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Psyché

Christophe Rousset

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

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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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Véronique Gens. "Tragédiennes"

Véronique Gens

Classical - Released May 1, 2006 | Warner Classics

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Lully: Acis et Galatée, LWV 73

Jean-François Lombard

Opera - Released October 13, 2023 | Naxos

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Campra : Le Carnaval de Venise

Hervé Niquet

Classical - Released October 2, 2000 | Glossa

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André Campra has the distinction of being the most prominent French opera composer in the decades between Lully and Rameau, but even the operas of those two great masters are so rarely performed or recorded that it's not surprising that Campra's are virtually unknown to modern audiences. That makes this very fine recording with Hervé Niquet leading Choeur et Orchestre du Concert Spirituel and Les Chantres du Centre de musique baroque de Versailles all the more valuable and welcome to fans of the French Baroque. Campra enthusiastically embraced the innovations of Italian opera, particularly the da capo aria, that Lully had scorned. The plot of Le Carneval de Venise (obviously) even takes place in Italy in an opera theater preparing a performance, and it involves an opera within an opera; it concludes with a performance of an operatic divertissement in Italian, Orfeo nell'inferi, in which Campra unabashedly adopts Italian conventions. The French sections are similar in sound and style to Lully's operas-ballets even though Campra doesn't have Lully's genius for simple, memorable melody. Orfeo nell'inferi very skillfully uses the florid manner of late 17th century opera, and the juxtaposition of the two styles, while intriguing to modern ears, must have been absolutely revolutionary to French audiences who were finally exposed to the innovations of Italian opera. The singers, chorus, and orchestra are skilled in both the Italian and French conventions of Middle Baroque performance practice and they offer a compelling account of the piece. The orchestra and the chorus (which is used very prominently in the French sections) play and sing with precision and lively energy. Niquet's tempos are fluid and he maintains a strong sense of momentum throughout. The soloists are never less than adequate and several stand out, particularly sopranos Salomé Haller and Sarah Tynan, tenor Mathias Vidal, baritone Andrew Foster-Williams, and bass Luigi de Donato. Glossa's sound is characteristically immaculate present and beautifully balanced. © TiVo
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Tchaikovsky: Eugène Onéguine (Diapason n°598)

Galina Vichnievskaia

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

Booklet Distinctions Diapason d'or
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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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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
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Lully: Armide

Les Talens Lyriques

Classical - Released March 24, 2017 | Aparté

Hi-Res Booklet Distinctions 4F de Télérama - Gramophone Editor's Choice
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Paradise Lost

Anna Prohaska

Classical - Released April 10, 2020 | Alpha Classics

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The gestation of this project lasted two years. Anna Prohaska and Julius Drake finally concentrated their research on the themes of Eve, Paradise and banishment. Some songs were obvious choices, such as Fauré’s Paradis, in which God appears to Eve and asks her to name each flower and animal, or Purcell’s Sleep, Adam, sleep with its references to Genesis. But Anna Prohaska also wished to illustrate the cliché of the woman who brought original sin into the world and her status as a tempter who leads man astray, as in Brahms’s Salamander, Wolf’s Die Bekehrte or Ravel’s Air du Feu. In Das Paradies und die Peri, Schumann conjures up the image of Syria’s rose-covered plains. Bernstein also transports us to the desert with Silhouette.. John Milton’s seventeenth-century masterpiece Paradise Lost was the inspiration for Charles Ives and Benjamin Britten, also featured in this very rich programme that constitutes an invitation to travel and reflection. © Alpha Classics
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Pièces de clavecin & airs d'après M. de Lully

Café Zimmermann

Classical - Released January 1, 2005 | Alpha Classics

Once again, Alpha has released a package that combines aesthetic edification with intellectual education, superlative performances with exquisite production values, sublime art with mundane commerce. The conceit here is Jean-Henri d'Anglebert's virtuosic and characterful harpsichord suites, as well as his arrangements of excerpts from Lully's ballets and operas played by Céline Frisch, coupled with performances of Lully's originals played by Café Zimmerman, and concluded with Frisch playing five of d'Anglebert's fugues for organ. Thus the listener is able to hear not only insightful and exciting performances of d'Anglebert's music, but to hear them in context of brilliant performances of the originals, thereby setting the seal on d'Anglebert's inventiveness. Frisch is a first-rate player with a powerful technique, a complete command of the keyboard, and a wonderfully fresh approach to the repertoire. The chamber orchestra Café Zimmerman attacks Lully's originals with spirit, sensitivity, and fire. And as always, Alpha's sound is warm, close, and real. Anyone who enjoys the music of the French Baroque will enjoy this two-disc set.© TiVo
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Desmarest: Vénus & Adonis

Les Talens Lyriques

Classical - Released March 24, 2014 | Ambroisie - naïve

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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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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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Jules Massenet: Ariane

Münchner Rundfunkorchester

Classical - Released September 8, 2023 | Bru Zane

Hi-Res Booklet Distinctions Diapason d'or
For many years, it was only Manon and Werther that were heard among Massenet's operas, but his reputation appears to be on the rise, and his champion, conductor Laurent Campellone, has recorded a good number of them. Ariane, from 1906, is one of the last to receive its recorded premiere. The Palazzetto Bru Zane label, specializing in obscure French opera, does a typically fine job here; the sound is superb, and the cast of singers, led by the soprano Amina Edris in the lead role, offers several revelations. In his later operas, Massenet often attempted to put a French stamp on the newer styles of the day, and here, it is Wagner who gets this treatment; the opera is built around a set of motifs de rappel (or "reminiscence motifs"), whose parentage in Wagner's leitmotifs is clear. This structure is shoehorned into the durable machinery of French opera. There are big entrance scenes, a pantomime, and plenty of spectacular stage machinery to go with the love triangle plot involving Ariane (Ariadne), Phèdre (Phaedra), and Theseus, who gets to take on the Minotaur in a grand scene with Wagnerian bass trumpet and bass trombone. Massenet's orchestration is impressive throughout. The work does not have the inevitability of truly great art, but it is in no way dull, and anyone with any interest in French opera should hear it for the singers alone; enough of those listeners have already weighed in and put the album on classical best-seller lists in the late summer of 2023.© 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

Hi-Res Booklet Distinctions Diapason d'or
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Meyerbeer: Robert le Diable

Orchestre National Bordeaux Aquitaine

Classical - Released September 23, 2022 | Bru Zane

Hi-Res Booklet Distinctions Gramophone: Recording of the Month
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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Rameau : Castor et Pollux

Raphaël Pichon

Full Operas - Released April 27, 2015 | harmonia mundi

Hi-Res Booklet Distinctions 4F de Télérama
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Tchaikovsky: The Sleeping Beauty - A Dramatic Symphony

Kristjan Järvi

Classical - Released November 13, 2020 | Sony Classical - Sony Music

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Jean-Baptiste Lully : Amadis (Édition 5.1)

Christophe Rousset

Opera - Released September 22, 2014 | Aparté

Hi-Res Booklet Distinctions 4F de Télérama - Diamant d'Opéra - Choc de Classica