Les Paladins, Jérôme Correas – Molière À L'Opéra on CD

Description

With 'Molière à l opéra' Jérôme Correas and Les Paladins bring their much-admired combination of Baroque stylishness and varied vocal techniques to comédies-ballets composed by Jean-Baptiste Lully and Marc-Antoine Charpentier during the reign of Louis XIV. The musical and theatrical partnership involving Lully and Molière they were dubbed 'les deux Baptiste' was one of the most invigorating ever entered into, marrying melody, words, acting and a shared hunger for fame. The collaboration spanned ten works over a decade from 1661. Although Molière never provided the words for a Lully opera, the great dramatist clearly inspired the composer in his later tragédies lyriques, a view upheld by the essayist for this recording, Elisabeth Giuliani. As well as presenting scenes from Le Bourgeois gentilhomme, this new Glossa recording draws on the humorous end of the Molière/Lully partnership in Monsieur de Pourceaugnac as well as more tragic airs from 'Psyché', by way of the trio grotesque from Charpentier s score for Le Mariage forcé. Luanda Siqueira, Jean-François Lombard, Jérôme Billy and Virgile Ancely are the versatile vocal quartet brought together by Jerôme Correas, alive to the daunting and frequently crazy characterisations demanded by Lully and Molière. Review This excellent exploration of the relationship between Lully and Molière derives from a stage show first seen in Reims last year, much revived since, and at the time of writing still on tour ... The performers throw themselves into it with engaging gusto. Correas encourages what he calls parlé-chanté for the comic scenes, at which tenor Jérôme Billy and bass Virgile Ancely excel as doctors, lawyers and provincial bourgeois. Tenor Jean-François Lombard and soprano Luanda Siqueira are allotted the more lyrical arias: he s very eloquent in the First Spaniard s air from Le bourgeois gentilhomme; she s particularly ravishing in L Aurore s aria from La princesse d Elide, one of the loveliest things Lully ever wrote. Correas presides over it all with brilliant wit and deep sensitivity. What pleasures we ve enjoyed , the vocal quartet sings at the end. You can t help but agree. --David Vickers Gramophone, December 2016 'Opera lovers intrigued by how the Florentine-born Giovanni Battista Lulli metamorphosed into Jean-Baptiste Lully, the architect of French opera, will find much of interest on this CD … an interesting and entertaining disc.' --Brian Robins Opera, January 2017