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

Theatre of the Absurd Presents C'est La Vie is the 13th album from British pop outfit Madness and follows 2016's Can't Touch Us Now. Recorded at the beginning of 2023, the album brings the band's brand of nuttiness to a melting pot of ska-inflected pop songs.© Rich Wilson /TiVo

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This album is one of the cornerstones of French hip-hop music. Its release was a major act for IAM as they finally found a sound to match the quality of their lyrics, as well as for French hip-hop, confirming the fact that rap has a lot of followers in the Hexagon. Like their peers from the suburbs of Paris, NTM, IAM went to New York to instigate the production of this album, seeking for the essence of the sound one can only find in the Big Apple (their previous album was also cut in N.Y.). They teamed with Prince Charles Alexander, the mixer and engineer who worked a lot for Bad Boy Records. They even got close to the Wu-Tang realm through Sunz of Man members on "La Saga." The sound has definitely changed from the previous albums: at first putting themselves in the Egyptian tradition (look at their names), they now have found the musical depth they deserve as ones of the few best lyricists of France. Definitely influenced by the Wu-Tang soundscapes, the opening track is the story of the battle between their school, from the silver mic, against the wooden mic school, in a Bushido style. Too bad that non-French speaking listeners won't get the lyrics; they cannot appreciate the quintessence of IAM's style. However, most of the album sticks to the traditional approach of storytelling, as it covers the city life in its darkness: little brothers that want to grow too fast and be the new caïd ("Petit Frère"), money hungry women who have sex without giving their names, the difficulties to have a similar chance and destiny than a boy growing up in the well-off (about equality of chances) and much more. Not many subjects of relief here, we only breathe thanks to the banging instrumentals and phrasing of the MCs. IAM takes the time to raise questions we don't want to hear, and stories we don't want to remember. This album is just hip-hop as its best: quality of the production with skilled lyricists in top form. This would just be one of you first "must-have" purchase if you plan to approach French rap music.© Vincent Latz /TiVo

Everyone thinks that they know Alceste by Lully, and yet this 1674 masterpiece has almost never been recorded in its entirety. Apart from the Malgoire version from 1975 with Bruce Brewer and Felicity Palmer, which is starting to become outdated, the real treat is a second versoin by the same Malgoire twenty years later with Jean-Philippe Lafont and Colette Alliot-Lugaz... And so we can only take our hats off to the new discographical opus from Christophe Rousset's Talens Lyriques, a lively and elegant reading which allows us to rediscover everything that was so innovative about this brilliant, effervescent Florentine, who would become a typical Versaillais, a courtesan and a wheeler-dealer. King Louis XIV - 36 years old, still with all his own teeth and a victorious war leader - could only feel flattered by the piece signed by Quinault: Alcide, who covets the beautiful Alceste (who has been promised to Admetus), is none other than Hercules himself - Louis XIV seeing himself in Hercules saving the beautiful Madame de Montespan from the clutches of her husband. To be sure, in this opera, Admetus/Hercules magnanimously hands Alceste, whom he has saved from hell, to her husband, while the poor Mr Montespan would end his career and his life exiled in Gascony... Honour intact. The Sun King loved the work, to the point that he commanded that rehearsals be held at Versailles. According to Madame de Sévigné, "The King declared that if he found himself in Paris when it was performed, he would go to see it every night." That being said, if Alceste suited the tastes of the court, it didn't do so well in Paris, where Lully's enemies, jealous of the extravagant privileges that he had won (the exclusive right to "have sung any whole piece in France, wither in French verse or in other languages, without the written permission of said Sir Lully, on pain of a ten thousand livre fine, and confiscation of theatres, equipment, decorations, costumes..."), heaped plot upon plot, while the gallant Mercury sang his little couplet: Dieu !  Le bel opéra ! Rien de plus pitoyable ! Cerbère y vient japper d'un aboi lamentable !  Oh ! Quelle musique de chien ! Oh ! Quelle musique du diable ! [Lord!/Fine opera!/There's nothing so pitiable!/Cerberus is yapping, his howls lamentable!/What doggish music!/What devilish music!]. Posterity would decide otherwise, and Rousset proved it triumphantly. © SM/Qobuz

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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

Francis Poulenc's La Voix Humaine ("The Human Voice") is a one-woman opera, less than an hour long, about a woman on the phone with her boyfriend as they break up. Set to a text by Jean Cocteau, it puts the woman through strong mood swings. (Country music fans may wish to compare it to As Soon as I Hang Up the Phone, although there, the boyfriend is present to deliver the final blow.) Soprano Véronique Gens is best known for music from the 17th century up to Mozart, but it is easy to believe the claim in the publicity materials for this release that she had always wanted to record this work; its direct, conversational quality, interspersed with occasional freakouts, fits her manner beautifully. It might seem that those freakouts require a bit more intensity than Gens gives them here, but that is not really in the Cocteau spirit and certainly not in the Poulenc spirit. Gens receives sensitive support from the Orchestre National de Lille under Alexandre Bloch, who also ring down the curtain with a lithe performance of the joyous Sinfonietta. There are other strong performances of Poulenc's little opera, which ought to be much more frequently heard and would be ideal for university voice programs, but this one is instantly appealing and quite memorable, and it is no surprise that it made classical best-seller charts in early 2023. © James Manheim /TiVo

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