A Nocte Temporis, Reinoud Van Mechelen, Vox Luminis, Lionel Meunier - Charpentier: Orphée aux enfers (2020)
WEB FLAC (tracks) - 405 MB | Tracks: 32 | 82:06 min
Style: Classical | Label: Alpha
The Orpheus myth was as important for the birth of opera in France as it had been in Italy. In 1684, Charpentier composed a work for three voices, Orphée descendant aux Enfers. With this piece, remarkable for its style and concision, he showed how well he had assimilated Carissimi's art. It is a dramatic scene, similar to the sacred histories of the Roman master. The text, by an unknown author, narrates Orpheus quest for his beloved in the Underworld. The hero's haute-contre gives him an elegiac timbre this was the vocal register in which Charpentier, himself a singer, excelled. In 1687 he created his second illustration of the myth, La Descente d Orphée aux Enfers. In its two acts can be discerned the outline of a possible complete opera the manuscript has reached us shorn of the third act in which Orpheus would presumably have lost Eurydice before being devoured by the Maenads.