Rameau: Les Fêtes D'hébé

Les Boréades is an ambitious 10-year Rameau project with the Centre de musique baroque de Versailles. The cast of Sabine Devieilhe, Reinoud Van Mechelen, Tassis Christoyannis, Thomas Dolié, Gwendoline Blondeel, Benedikt Kristjánsson and Philippe Estèphe is joined by the Orfeo Orchestra and Purcell Choir, two ensembles founded by Vashegyi himself. Devieilhe made her Erato debut with a Rameau recital, this time she takes the central role of Alphise, Queen of Bactria, who must defy the traditions of her country if she is to marry the man she loves. The theme of freedom, ‘la liberté’, is important in the opera; conceived in 1763 to mark the end of the Seven Years’ War, it had to wait more than 200 years for its first full staging. When the performers on this recording appeared in a concert version of Les Boréades at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris, Concert Classique declared that “Rameau’s genius shines through at every moment.”

Jean-Philippe Rameau's opéra-ballet Les Indes Galantes premiered in Paris in 1735 but was not a critical success, so the composer prepared a revised version that included an additional act. The five suites the composer extracted are derived from the prologue and four acts, and the brief movements include orchestral arrangements of vocal numbers as well as instrumental pieces. The work displays Rameau's flair for creating evocative and compelling music for the wide variety of the opéra-ballet's dramatic situations, as well as his ear for imaginative orchestration. Familiarity with the plot is not required for appreciating the charms of these colorful miniatures.

The first recording of Rameau's sublime masterwork on CD for more than 20 years: Hugo Reyne and La Simphonie du Marais present this full and original version based on souces in the library of the Paris Opera. Hugo Reyne, Nicolas Sceaux and La Simphonie du Marais have made their own edition of this seminal work, recorded in concert and rehearsal in the Vienna Konzerthaus at the Rexonzanzen Festival in January 2013.

Rameau’s career was nearing its end when the rehearsals of his last composition, Les Boréades, began at the Académie Royale de Musique, in spring 1764. The death of the composer in September interrupted the production of his lyric tragedy, which was only saw the light of day two centuries later! This magnificent opera is certainly the most accomplished of Rameau’s works, composed as he was aged eighty and in full possession of his creative means: the composition for orchestra and choir is highly virtuoso, the melodic invention exceptional, the drama powerful: a true musical testament.

As Rameau wrote in his treatise on harmony, “A good musician should surrender himself to all the characters he wishes to portray, and like a skillful actor, put himself in the speaker’s shoes.” Regardless of the means used to achieve this, the composer uses music and the interplay of harmony to convey feeling. This album on the Analekta label features bass-baritone Philippe Sly and soprano Hélène Guimette accompanied by musicians from Clavecin en concert under the direction of Luc Beauséjour.

The exciting and vigorous talents of Sébastien d Hérin and Les Nouveaux Caractères announce their debut on Glossa with a major and appropriately unexpected release of a glaring Rameau operatic omission on record: 'Les Surprises de l Amour' (Cupid s Surprises). This opéra-ballet, consisting here of three separate entrées, first performed in 1748 and submitted to later revisions, comes from the period of Jean-Philippe Rameau s rich maturity when he had finally become a court composer.

Dardanus (1739) was Rameau's third excursion into tragedie-lyrique and Les boreades (1764), his last. Both works contain rich seams of inventive and colourful orchestral movements from which Frans Bruggen has created orchestral suites. In the case of Dardanus the quantity of dances and other miscellaneous instrumental pieces is unusually substantial, since for a revival of the opera in 1744 Rameau had been obliged to compose much new music.

The Baroque music ensemble Les Talens Lyriques, under Christophe Rousset's baton, performs Rameau's Les Indes galantes at the Opéra National de Bordeaux in a sensual and politically engaged production directed by Laura Scozzi, on the occasion of the festivities organized to commemorate the 250th anniversary of Jean-Philippe Rameau's death.

John Eliot Gardiner has proved himself a doughty champion of the later French Baroque, cultivating credible performing methods and unearthing undeservedly neglected repertoire. … "Les Boreades" recorded in 1982. Viewed by many as one of the greatest of Rameau's operas, the score is both dramatically effective and a riot of orchestral colour. Gardiner conducts with a real feeling for the way in which instrumental timbre underpins the drama, while in a strong cast Philip Langridge is both stylish and superbly theatrical as Abaris.