Great artists talk about their past recordings This month: CHRISTOPHE ROUSSET Conductor
MY FINEST MOMENT
Lully Isis
Chœur de Chambre de Namur et al; Les Talens Lyriques/Christophe Rousset Aparté AP216 (2019)
It’s always a big journey to achieve a recording and get to a point which pleases me.
Isis was a big discovery for me. It is so exciting and so enjoyable in many aspects; especially in Act 3, because there is a performance in front of one of the characters in the opera. It’s probably the first example of having an opera within an opera, and so it’s quite unusual. I love Act 4, because it’s a series of tortures for Isis – you have cold, heat, illness and so on and, strangely enough, instead of having the impression of horror as a listener, you actually enjoy it! It’s so funny – she’s tortured, she’s suffering, but you are laughing, smiling or whatever. And then in Act 5 you go back to the drama, with a fantastic monologue from Isis. It’s quite an impressive piece and I really loved doing it, plus I think the cast is brilliant, so it’s probably one of my favourites. I say one, because it’s just so difficult to choose; it’s like choosing between your babies.
MY FONDEST MEMORY
Mozart Mitridate
Cecilia Bartoli (mezzo-soprano) et al; Les Talens Lyriques/Christophe Rousset Decca 460 7722 (1999)
Mitridate was a dream. There was just a, let’s say very old-fashioned, version by Leopold Hager in the ‘Mozart Complete Works’ on Philips, so I thought it ought to be redone with original instruments. The first attempt never happened, but when I met the head of Lyon Opera he suggested we do it in a concert version and record it. He also said that because I was a Decca artist we could surely get Cecilia Bartoli. I thought he was crazy, but he was convinced it could happen. I had never dreamt of working with such people, so that was very special.
He saw to most of the casting, though I had the idea of Sandrine Piau, because we had a long-term musical relationship; Brian Asawa was also my idea, and strangely enough so was Juan Diego Flórez, who was very young then. He was actually a provincial tenor in Italy at the time and a friend of mine suggested I listen to him. So I went to a small opera house in Italy, heard him and said, ‘I think I have something for you!’
Working with Natalie Dessay was completely special and unforgettable; the same with Giuseppe Sabbatini. That was the first time I worked with big stars and I was very nervous, bu
