Farao Classic's recording of La Traviata is revelatory, largely because of the extraordinary quality of the principals who, until this release, were largely unknown to international audiences. Anja Harteros is a stunningly effective Violetta -- fresh and young sounding, with absolute vocal security and interpretive sensitivity. Her tone is natural and unforced, she sings with beautiful intonation, and the skill and psychological range and insight with which she shapes the vocal lines make this a performance of the highest order. Her of renunciation of Alfredo and her death scene are heartbreakingly poignant, great moments of theater. Her voice and her dramatic depth clearly mark Harteros as an artist to watch out for. The same could be said for Paolo Gavanelli; his burnished, vibrant tone in service to a nuanced, compassionate characterization makes his Germont genuinely compelling. Piotr Beczala makes an intense, passionate Alfredo, and he sings with an open-throated, clarion sound, but he sounds too consistently overwrought to be completely persuasive. Zubin Mehta is in top form, in complete control of the score's tragic dramatic arc; his reading is both shapely in its details and propulsive in its theatricality. The Bayerischen Staatsorchester and the Chorus of the Bayerischen Staatsoper are fully responsive to his direction and perform with finesse and urgency. The SACD's clarity, presence, and balance are unusually good for a live recording. This fine new version should be of strong interest to anyone who loves the opera. © TiVo

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

As if trying to prove that opera's centre of gravity has changed, this new Traviata is from Latvia. Recorded in Riga between 24 March and 3 April 2019, it's the first studio recording of a Verdi opera for... 26 years. This production shows off today's great voices, with a moving Violetta from Latvian soprano Marina Rebeka, who has been singing this role very successfully on the great stages of the world since 2007 and meeting with great acclaim (she has already featured in a Naxos DVD of a live performance of La Traviata in Hanover). At her side, Alfredo is played by Charles Castronovo, one of the world's most sought-after lyrical tenors. He sang this role (also for a DVD recording) alongside Natalie Dessay at Aix-en-Provence. As for the Verdian baritone George Petean, he is also seen at Vienna, and at Covent Garden, the Metropolitan, Dresden and Zurich. At the stand, the young German lyrical orchestra conductor Michael Balke is on the up and up. After having led the Magdeburg Opera, he is currently the musical director at St. Gallen, in German- speaking Switzerland. And today he is gradually becoming more and more in- demand on the Tokyo stage and on stages across Europe. For musicians, making a record often means running a gauntlet. Following her international success, Marina Rebeka, like a great many artists today, turned the tables by creating Prima Classic, her own independent label, keeping her intellectual property rights and artistic independence over her work: all in order to enjoy total freedom in her own artistic choices. This Traviata is very polished both vocally and instrumentally, and it's one of the first outings for the new label. © François Hudry/Qobuz

Joan Sutherland was in her early fifties when she made this 1976 recording of La traviata, so her voice has a maturity that isn't ideal for Violetta. Her technique and her distinctive brightness are still fully evident, though, and her performance is sometimes vocally dazzling. Luciano Pavarotti was close to his prime at the time of the recording, and he sings with his characteristic breadth, vigor, and intensity. Matteo Manuguerra is a sturdy Germont. Richard Bonynge leads the National Philharmonic Orchestra and the London Opera Chorus in a spirited, traditional take on the score, one of the relatively few recordings of the opera that is absolutely complete. The sound is superb and clear, clean, and present.© TiVo

There's no shortage of Handel aria recitals these days, especially in Britain, but this one by bass baritone Christopher Purves stands out from the crowd in several respects. First of all, it is rare in collecting arias for bass voice, which was, in Handel's time as it was later on, generally associated with a few fixed and generally negative character types (tyrants, rogues, repressive patriarchs). Second, it's a very pleasantly varied collection of tunes, including displays of brilliant passagework, out-of-the-norm writing in service of characterization (Fra l'ombre e gl'orrori, from Aci, Galatea e Polifemo, track 4), and high climactic drama (the big, three-part Revenge, Timotheus cries, from Alexander's Feast, track 19, is a familiar example). Finally, Purves unearths some rarely heard pieces and programs them intelligently. When did anyone last year anything from Muzio Scevola, or Riccardo Primo, rè d'Inghilterra, which must have pleased London audiences in 1727 despite its Italian-language text. Purves does not have the biggest voice in the bass baritone universe, and there could be a bit more sound in the very low notes. But the dimensions of the music are right for the period. He's pleasingly accurate in the passagework, and he's a real actor who makes these potentially stilted characters come alive. Listeners will want to hear Purves in a small production of one of these operas after hearing this album, preferably accompanied by the strong historical-instrument group Arcangelo under Jonathan Cohen, as he is here.© 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

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

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

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