Orphee Euridice

A conductor who spent most of his career in tiny Luxembourg is hardly a musician one would expect to become well known, but Louis de Froment grew extremely familiar to record collectors thanks to his long association with the Vox label. Born in Toulouse, he studied at the Paris Conservatory, where he won first prize in conducting in 1948. After graduation, Froment conducted one of the French radio orchestras and, from 1950 to 1954, served as music director at the casinos in Cannes, Deauville, and Vichy.

Based on a program presented at the Boston Early Music Festival in 2011, this recording, made in a German radio studio in 2013, offers a pair of little-known short operas by Marc-Antoine Charpentier. One of the two, La descente d'Orphee aux enfers (not to be confused with a similarly titled cantata), either was left unfinished or has been partially lost; it is missing a finale and resolution to the plot.

The myth of Orpheus–the divine musician who went to Hades to rescue his bride Eurydice from the dead and whose song actually persuaded Pluto to release her–has been irresistible to operatic composers from Monteverdi to Offenbach. One of the happiest rediscoveries of the Baroque revival is this lovely one-act chamber opera by Marc-Antoine Charpentier, which combines the gentle lilt typical of French Baroque music with the beautiful melodies and delicious suspensions in which Charpentier excelled. Charpentier diverged from the myth in one important respect: he omitted the tragic ending in which Orpheus loses Eurydice a second time, instead allowing the couple to live happily ever after.

Cyril Auvity heads the cast in a new recording of Marc-Antoine Charpentier’s La Descente d’Orphée aux enfers in a production being released by Glossa. Auvity is the lovelorn Orpheus who ventures, with his lyre, into the Underworld to plead with Pluto (Etienne Bazola) for the return of his Eurydice (Céline Scheen), struck down in her prime by a snakebite, being encouraged in his efforts by Proserpine, the wife of the ruler of Hades (Floriane Hasler).

When the historic Theatre du Chatelet in Paris re-opened after a period of extensive refurbishment, the first two productions mounted in the theatre were Gluck’s Alceste and Orphée et Eurydice. Both operas were sung in their French versions and were mounted and designed by Robert Wilson and conducted by John Eliot Gardiner. This was the first time Wilson and Gardiner had collaborated and their individual credentials combined to produce an exceptional result.

Until Charpentier, the myth of Orpheus had never provided the subject matter for an opera in French. He repaired the omission with this fascinating little gem on the margins of the large-scale tragédie lyrique. Charpentier offers us here a myth left in suspension, without a resolution, a carefree and happy ‘descent’ that consecrates Orpheus’ song and the enchanting power of music. A poetic experience amid the depths of night, which inspire Sébastien Daucé and his Ensemble Correspondences more than ever!

This latest version of Gluck’s masterpiece is something of a double hybrid: its starting point is the Berlioz version, which combines what Berlioz regarded as the best of the Italian original and the French revision (and using a contralto Orpheus), and then it is modified further, with a number of reorderings and some music restored, as well as revised orchestration. It isn’t very ‘authentic’, in terms of Gluck No. 1, Gluck No. 2 or Berlioz, but that of course doesn’t much matter as long as it works.

In late February 1653, just after the Fronde rebellion, the most influential spectacle of the early reign of Louis XIV was created at the Louvre: the Ballet Royal de la Nuit. Grandiose, and carefully elaborated at the highest levels of the state, the libretto by Bensérade called upon the finest artists of the time. Banishing the troubles of Night, Louis XIV danced in the Sun King costume that would henceforth be for ever associated with him. An indispensable world premiere recording!