Le Ciel Sous Nos Pas

Dans ce premier roman plein d'énergie aux allures de conte moderne, Leila Bahsain, lauréate du prix de la Nouvelle de Tanger 2011, évoque dans une langue sensuelle, insolente et métissée, le parcours d'une jeune marocaine, depuis son enfance dans son pays natal à son arrivée en France…

For his latest recording directing Le Concert Spirituel, Hervé Niquet has revived Sémélé by Marin Marais – the final opera by one of the leading composers from the reign of Louis XIV. Known above all for his compositions for the viola da gamba, Marais the composer was at the same time the author of a number of tragédies lyriques which he wrote for the Académie royale de Musique. Even to this day it has only been Alcyone which has attracted the attention of music lovers and musicians. Yet Sémélé – first performed in 1709 – arrives now full of music to charm and seduce the listener: a sparkling prologue honouring Bacchus, a set of arias with a freshly-minted appeal, a marvellously inventive diabolical scene, divertissements rich in character; all this leading up to an earthquake scene memorably anticipating the later work of Rameau.

The role of Fides calls for a Brünnhilde range with an Amneris-type voice, requiring extraordinary vocal flexibility and dramatic punch – Marilyn Horne has them all, and she brings out the pathos of the part without sentimentalizing it.

Long before the advent of surtitles in the opera house, success across Europe of new dramatic works depended on their plots being understood by local audiences. Such was the case for the German singspiel that is Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte, and when it was introduced to in Paris in 1801 it was adapted and re-titled Les Mystères d’Isis: this is the opera which Le Concert Spirituel and the Flemish Radio Choir have recorded for this new release on Glossa (Diego Fasolis conducting the ensembles in place of the then indisposed Hervé Niquet).

Hippolyte et Aricie was Rameau's first surviving lyric tragedy and is perhaps his most durable, though you wouldn't know it from the decades we had to wait for a modern recording. Now there are two: this one, conducted by Marc Minkowski, and William Christie's version on Erato. Choosing between the two is tough. Minkowski uses a smaller and probably more authentic orchestra, and with the resulting leaner sound, the performance has more of a quicksilver quality accentuated by Minkowski's penchant for swift tempos. His cast is excellent. The central lovers in the title are beautifully sung by two truly French voices, soprano Véronique Gens and especially the light, slightly nasal tenor of Jean-Paul Fourchécourt. In the pivotal role of the jealous Phèdre, Bernarda Fink is perfectly good but not in the exalted league of Christie's Lorraine Hunt. So there's no clear front-runner, but anyone interested in French Baroque opera must have at least one.

In Jepht by Michel Pignolet de Montclair, Gyrgy Vashegyi directs with style and energy another riveting account of a neglected French Baroque opera. The work, based on the Biblical tale of a conquering general obliged, by a sacred vow, to sacrifice his own kin, became an immediate success in 1732, indeed a fixture in opera life in France, receiving over a hundred performances at the Opra alone in the three decades following its premire. Montclair and his librettist Pellegrin were open to preparing revised versions of the opera and it is the third and conclusive edition which has been worked on by the Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles and recorded by Vashegyi and his musicians.