Opera

Created in 1749 to commemorate the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle signed between George II and Louis XV of France to end the War of the Austrian Succession, Rameau’s pastorale héroïque Naïs consecrates the triumph of virtuosity on the stage of the Académie Royale de Musique, while in England, Handel wrote his famous Music for the Royal Fireworks for the same occasion. Weary of sombre tragedies and their dark and oppressive passions, audiences received lighter works more enthusiastically – ballets and pastorales – for which soprano Marie Fel and tenor Pierre Jélyotte were applauded for their prodigious vocal performances. With Naïs, Rameau produces some of his most impressive pages, among which the overture and descriptive prologue, tracing the epic fight between the Titans and the heavenly court for the rule of Olympus. Chivalrous exchanges, athlete evolutions, prophecies, pastoral celebrations, naval battles and underwater nuptials punctuate the work and support the blooming of tender feelings that unite Naïs and Neptune. This co-production between the Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles (CMBV − Centre of Baroque Music Versailles) and the Müpa Budapest Early Music Festival confirms the position of György Vashegyi in the field of baroque music, and French music in particular. Following the success of Rameau’s Les Fêtes de Polymnie (The Festivals of Polyhymnia) in 2015, and the revelation that was Mondonville’s Isbé, the Hungarian conductor is at it again with excellent singers and his two ensembles, the Budapest Orfeo Orchestra and the Purcell Chorus, which he founded in Budapest at the end of his studies at The Franz Liszt Academy of Music, completed by master classes from the likes of Sir John Eliot Gardiner and Helmut Rilling. This French-Hungarian production focusing on Rameau will be extended with the upcoming release of Les Indes Galantes (The Amorous Indies). © François Hudry/Qobuz

After Manon Lescaut and La Bohème, Il Tabarro is Puccini’s third Parisian incursion. Puccini got the idea to write the first part of his Trittico after seeing La Houppelande − a play in slang by Didier Gold – at Théâtre Marigny in Paris. Violent and naturalistic – to the point of bordering with trade-comedy – this play instantly captured the imagination of the Italian composer who immediately envisioned putting this slice of daily life to music. Conductor Bertrand de Billy has perfectly grasped all the stakes at play in this opera that superbly describes the Parisian atmosphere on the banks of the Seine where the barge that serves as the framework for this folk drama about jealousy, long before Simenon and his detective Commissaire Maigret, is moored. Recorded during a concert in Vienna in 2010, this beautiful version features a resounding distribution with great South-African tenor Johan Botha – who prematurely died of cancer in 2016 −, his fellow countrywoman, soprano Elza van den Heever who has triumphed in New York, Frankfurt and Bordeaux, and German baritone Wolfgang Koch who abandons Wotan to take on the role of Michele, the jealous husband turned murderer. © François Hudry/Qobuz