Les Boreades Támesis

From his great oratorios we know Handel as a master of epic grandeur and dramatic majesty. The pastoral masque Acis and Galatea (1718) shows another side to the composer, one of transparent lightness, refined sensuality, and tenderness. Yet whatever the means he employs to his ends, we are ever awed and elated by the unshakable generosity of this great European musician. A brilliant cast of singers and the award-winning Boréades ensemble team up in this fresh look at an early Handel masterwork.

This new CD of Les Boréades de Montréal, features acclaimed Canadian soprano Karina Gauvin in two French Baroque Cantatas: Orphée by Nicolas Clérambault and L'Hyver by Joseph Bodin de Boismortier. The recording is completed by two instrumental pieces: the lively suite from the opera Don Quichotte chez la Duchesse by Boismortier and by Michel Corrette's Concerto comique no 25 Les Sauvages.

The anglophone listener may be deceived by both parts of the "Concertos pour flûte" title of this program of little-known Alessandro Scarlatti chamber music: the music is not for flute (or at least is not played by one), and there aren't any concertos. The recorder was and is known in French as a flûte a bec, whereas the transverse flute would have been known to Scarlatti's associates simply as a traverso.

Le Nouvel Opéra and Les Boréades de Montréal have assembled an exceptional group of artists for the first-ever recording of Nicandro e Fileno, a pastoral opera by Paolo Lorenzani (1640-1713) first performed in 1681 before Louis XIV at the palace of Fontainebleau.
The manuscript is conserved in the Bibliothèque nationale in Paris. Canadian musicologist Albert La France prepared the critical edition of Nicandro e Fileno for the Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles. Thanks to the initiative of Suzie LeBlanc and Francis Colpron, this opera was restored to life for this recording and for the 2017 performance in Montreal, with stage direction by Marie-Nathalie Lacoursière.

This collection puts some of the best Purcell on display–and it couldn't have a more musical or vocally accomplished advocate than Canadian soprano Karina Gauvin. Her voice is pretty for sure, but it also has richness and substance, not to mention a most endearing vibrato that adds an earnestness and enlivening tension to everything she sings.

These traditional noëls by Claude Balbastre, Michel Corrette, Louis Claude Daquin and Jean-Francois Dandrieu are intimate and elegant, and make a unique contribution to any collection of festive seasonal music. Borrowing tunes from popular songs of the day, these 18th century composers wrote noëls that are simple in nature, combining joy and devotion.

Journey is a compilation of greatest hits from CDs of Les Boréades de Montréal, an early music ensemble that focuses on music of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It was probably compiled as a promotional teaser, to tantalize listeners into going out and buying the albums from which these excerpts were extracted, and if that was the intent it ought to be entirely successful. The performers play with infectious verve and with a lilt that comes close to being a swing. The pieces from the earlier to mid-Baroque, by Purcell and Cavalli, come to life with a special energy. The excerpts from Cavalli's opera La Calisto, which include transcriptions of vocal pieces, are especially entertaining, and even without words the music conveys a sense of wild hilarity.

One might be forgiven for thinking Beatles Baroque III by Les Boréades would actually sound Baroque, as it and two previous volumes are billed, but such is not the case. Even though this Canadian early music ensemble has impressive credentials, and plays the repertoire from Frescobaldi to C.P.E. Bach with aplomb, its performances on this disc are overwhelmingly modern in feeling and not too far removed from the actual music produced by the Beatles and George Martin in the 1960s.

It's possible to recreate everything about an eighteenth century opera except the audience,’ says director Robert Carsen in a documentary included with this DVD. ‘My work is for modern audiences.’ And how…In this brilliant production, Carsen goes to the heart of the drama…Michael Levine's stylised, bold designs allow the story to unfold with gripping clarity and, remarkably, some of the spectacular set-pieces (especially the storm in Act III) work even better on DVD than in the theatre itself. Barbara Bonney is vocally and dramatically stunning as Alphise…Conductor William Christie responds to Rameau's varied and colourful score with élan, and Édouard Lock's choreography – a version of classical ballet deconstructed and then pumped with amphetamines – is breathtaking.