This rewarding Rameau is a recording to truly savour
Conductor and cast bring colour and eloquence to one of the composer’s best, says Nicholas Anderson
Rameau
Dardanus
Cyrille Dubois, Judith van Wanroij, Chantal Santon Jeffery; Purcell Choir; Orfeo Orchestra/györgy Vashegyi Glossa GCD 924010 168:37 mins (3 discs)
Dardanus offers a wide spectrum of instrumental colour and a rewarding expressive range second to none among Rameau’s operas. Yet the work’s premiere in Paris in 1739 was indifferently received, and Rameau and his librettist Le Clerc de la Bruère made sweeping changes for its revival in 1744. So much so, in fact, that Dardanus was then described as a nouvelle tragédie. Today’s artists must decide which of the two versions to perform, or whether to mix and match. György Vashegyi, broadly speaking, has followed the 1744 score, which notably contains an affecting prison scene in Act IV.
Loosely based on Book VII of Virgil’s Aeneid, the story concerns the love of the eponymous hero for Iphise, daughter of Teucer with whom he is at war. Inconveniently, Iphise is betrothed to Antenor, an ally of Teucer but, thanks to Venus and Rameau’s glorious music, she and Dardanus are at last married.
This exciting and full-blooded account has more historic coherence than any so far of this great opera. György Vashegyi, who already has three Rameau opera recordings to his name, has mustered a uniformly strong cast with lively characterisation from Antenor and Teucer, alpha males pumped to the hilt with testosterone. Sadly, Antenor’s ‘Monstre affreux’ (Act IV), and Iphise’s ‘O jour affreux’ were omitted from the 1744 version, but Dardanus’s ‘Lieux funestes’ (Act IV), with its distinctive bassoon accompaniment, passionately declaimed by high tenor Cyrille Dubois, offers some compensation.
The many and varied dances are injected with vitality and crowned by a generously proportioned concluding Chaconne, a movement of stature and eloquent grace.
PERFORMANCE ★★★★★
RECORDING ★★★★★
You can access thousands of reviews from our extensive archive on the BBC Music Magazine website at www.classical-music.com
Hahn
Ô mon bel inconnu(dvd) Véronique Gens, Éléonore Pancrazi, Olivia Doray, Thomas Dolié, Carl Ghazarossian, Jean-christophe Lanièce; Orchestre National Avignon-provence/samuel Jean Bruzane BZ 1043 59:07 mins
Is Ô mon bel inconnu a musical, a comédie en musique, even an operetta? This 1930s Parisian confection defies tidy classification – just like the pair of unlikely collaborators who created it, Sacha Guitry and Reynaldo Hahn: a writer/performer who delighted in outrageous puns and dizzying plotlines, and a composer who cherished clarity.
However, opposites appear to have attracted most successfully. Once again, Hahn found a way of setting what Guitry freely confessed were awkward and irregular verses. And he takes the great boulevardier’s almost surreal plot about a family who run a hat shop while dreaming of romantic encounters beyond their corseted bourgeois lives without blinking. (Although Guitry’s dialogue is not recorded it’s printed in the accompanying booklet.)
Hahn’s score for a modest physical ensemble – strings, a flute, a pair of clarinets, bassoon, saxophone, piano and a single percussionist – is more than the sum of its parts with vestigial waltzes drifting through the musical numbers. And when you listen to the Act II trio ‘Ô mon bel inconnu’ who can doubt this composer’s gift for melody?
Véronique Gens is irresistible as Antoinette, the mistress of the house, while Thomas Dolié as her husband Prosper, who drives the plot, mixes social outrage, cunning and lust in equal measure. Éléonore Pancrazi’s maid Félicie is suitably insubordinate, and the daughter elegantly sung by Olivia Doray is much more than the usual soubrette. Best of all Samuel Jean conducting members of the Orchestre Nationale Avignon-provence clearly believes in every note of Hahn’s score. Christopher Cook
PERFORMANCE ★★★★
RECORDING ★★★★
This is an exciting and full-blooded account of a great opera
Verdi
Baritone Arias from La traviata, Il Trovotore, Rigoletto, Otello, Nabucco, Ernani etc
Ludovic Tézier (baritone); Orchestra del Teatro Comunale di Bologna/ Frédéric Chaslin
Sony Classical 19439753632 79:50 mins The sleeve note accompanying Ludovic Tézier’s new disc of baritone arias is entitled ‘The Verdi Chameleon’. It would have made a fitting title for the album as a whole, so variegated are the moods demanded from the singer: nostalgia (Germont), vengefulness (Ford), ardour (Il Conte di Luna), malice (Iago) and sombre reflection (too many roles to mention).
With his richly burnished voice, Tézier gives a compelling account of all these diverse characters but is at his best in the arias that call for psychological nuance and contrasts in vocal shading. Particular highlights include the disc’s curtainraiser, an authoritative ‘Morir! Tremenda cosa!’ from La forza del destino, and the dying Rodrigue/ Rodrigo’s bittersweet aria from Don Carlos/carlo – presented here in both its French and Italian versions and sufficiently attractive to merit including twice. Expressive support is provided by the Orchestra del Teatro Comunale di Bologna under Frédéric Chaslin, with individual instrumental lines gleaming attractively through the texture. Only once, in Rigoletto’s ‘Cortigiani, vil razza dannata’ – taken here at a gallop – is the balance skewed too much in the orchestra’s favour, threatening to overwhelm the voice.
Critics raved about Tézier’s performance alongside Kaufmann and Netrebko in La forza del destino at Covent Garden in 2019 – his only British outing in Verdian repertoire to date. On the strength of this disc – so much more interesting for featuring something other than the usual over-sucked lollipops – we must hope for a return visit soon. His Iago, Germont, Macbeth and other meaty Verdian roles will be something to relish. Alexandra Wilson
PERFORMANCE ★★★★★
RECORDING ★★★★
Weber
Der Freischütz – excerpts Stanislas de Barbeyrac, Johanni van Oostrum, Chiara Skerath, Christian Immler, Thorsten Grümbel, Daniel Schmutzhard; Accentus Choir; Insula Orchestra/laurence Equilbey
Erato 9029510954 79:35 mins
The good news is that, played on original instruments by the Insula Orchestra, two centuries of varnish seem to have been dissolved away from Weber’s Romantic masterpiece, with the instrumentation coming up as bright as fresh paint. Horns strain at the leash to join the hunt, and the clarinet that’s introduces the great tune at the conclusion of the overture is as perky as a bird in spring.
The not so good news is that this French production entirely sidesteps the original spoken dialogue. True, the text that tells us of Max’s flirtation with the devil to win the hand of Agathe is awkward literary carpentry, but this dialogue is integral to the work and recent recordings have succeeded in finding creative solutions to using it.
That said, there is some fine singing here from a younger cast. Stanislas de Barbeyrac is a wayward, lovelorn Max and properly lyrical in his Act I number ‘Durch die Wälder, durch die Auen’. And for once Agathe isn’t a soubrette with weightier vocal ambitions: the
South African soprano Johanni van Oostrum is technically flawless in ‘Leise, leise fromme Weise’, from the dark rumbling strings that launch the aria to those bubbling horns at the end. Chiara Skerath is a knowing Ännchen; but surely Vladimir Baykov’s Kaspar ought to be truly scared in the Wolf’s Glen.
Purists may question Laurence Equilbey’s choice of tempos, but it does allow the listener to relish Weber’s compositional and dramatic gifts, even if this is only half of the opera that the composer intended. Christopher Cook
PERFORMANCE ★★★
RECORDING ★★★★
Alastair White
ROBE
Clara Kanter, Rosie Middleton, Sarah Parkin, Kelly Poukens; Jenni Hogan (flute), Ben Smith (piano)
Métier MSV 28609 61:51 mins
ROBE is Alastair White’s second self-styled ‘fashion opera’ (following on from WEAR; preceding WOAD). It was premiered at London’s alternative opera festival Tête à Tête in 2019, and the original cast reprise their roles for this debut recording. The Scottish composer also wrote the libretto for the fantastical, dystopian
ROBE, a tale combining artificial intelligence, the natural world and the eponymous red clothing. It’s highly poetic, with extensive use of paragraph breaks. This is not a high concept story and, as the diction isn’t always clear, listening with the text is essential. (Even after multiple read throughs, the plot remains elusive.)
The music, on the other hand, is excellent. Scored for two sopranos, two mezzos, flute and piano, the limited timbral palette is used with intelligent frugality. The texture, though often thin, never feels overtly sparse – flautist Jenni Hogan and pianist Ben Smith provide ample instrumental sustenance. Clara Kanter impresses as Rowan, handling microtones and the occasional push beyond the usual mezzo register. Similarly, storyteller Kelly Poukens casts aside the guide ropes to climb multiple ledger lines, often sympathetically supported by Hogan, who knocks off complex phrases, harmonics and extended techniques with such subtlety you’d hardly know what was involved. The entire cast has a firm grounding in contemporary music and it shows. Given
ROBE ’s commitment to visual and musical integration, the next staging is anticipated with interest. Claire Jackson
PERFORMANCE ★★★
RECORDING ★★★★