William Noble

Handel’s Theodora, a tale of Christian martyrdom in 4th century Antioch, is a dramatic oratorio rather than an opera, but it achieved a new currency in 1996, when William Christie conducted a staging at Glyndebourne Festival Opera; this led to an audio recording, released by Erato in 2003 and described by Gramophone as “a magnificent and deeply satisfying performance”. Christie, who lives in France, was the natural choice to conduct Theodora’s first Parisian staging – at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Autumn 2015. Le Monde spoke of William Christie’s conducting in glowing terms; it achieved “great mystic depth” through “phrasing that was both firm and subtle, pure but warm in tone, empathetically following each inflection of anger, pain or ecstasy. The sonic fabric was rich and dense, the attack precise.”

Pygmalion is, perhaps, Rameau's most consistently alluring ac/c de ballet whose overture, at least, was greatly admired in the composer's lifetime. There have been three earlier commercial recordings of which only the most recent, on Deutsche Harmonia Mundi, is currently available. Pygmalion was Rameau's second ac/c de ballet and it contains affecting and vigorous music in the composer's richest vein. The action takes place in Pygmalion's studio. Captivated by the appearance of the statue he has just completed, Pygmalion, legendary King of Cyprus, falls in love with it.

Esiaias Reusner (1636-1679) is properly known as Reusner the younger. Born in Silesia in the middle of the Thirty Years’ War which was then ravaging Europe, he was taught by his father, who was a musician in the local ducal court. By the age of 12 young Esiaias had entered the service of the Swedish general Count Wittenberg as a page. Having moved around Europe in the employ of several aristocrats, he settled back in his home region by the age of 20 as lutenist to Georg III, Duke of Silesia. He retained this position for another 20 years before moving to Leipzig and then Berlin, where he died in 1679.