Rameau: Les Fêtes D'hébé

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.

Beautiful, flawless performance by Kenneth Gilbert of a hitherto unknown work, one that deserves far more promimence in the body of Baroque keyboard music that is performed, recorded, and heard today. While there have been numerous recordings of the opera ballet itself, hearing the harpsichord transcriptions is a rare treasure trove.

Rameau was a virtuoso and dominated all the current dramatic music genres combining them in a way he wanted. The outcome was Les Paladins, a mixture of tall stories and farce, erotic and moral, serious and funny, real and fantastic with the lavish richness of Rameau’s musical language. Available for the first time on CD, this long-lost treasure will be much sought after.

'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. Les Boréades (1763) is Rameau’s last opera, and tells the story of Alphise, a queen torn between her obligation to marry a Boréade (a descendant of the god Boreas) and her love for a poor young Apollonian priest. In this brilliant production, Carsen goes to the heart of the drama by turning the piece into a contest between the forces of tradition and innovation, with the Boréade court dressed in severe, tightly tailored 1940s Dior and the Apollonians in loose white linen… (Classic fM)

… Niquet casts the three surviving grands motets from strength, with the likes of Stephan Imbodem and Véronique Gens among his other soloists. His conducting is alert, rhythmically buoyant, and attentive to both musical and word values, as the multi-tempo hurdles of “Converte, Domine” show. Details are never lost, but neither is momentum. The choral and orchestral work of Le Concert Spirituel is first-rate, with a precision that doesn’t rule out a refined color palette.

Sous forme d'un dialogue vif et parfois provocateur, Le Neveu de Rameau de Denis Diderot met en scène Lui, le neveu du compositeur, et Moi : deux facettes de Diderot, le philosophe qui oeuvre pour les valeurs universelles et intemporelles, et le matérialiste qui pratique le cynisme et le détournement des valeurs. …

Jean-Claude Malgoire has been one of the more important French conductors of the latter twentieth and early twenty first centuries. He has focused heavily on Baroque music, though his repertory also includes operas by Mozart and Salieri. As music director of the La Grande Écurie et la Chambre du Roy and l'Atelier Lyrique de Tourcoing, he has given many highly acclaimed concerts and opera productions, and made numerous recordings with major labels.