Fables

Bay area-based ensemble led by Dawn McCarthy, mixing folk, indie-rock, cabaret, and avant-garde influences. Collection includes: Early Song (1999); Mother Twilight (2001); Family Album (2004); The Transit Rider (2006) and Light of a Vaster Dark (2010).

A grasshopper, a milkmaid’s pail, a shepherd, a fox, a country mouse, a cobbler… These are just some of the diverse and varied characters from the famous Fables that Jacques Offenbach decided to set to music in 1842, some 150 years after they were written by Jean de La Fontaine. With their vivid texts featuring talking animals and stock characters, the Fables offered an allegorical and didactic way of alluding to the court and the mores of the time. Offenbach chose six of the 240 Fables of la Fontaine to set as mélodies. Here the conductor Jean-Pierre Haeck presents them in his own orchestration performed by the Orchestre de l’Opéra de Rouen and the mezzosoprano Karine Deshayes, who excels in this repertory. To complete the programme, the singer performs numbers from Offenbach’s opéra-bouffe Boule-de-neige and the orchestra plays movements from the ballet Le Papillon, offering listeners a recording as refined as it is witty.

WINNER OF FOURTEEN EISNER AWARDS. As the free Fables struggle to regroup following the destruction of their New York City stronghold, they are suddenly faced with a new menace–one who threatens not only their adopted planet, but all of reality itself! Against such terrible power, can even the combined abilities of these legendary storybook heroes prevail? Only one thing is certain: Once battle is joined, the world of Fables will never be the same! All nine issues of the long-awaited crossover between Vertigo's two popular series FABLES and JACK OF FABLES are collected in this volume: FABLES issues #83-85, JACK OF FABLES issues #33-35, and THE LITERALS issues #1-3.