Mon Sang

This is the story of Phaéton, valiant driver of the Sun’s chariot, led here by Vincent Dumestre and Benjamin Lazar, armed with a rich acquaintance of two decades of Lullyist cooperation. Just like at the time, they will make the Versailles Opera resonate with this production of this flamboyant tragédie lyrique which was first presented in Perm in Russia in 2018.

The April 26, 1784 Paris Opera premiere of this work was still noted under the name of the composer actually commissioned to compose it, Ch.W. Gluck, but it soon came out that in reality, the 33-year-old assistant to Gluck (who had suffered a stroke), Antonio Salieri, had written the work “in tutto”. The sensation was perfect, and due to Salieri’s success, French opera underwent a significant development. For beginning with Gluck’s operatic style, Salieri managed with “Danaïdes” to make the transition from number opera to the dramatically more consequent through-composed scenic opera. The Ludwigsburg Schlossfestspiele production, recorded here under studio conditions, follows historical performance practice and presents the opera in nearly uncut form.

The musical world owes a debt of gratitude to French conductor Christophe Rousset not only for the vital, exquisite performances he delivers with the ensembles Les Talens Lyriques and Choeur de Chambre de Namur, but for his work in bringing to light neglected masterpieces of Baroque opera. Lully's Bellérophon, premiered in 1679, was a huge success in its time, with an initial run of nine months. Part of its popularity was doubtless due to the parallels that could be drawn between its plot and certain recent exploits of Louis XV, but even the earliest critics recognized the score's uniqueness and exceptional quality within Lully's oeuvre, so it's perhaps surprising that it has never been recorded before.

Oxmo Puccino's 1998 debut, Opéra Puccino, was produced almost entirely by DJ Mars, who evidently gleans inspiration from Pete Rock and DJ Premier. His alternately sensitive and rugged beats are a fitting backdrop for the French-language MC’s low-profile yet tense flow. “Mensongeur” is a surprising dancefloor diversion, where Puccino is pitched somewhere between Notorious B.I.G. and Mase.

Few bands have invigorated French pop like La Femme over the last decade, and in 2021, they're coming to make all of our lives better. Paradigmes, their much-awaited third album, offers a shift in how we see the world, a kaleidoscopic vortex to a different, more vibrant dimension. After Psycho Tropical Berlin in 2013 and Mystère in 2016 which both reached Gold status in France and got them to play hundreds of shows around the world, the Paris-based, Biarritz band continue to dazzle listeners with their new record. Within this album of beautifully-curated electropop you will hear everything from coldwave to yéyé, Kraftwerk to the Velvet Underground, all distilled and sequenced and psychedelicized so that it sounds uniquely La Femme. The title track is a brassy blast of sizzling electro that imbues the spirit of flappers and philosophers, cabaret and art deco and Fritz Lang's masterpiece Metropolis, all underpinned with a touch of lyrical melancholy. Paradigmes is an album that lives in the moment, even if that moment is a challenge right now. Its fantastical voyages will undoubtedly provide an escape into a world beyond our own.