Ever since Peter Shaffer's play Amadeus and the subsequent film by Milos Forman, the operas of Mozart's rival Antonio Salieri have enjoyed a revival: historians determined that not only did Salieri not poison Mozart, he admired him, and Mozart at least respected the older Italian. Indeed, Les Horaces (1786) represents several accomplishments that were not on Mozart's résumé: it is a full-scale French opera, and its recitatives are orchestrally accompanied and contribute elegantly to the action. Berlioz, always an astute critic, numbered himself among the admirers of Salieri's French operas of the 1780s; this one was not as successful as the others, but that could have been due to any number of factors. The plot deals with a woman, Camille, whose romantic life is caught between factions in a war in early Roman times, and Rousset's live reading here benefits from a strong soprano lead, Dutch singer and French Baroque specialist Judith van Wanroij. Other singers likewise step up, but the real credit goes to Rousset, who gets the strengths of Salieri's score: the grand intermèdes, and the exciting finale of Act 1, where the joining-together of action and music is in Mozart's league even if the tunes are not. Also praiseworthy is the engineering work of the curiously named Little Tribeca team, who obtain the best possible sound from none other than Versailles. Highly recommended to those who have dismissed Salieri: this is a sympathetic and enthusiastic performance of his music. © TiVo

Aeon's 2005 recording of Ibsen's 1867 verse play Peer Gynt, including the incidental music by Edvard Grieg, clocks in at about three and a quarter hours and is the closest thing to a complete performance of the play and incidental music available on CD, but even so, the text was considerably trimmed for that production. For listeners more interested in the music than the play, Aeon has released this disc of the music from that recording. It's advertised as the "unabridged score," but to fit it on a single disc, four numbers had to be omitted. At 75 minutes, it includes substantially more music than the two popular suites, enough to satisfy most listeners looking for a nearly complete performance of Grieg's score. This version uses soloists and chorus according to Grieg's intentions for the incidental music, offering fresh insights into the music for listeners familiar only with the suites. Guillaume Tourniaire leads l'Orchestre de la Suisse Romande in sensitive and carefully shaped performances of the brief musical episodes. His is a fairly conventional reading of the score, but it is spirited and played with style, and shouldn't disappoint the composer's fans. The addition of the chorus in two of the movements devoted to Peer's adventures in the hall of the Mountain King is especially thrilling, and Le Motet de Genève sings beautifully and vigorously. The vocal soloists are very fine, particularly Inger Dam-Jensen as Solveig. Grieg's use of a Hardanger fiddle, a Norwegian folk instrument similar to a violin, is exceptionally effective, and gives the score a much stronger nationalistic flavor than the music from the suites suggests, and it's played with raw vitality by Vegar Vardal. Aeon's sound is clear and well-balanced, with a good sense of presence.© TiVo

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

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

Christophe Rousset and the Talens Lyriques bring us to the stage of the Royal Academy of Music where Pygmalion, an act of ballet by Jean-Philippe Rameau inspired by an episode of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, was created in 1748. Love, showing empathy for Pygmalion’s despair of loving a statue, invigorates the sculpted woman who immediately falls in love with her creator. Very suggestive, the music of this tender and mischievous ballet deploys the grace of 18th century dances. Like Ovid’s Love, Christophe Rousset instils life in this score, one of Rameau’s greatest successes in his day, and offers us, thanks to his sense of drama and his impeccable leadership, a new and essential reading of this ballet. © Aparté

The musical world owes a debt of gratitude to French conductor Christophe Rousset not only for the vital, exquisite performances he delivers with the ensembles Les Talens Lyriques and Choeur de Chambre de Namur, but for his work in bringing to light neglected masterpieces of Baroque opera. Lully's Bellérophon, premiered in 1679, was a huge success in its time, with an initial run of nine months. Part of its popularity was doubtless due to the parallels that could be drawn between its plot and certain recent exploits of Louis XV, but even the earliest critics recognized the score's uniqueness and exceptional quality within Lully's oeuvre, so it's perhaps surprising that it has never been recorded before. The distinctiveness of the music was likely a result at least in part of the fact that Lully's preferred librettist Philippe Quinault was out of favor at the court of Louis XV at the time, so the composer turned to Thomas Corneille for the libretto, and Corneille's literary and dramatic styles were so different from Quinault's that Lully was nudged out of his comfort zone and had to develop new solutions to questions of structure and the marrying of music to text. It is the first opera for which Lully composed fully accompanied recitatives, and that alone gives it a textural richness that surpasses his earlier works. The composer also allows soloists to sing together, something that was still a rarity in Baroque opera. There are several duets and larger ensembles; the love duet, "Que tout parle à l'envie de notre amour extreme!," is a ravishing expression of passion and happiness, as rhapsodic as anything in 19th century Italian opera. The level of musical inventiveness throughout is exceptional even for Lully; the expressiveness of the recitatives, the charm of the instrumental interludes, the originality of the choruses, and the limpid loveliness of the airs make this an opera that demands attention. Rousset and his forces give an outstanding performance that's exuberantly spirited, musically polished, rhythmically springy, and charged with dramatic urgency. The soloists are consistently of the highest order. Cyril Auvity brings a large, virile, passionate tenor to the title role and Céline Scheen is warmly lyrical as his lover Philonoë. Ingrid Perruche is fiercely powerful as the villain, Stéenobée, and Jean Teitgen is a secure, authoritative Apollo. Soloists, chorus, and orchestra are fluent in the subtle inflections of French middle Baroque ornamentation. The sound of the live recording is very fine, with a clean, immediate, realistic ambience. This is a release that fans of Baroque opera will not want to miss. Highly recommended. © TiVo

One year after winning a Qobuzissime for his first Sibelius monograph, Klaus Mäkelä is back with the Orchestre de Paris for a programme devoted to Stravinsky's two stage masterpieces: The Rite of Spring and The Firebird. The Rite of Spring is perhaps best remembered for its chaotic premiere in May 1913, Paris, where it famously provoked a riot amongst the audience. Over time, this event has left its mark on history as one of the most notorious artistic scandals of the 20th century. It’s impossible to overlook this vital work today, and yet its canonisation has arguably caused its monstrous and archaic character to fade out of our collective memory.Somehow, Mäkelä manages to completely restore the cathartic dimension of the piece. From the meticulous choice of tempos to the contrasts between the different orchestral sections, every measure of the score is rich and invigorating. This young Finn is a true master, revealing himself as a conductor of rare sensitivity and incisive vision that commands with confidence. On the flipside, The Firebird is inspired by a Russian folk tale in which Ivan Tsarevich battles the demigod Kashchei. Under Mäkelä, it becomes a grandiose festival of light and sound; a ballet imbued with a visceral sense of urgency that keeps the listener captivated throughout. © Pierre Lamy/Qobuz

Philip Glass' three operas based on films by Jean Cocteau, inspired by the composer's youthful experiences in Paris, are among his most variegated works and perhaps among the ones most likely to win over those unpersuaded by the composer. This release took shape as Katia and Marielle Labèque performed concerts devoted to two-piano arrangements of numbers from these operas in 2020 and 2023; the arrangements are by Glass colleague Michael Riesman. Many recordings of Glass have come from his own orbit, but this one, released by the Deutsche Grammophon label and a presence on classical best-seller charts in early 2024, shows the value in opening up the field. The Labèques bring a fluent but lively quality to the music that illuminates the material out of which the operas are woven. Sample the ragtime-like opening, "Le café," from Act I at the beginning. Elsewhere, one hears echoes of Gluck, Bach, and more, all superimposed on Glass' characteristic repeating patterns. The durable popularity of Katia and Marielle Labèque, still at the top of the duo piano heap, is remarkable, and it has occurred in part because the sisters are unafraid to take on new repertory. Here, they have done a spectacular job.© James Manheim /TiVo

When an artist from the pop world attempts classical concert music, what makes it work sometimes and sometimes not? Composers like Danny Elfman have written enduring and even beloved music, while the classical pieces of as talented a composer as Billy Joel is hardly heard. There seem to be several factors. First is that there should be some connection between the artist's pop language and the new classical style. Here, Thomas Bangalter, one-half of the French electronica duo Daft Punk, succeeds notably. The repetition and the textural shades of Bangalter's electronic music are still here, but he stretches them somewhat in new expressive directions. His Mythologies are short portraits of mythological figures, and one might do pretty well if forced to guess their identities; sample "Aphrodite" or "Icare" ("Icarus"). Second, the music should not be simply an orchestral setting of the composer's earlier music. These are not electronica portraits played by strings but fresh musical conceptions that use Bangalter's earlier music as one influence. Finally, these composers do best when they know their limitations, and here again, Bangalter succeeds. If his Mythologies are limited in terms of orchestration, they nevertheless remain both clear and distinctive. With straightforward readings from the Bordeaux Aquitaine National Orchestra under Romain Dumas, this is highly listenable stuff and one of the stronger entries in the pop-to-classical crossover canon; it made classical best-seller lists in the spring of 2023.© James Manheim /TiVo

Christophe Rousset and his Les Talens Lyriques continue their exploration of the operas of Jean-Baptiste Lully for the Aparte label with 1675's Thésée ("Theseus"), the composer's third "tragédie en musique" with librettist by Philippe Quinault. Commissioned by King Louis XIV, the libretto recounts some early-life exploits of the titular character from Ovid's Metamorphoses. It was immensely popular for more than a century before finding itself in less demand than later, more compact versions of Quinault's text, which were set by composers such as Handel (Teseo, 1712). What is there for a king and his court not to like when the Prologue declares the king a god and sings the praises of king and kingdom? Rousset has his Les Talens Lyriques in fine form, and the ensemble plays crisply and concisely throughout. Rousset, conducting from the harpsichord, keeps the action moving in this colossal and dramatic work. The soloists, especially mezzo-soprano Karine Deshayes as Médée ("Medea") and tenor Mathias Vidal as the titular Thésée, display clear expertise in the realm of early French opera. This work is a major vehicle for mezzos in the role of the jealous sorceress Médée, and Deshayes is splendid. The Prologue has some awkward, almost hesitant singing from the chorus, but as the work progresses, the Chœur de chambre de Namur becomes stronger and, in the end, proves to be an asset to the whole (consider their turn as the inhabitants of the underworld with Deshayes on "Sortez, ombres, sortez de la nuit éternelle" from Act Two). This is a worthy addition of a lesser-known opera to the growing Lully collection from Les Talens Lyriques.© Keith Finke /TiVo