Conductor, cast and orchestra triumph with this great Thesée, says Berta Joncus
OPERA CHOICE
Lully Thésée
Mathias Vidal, Karine Deshayes, Deborah Cachet et al; Les Talens Lyriques/Christophe Rousset
This, one of Lully’s greatest works, is one of Christophe Rousset’s greatest recordings. With Thésée (1675), Lully unites opposites – intimacy and spectacle, fluidity and structure – within a supersaturated score.
Action revolves around the sorceress Médée, who prefers to murder Thésée, the object of her desire, rather than lose him to a young rival. From her opening scene, Rousset makes us hear the vulnerability of Médée (Karine Deshayes) while, against the sparest of continuo, she whisperingly laments being prisoner to her passion. When sparkly confidante Dorine (Thaïs Raï-Westphal) urges Médée to assert herself, however, Rousset bounces in with arch keyboard additions, repeatedly shifting the pulse to undercut conventional word emphases.
Most of the vocal solos are in Lully’s hallmark récit-air format; the cast leads, veterans from Rousset’s earlier Lully productions, know how to keep this music fresh and impassioned. Euphony blooms in duets and trios, as in the sweet melancholy with which two ‘old men’ (tenors Fabien Hyon and Robert Getchell, Act 2, Scene 7) entreat listeners to relish life’s pleasures, or the plangency with which a priestess and two followers (sopranos Marie Lys, Deborah Cachet and Bénédicte Tauran, Act 1, Scene 6) protest the war featured in the opera’s first act. The choir dives into character, whether as warriors, Athenians, devils or shepherds. The band abandons itself to the strutting, punching, wayward moves of Lully’s shock-and-awe orchestration.
This recording can only burnish Lully’s legacy, and that of its director.
PERFORMANCE ★★★★★
RECORDING ★★★★★
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George Lewis
Joelle Lamarre, Gwendolyn Brown, Julian Terrell Otis; International Contemporary Ensemble/David Fulmer Tundra TUN015 118:13 mins (2 discs)
In 2010, composer George Lewis noted that, ‘Communities provide access. They provide access to history, they provide access to key individuals and traditions … How to provide access to tradition and history is extremely important.’
