Direction Magazine 2016

Latest release on VIVAT brings Mendelssohn’s astonishing reconstruction of Handel’s great oratorio Israel in Egypt. Mendelssohn’s 1833 Düsseldorf performance has been painstakingly reconstructed from fragments and sources across Europe: the large and colourful orchestra, playing nineteenth-century instruments, produces vivid new sonorities, and the double choir sings magnificently. Listeners familiar with Handel’s 1739 version will also find new numbers, significant changes to the order of movements and very different orchestrations.

This video was recorded live at performances of the original version of 'Dardanus' (1739) given at the Grand Théâtre de Bordeaux in April 2015, in a production by Michel Fau and choreography by Christopher Williams. Raphaël Pichon, the Ensemble Pygmalion and a peerless line-up of soloists received unanimous acclaim from public and press alike.
“van Mechelen rises splendidly to his major dramatic interventions and Florian Sempey as his rival Antenor is commanding and resonant. Michael Fau’s production with effective use of gesture and dance, and Emanuel Charles’s highly coloured, stately sets make for a very handsome visual presentation … Pygmalion provides vigorous and expert orchestral accompaniment, and Raphael Pichon’s assured direction secures superb coordination with the soloists and the firmly focused chorus.” (BBC Music Magazine)

Alfred de Vigny’s Cinq-Mars, published in 1826, is regarded as the first great historical novel in French. The action is set in the seventeenth century: the Marquis de Cinq-Mars gains the esteem of King Louis XIII by organising a movement of opposition to Cardinal Richelieu. But manipulations, betrayals and plots force the monarch to abandon his champion and allow Richelieu to triumph and condemn Cinq-Mars and his friend De Thou to death. It was at the request of the director of the Opéra-Comique Léon Carvalho, attracted by the idea of a musical setting of the novel, that Gounod agreed to return to the forefront of the operatic scene in 1877, after an absence of ten years.