musicians and is led by Russian violinist Boris Begelman. As a great traveller who went all over Europe, this captures Händel’s European spirit perfectly. © François Hudry/Qobuz
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Cadmus & Hermione

Vincent Dumestre

Classical - Released May 1, 2021 | Château de Versailles Spectacles

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Jean-Baptiste Lully's Cadmus & Hermione of 1673 was arguably the first true French opera, telling a tragic story (Lully and his librettist Philippe Quinault called it a tragédie en lyrique), employing Italian-style recitatives, and collecting the varied music and dance forms of Louis XIV's opulent court into a coherent narrative that at once celebrated Louis (he is conflated with Cadmus of Thebes) and moved beyond the ceremonial nature of earlier French dramatic music. It's a sprawling work, with five acts, an overture, and a sizable Prologue with its own overture; highlights include a dragon that eats Africans, a monster snake, and a full complement of Greek gods and goddesses. Realization of the work has, until now, been beyond the means of early music performance groups, and this is the world premiere recording of the opera, made in 2019 and based on a 2008 performance at Versailles Palace by some of the same performers. The leader is Vincent Dumestre, conducting the Le Poème Harmonique orchestra and the vocal ensembles Aedes. The forces are large enough to capture the splendor of the music (thankfully, no one-voice-per-part techniques here), and Dumestre is alert to the huge variety of musical devices Lully brings to bear on his story; there are dances, big choruses, bagpipes, and much more. Cadmus & Hermione may be a difficult work to bring to life for modern audiences, but Dumestre keeps things moving along and probably comes as close as anyone could. Of course, anyone interested in the life of the French court in the 17th century will find this an essential acquisition that will keep giving and giving. © TiVo
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Ravel: Complete Orchestral Works by Manuel Rosenthal

Manuel Rosenthal

Classical - Released December 31, 2021 | Alexandre Bak - Classical Music Reference Recording

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Berlioz: Les nuits d'été

Robin Ticciati

Classical - Released April 15, 2013 | Linn Records

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