Marc-Antoine Charpentier - La Descente d'Orphée aux Enfers

"Charpentier was born in Paris in 1643. We know nothing of his early life in France, but in the 1660s he went to Rome, where he studied for several years with Giacomo Carissimi, master composer of church music, oratorios, and chamber cantatas. Back in Paris about 1670, Charpentier was apparently given lodging and support by the pious, music-loving Marie de Lorraine, duchesse de Guise (always called 'Mademoiselle de Guise'); he remained in her service, as composer and singer, until about 1687. During the same period, however, he collaborated with the Troupe de Roi - Molière's company, renamed the Comédie Française - composing songs, orchestral overtures, and dances for their plays, and comic skits for the intermèdes between acts. He came close to service at court for a few years (around 1680), as composer for the chapel of the Dauphin - and wrote for him one of two operatio divertissements ('Les plaisirs de Versailles', perhaps also 'La fête de Ruel') - but was never appointed by Louis XIV to a royal post.

"By the mid-1680s, having achieved a considerable reputation as a composer of sacred music, Charpentier was appoint maître de musique at the most prestigious Jesuit church in Paris, St. Louis, renowned for the high quality of its music. And ultimately, in 1698, he became maître de musique at the Saint-Chapelle, a position in French sacred music second only to that of music director in the King's chapel. He remained there until his death early in 1704.

"Quite possibly, had Jean-Baptiste Lully and Michel Richard de Lalande not dominated so successfully the music at the court of Louis XIV, Charpentier might himself have become a figure there and composed more instrumental music and especially works for the theatre. He had great talent for musical drama, as is apparently in the stage work we have by him - notably the sacred opera 'David et Jonathas' (1688); 'Médée', perhaps the greatest masterpiece (produced at the Académie Royale, the Opéra, in 1693); and operatic divertissements, pastorales, and cantates - not to mention dozens of dramatic motets (histoires sacrées). With 'La descente d'Orphée aux enfers', Charpentier joined the many composers drawn to the myth of Orphée as the basis for operas.

"Understandably: not only is it a poignant love story and dramatic tragedy, it celebrates the mysterious and formidable power of music itself, over even supernatural forces. The earliest surviving operas, composed in Italy about 1600, were based on that myth (settings by each of the Florentines Jacopo Peri and Giulio Caccini of Rinuccini's libretto, 'Euridice', and Claudio Monteverdi's masterpiece, for Mantua, to Striggio's 'Orfeo'). Other operatic versions predating Charpentier's were Stefano Landi's 'La morte d'Ortfeo' (1619) and Luigi Rossi's 'Orfeo' (1647) - which was staged at the Palais Royal, as part of Mazarin's campaign to italianize French culture. Charpentier himself composed a sort of warm-up for 'La descente d'Orphée' in a chamber cantata (probably the first of that genre by a French composer): 'Orphée descendant aux enfers', a modest work for three male singers (representing Orphée and the shades Ixion and Tantale) and a small chamber ensemble.

"About three years later - late 1686 or early 1687 - came 'La descente d'Orphée aux enfers'. Charpentier composed it for the musicians of M'lle de Guise, though we know nothing about the circumstances of its performance. Although not on the grand scale of the 'tragédies en musique' staged at court (with their full orchestras, generous corps de ballet, massive choruses, and panopolies of solo-vocalists), the work called for the entire musical équipe of M'lle de Guise, plus some extra instrumentalists: Charpentier's manuscript mentions by name five female and five male singers, with an instrumental ensemble consisting of flutes (alternating with violins), viols, and harspichord. 'La descente d'Orphée' seems also to have been the last major work in which Charpentier participated as a singer: he had been for years the principal 'haute-contre' of the de Guise establishment, but in this opera, a newly appointed one, François Anthoine, sang the title role and Charpentier was relegated to the secondary one of Ixion. Charpentier's score also mentions (as player of flute or violin) 'Luollié' - Etienne Loulié, best-known as a music theorist - and a pair of flautists, 'Anth' and 'Pierrot', probably the brothers Antoine and Pierre of the family Pièche, well known at the time in court circles. Various 'chœurs' appear in the opera: a high-voiced 'Chœur de Nymphes' and a mixed-voice 'chœur de Nymphes et de Bergers' in Act I; in Act II, a mixed 'Chœur de Furies', a slighter 'Chœur d'Ombres heureuses et de Furies'. Not independent choral ensembles, these were varied combinations of the named solo singers, who may also have served as dancers for the brief ballet entrées in both acts.

"In sum, as conceived by Charpentier, 'La descente d'Orphée' was a chamber opera, probably performed only once - and not in public but in the private quarters of M'lle de Guise (or perhaps of her less single-mindedly devout younger relative known as Mme. de Guise').

"The librettist of 'La descente d'Orphée is unknown, but the ultimate source is the 'Metamorphoses' of Ovid (Libre X, histoire 1). The leading actors in the drama are, of course, Orphée and his bride Euridice (the latter mortally stung by a serpent on their wedding day). To Ovid's couple the librettist added, in the happy first scene of Act I, some nymphs and shepherds; as the act ends, Apollon, father of Orphée, also makes a brief appearance, inviting Orphée to go to Hades and persuade its sovereign, Pluton, to allow Euridice to return to the upper world. (Apollon appears similarly as 'deus ex machina' in Monteverdi's 'Orfeo'.) In Act II, the opera's underworld characters are all Ovidian: the 'ombres coupables' Tantale (punished by eternal hunger and thirst), Ixion (bound to a revolving wheel), and Titye (his liver torn by vultures), as well as a crowd of Furies - all brought to tears (the Furies for the first time ever) by the beauty of Orphée's singing.

"Pluton is at first resistant to Orphée's pleading and not persuaded by Orphée's argument (as related by Ovid) that, after all, both Euridice and Orphée must eventually return to Hades and thus, surely, Pluton can afford to make a temporary -loan- of Euridice! Ultimately, however, implored by his queen Proserpine (supported and echoed by groups of shades), Pluton yields and gives permission for Euridice to be restored to Orphée.

"And here is where Charpentier's opera ends - or, at least, where the unique surviving score (the composer's autograph) ends. Some believe that he intended to end here - and indeed, Act II has an effective conclusion, a 'Sarabande légère' to be danced by the 'Fantômes' who, moments before, have lamented that the beautiful voice of Orphée will be only a 'souvenir si doux' when he departs with Euridice. I believe, however, that Charpentier planned (and may in fact have composed) a third, concluding act, the music for which has not survived.

"The little opera is full of musical charm and cunning characterization. It opens with an overture that is vaguely Lullian (in two parts, each repeated, the first a sort of march, the second a livelier, more contrapuntal triple-meter dance), but lighter in texture and briefer than most overtures by Lully - perfectly appropriate in scale for the chamber opera to follow. The tonality is A-major, characterized as 'joyeux et champêtre' by Charpentier in a list he once drew up of 'Energie des modes', thus preparing perfectly the pastoral ambience with which the drama opens.

"Nymphs and shepherds celebrate the marriage of Orphée and Euridice with bright, light songs and dances. These are interrupted by a single cry - 'Ah!' - from Euridice, which her friend Enone blithely laughs off as due only to a thorn-prick. But Euridice's next words contradict her: 'Soutiens-moi, chère Enone, un serpent m'a blessée'. Charpentier sets these to a descending bass figure much favored by Baroque-era composers as an 'emblem of lament' (as the American musicologist Ellen Rosand has put it), and with it a shift from A-major to A-minor ('tendre et plaintif') for the brief, heartbreaking scene of Euridicie's death. The same 'emblem of lament' marks Orphée's griefstricken reaction to Euridice's loss (and the chorus's echo of it), and the gloomy pall of A-minor hovers over the mournful scene, which ends with Orphée wishing death for himself. Whereupon Apollon appears (to mild music - but in the key of C-major, 'gai et guerrier', according to Charpentier). He succeeds in arguing Orphée out of suicide and into a determination - not a very optimistic one, as both his words and the music to A-minor tell us - to attempt to gain back Euridice.

"Act II is set in Hades, and we hear first the bitter complaints of the trio of guilty, tortured shades (Ixion, Tantale, and Titye). Orphée sings - to a new, alluring soft sonority: viols, not the more brilliant violins or the rustic flutes heard before - and the shades, even the 'Chœur de Furies', are utterly beguiled ('Que tes chants ont d'appas!'). Pluton and Proserpine appear. Orphée goes to work - sensuously, seductively, lyrically - overcome Pluton's blustering opposition. (Prosperine is immediately won over, as is the Chœur d'Ombres heureuses'.)

"The more Pluton denies him, the more Orphée's song becomes persuasively voluptuous (and the more Proserpine pleads on his behalf). Finally Pluton relents (before he and his queen depart) - warning Orphée, however, that although Euridice will follow him, Orphée is not to look back to make sure. Orphée has one final prophetic couplet - 'Amour, brûlant Amour, pourras-tu te contraindre?'/'Ah! Que le tendre Orphée à lui-même est à craindre' - before he too leaves the stage. The trio of 'Coupables' and the 'Chœur d'ombres heureuses et de Furies' are left to lament his loss, or rather that of his captivating voice - but their music belies their words: foreshadowing in both its bright D-major key ('joyeux et très guerrier') and its rhythms the finale 'Sarabande légère', it seems in fact to be voicing joy over the lovers' reunion. (H. Wiley Hitchcock. From the liner notes.)

Performers: Les Arts Florissants, William Christie, Patricia Petibon, Monique Zanetti, Kátalin Karolyim, Sophie Daneman, Paul Agnew, Jean-François Gardeil, Steve Dugardin, François Piolino, Fernand Bernadi

1. Ouverture

2. Acte I, Scène I: 'Inventons Mille Jeux Divers'/'Ruisseau Qui Dans Ce Beau Séjour'

3. Acte I, Scène I: 'Compagnes Fidèles'

4. Acte I, Scène I: 'Soutiens-moi, Chère Énone'/Scène II: 'Qu'ai-je Entendu, Que Vois-je?'

5. Acte I, Scène II: 'Ah! Bergers, C'en Est Fait'

6. Acte I, Scène II: Entrée De Nymphes Et De Bergers Désespérés/'Lâche Amant'

7. Acte I, Scène III: 'Ne Tourne Point, Mon Fils'

8. Acte I, Scène III: 'Que D'un Frivole Espoir'/'Juste Sujet De Pleurs'

9. Acte II 'L'Enfer', Scène I: Prélude/'Affreux Tourments'

10. Acte II 'L'Enfer', Scène II: Prélude/'Cessez, Cessez, Fameux Coupables'

11. Acte II 'L'Enfer', Scène II: 'Je Ne Refuse Point Le Secours'/'Il N'est Rien Aux Enfers'

12. Acte II 'L'Enfer', Scène II: Les Fantômes

13. Acte II 'L'Enfer', Scène III: Prélude/'Que Cherche En Mon Palais'

14. Acte II 'L'Enfer', Scène III: 'Je Ne Viens Point Ici'/'Pauvre Amant'

15. Acte II 'L'Enfer', Scène III: 'Euridice N'est Plus'/'Le Destin Est Contraire' (Pluton) - 'Ah! Puisqu'avant Le Temps'

16. Acte II 'L'Enfer', Scène III: 'Tu Ne La Perdras Point, Hélas'/'Quel Charme Imperieux'/'Courage Orphée'

17. Acte II 'L'Enfer', Scène III: 'Souviens-toi Du Larcin'

18. Acte II 'L'Enfer', Scène III: 'Je Cède, Je Me Rends'

19. Acte II 'L'Enfer', Scène IV: 'Vous Partez Donc, Orphée'

20. Acte II 'L'Enfer', Scène IV: Entrée Des Fantômes

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Jean-Joseph Cassanéa de Mondonville - Titon et l'Aurore

"'If I couldn't be Rameau, there's no one I'd rather be than Mondonville', Pierre-Louis Daquin wrote at the time of the first performance of Mondonville's 'Titon', thereby reflect the latter's immense reputation at this period. Famous as a violinist, Jean-Joseph Cassanéa de Mondonville had first made a name for himself as a writer of instrumental and religious music, and it was this which, in 1739, gained him a post as 'maître de musique' in the 'Chapelle Royale', while his 'grands motets' enjoyed enormous popularity at the Concert Spirituel: according to 'Le Mercure de France', his music was performed at nine out of every ten concerts over a twenty-year period, in other words, it was played on no fewer than 363 occasions between 1742 and 1762. Considered worthy successors to those of Lalande and Campra, Mondoville's motets were universally admired and regarded as seminal works. In the second of his 'Lettres de Correcteur des Bouffons', J.-B. Jourdan wrote that the composer fully deserved to be acknowledged as 'the man to whome France should be as indebted for her sacred vocal music as she is to Monsieur Rameau for his vocal music for the theatre'.

"Mondonville's own works for the state, by contrast, enjoyed mixed fortunes although his three mid-century operas ('Le Carnaval du Parnasse', 'Titon et l'Aurore' and 'Daphnis et Alcimadure') were among the most brilliant successful works of that time. It has been argued that the success of 'Titon' was due, essentially, to external circumstances: in the 'Querelle des Bouffons', which was raging at this time, it is said that the advocated of French opera drew a deliberate contrast between 'Titon' and Pergolesi's 'La Serva Padrona' and that they organised an elaborate cabal in high places to ensure that its first performance, at the 'Académie Royale de Musique' on 9 January 1753, was a triumph for all concerned. Indeed, the partisans of Italian opera even claimed that when they arrived at their usual seats, they found them already occupied by members of the Royal Guard, while the rest of the pit had been requisitioned by members of the Household Cavalry and King's Own Musketeers, who thus made their own contribution to this aesthetic war.

"Even if there is any substance to this report, it does not explain the extraordinarily durable nature of the work's success: box-office takings were such that the piece was staged, twice a week, for thirty-five consecutive performances between January and June 1753, before being revived in the autumn of that year. It returned to the repertory of the 'Académie Royale de Musique' in February and March 1763, between January and May 1764, finally but no less successfully, between January and March 1768. It is difficult, therefore, not to share the opinion of the contributor to 'Le Mercure de France', who wrote in March 1763: 'From the very first of its current run of performances, the public has proved that the work has gained its favbour due not to circumstances but to its own particular merit.'

"Some doubt surrounds the authorship of the libretto, although Mondonville's contemporaries had firmly fixed views on the subject. The Prologue, they were convinced, was the work of Antoine Houdart de la Motte (1672-1731), who had written the words for twelve operas by Campra, Destouches, Collasse, Marais and others. The three acts of the 'pastorale héroïque itself have always been attributed to the Breton poet, the Abbé de la Marre, who also wrote the words for Joseph-Nicolas-Pancrace Royer's 'Zaïde' and who died in tragic circumstances when he fell from a window in 1742. Some writers have suggested that the original text was revised by 'several men of wit', including Mondonville himself.

"According to the 'Dictionnaire dramatique' of 1776, 'the subject of the Prologue is Prometheus's ravishment of fire from heaven; he uses this fire & that of Love to breathe life into statues of men and women and, with them, peoples the Universe.' The author of 'La Guerre de l'opera' sums up the pastorale proper with elegant concision: 'There are two Lovers crossed by two persons that are jealous.'

"The Prologue follows tradition, therefore, in being apparently independent of the main action. None the less, the two parts end in similar fashion with the appearance of triumphant Love, whose blessings are duly celebrated.

"Although space permits no more than a rapid survey of the piece, we will perhaps attempt to identify certain aspect of the audience's reaction as recorded in accounts of the time.

"The dramatic power of the anguished overture, with its quasi-rhetorical questions, looks forward, in its intensity, to Prometheus's following narrative; it was found to be 'full of noise' by certain early listeners, who were disconcerted by its 'excessive strangeness'. In the Prologue, listeners 'enjoyed the sinfonia which announces the moment when the spiritus comes to life' - in other words, the moment when the statues come alive. Certainly, the gentleness of this passage - which marks the first appearance of a major tonality - and the shimmering, interlanced arpeggios create an otherworldly atmosphere worthy of Rameau's 'Pygmalion'. Other writers drew a contrast between the lofty sentiments of the opening chorus and the triviality of 'La Serva Patrona': 'the chorus of animated statues expresses the philosophical terror which each man must feel when he contemplates himself, questioning the whole of nature in order to know his place in it &, by a natural impulse, addressing himself to Heaven in his wish to understand the plight in which his own existence places him. [...] These are the tableaux that our Operas should present, instead of depicting a man's impatience as he waits for his drink of chocolate.

"The opening act was said to be 'the most agreeable in the opera', with 'Titon's monologue and its accompaniment' being 'applauded with particular warmth'. The commentator is no doubt referring here to the instrumental effect produced by the basses and bassoons in their lowest registers to reproduce the darkness of night, as required by the staging. Also admired were the duet for Titon and Aurora, the ariett 'Venez, petits oiseaux', and Titon's Romance, a musette entitled 'Votre cœur aimable Aurore', which, published in 'Le Mercure de France', was soon being sung all over Paris. The author of 'La Guerre de l'Opera' particularly liked the depiction of dawn: 'The Music which heralds the dawn is perhaps the most florid and voloptuous that I have ever heard at the Opera. The listener has the sensation of seeing the flowers open and the dew begin to fall; he thinks he hears birds singing and feels all nature atremble at the approach of day.'

"Contemporary accounts of the second act singled out a 'chorus for the Winds' which, 'full of noise and harmony', claimed the listener's attention, while the 'village fête' merited mention for its 'attractive violin airs and tuneful ariettas'.

"In the third act, 'Titon's final arietta was predictably praised but, above all, it was his monologue in the second scene which drew attention to itself, shocking certain listenerds who, otherwise well disposed, felt that this depiction of the hero's decrepitude was somehow 'disagreeable': 'It seems that the composer has sought to depict the painful and useless effort made by a dying octogenarian to cough up phlegm from his chest.' The 'cognoscenti', by contrast, found this number 'a product of genius', a 'tragic flaw' that produced 'both one of the most beautiful pieces of French Music & one of the most felicitous dénouements in all dramatic Art.'

"'The only thing we found that was genuinely new in this Opera was the costumes worn by the actors', one detractor noted, a remark which one of the work's admirers was able to turn to advantage when he described the effect of the first-act celebrations: 'Nothing astonishes you, yet everything is pleasing.' It is difficult to think of a more apposite characterisation of Mondonville's operatic art than this, for it is this, among other things, which sets him apart from Rameau's often disconcerting genius.

"According to a chansonnier published in 1750, 'In fine, the difference between Mondonville and Rameau is that the one amazes the ignorant through an excess of learning, forcing the connoisseur to admire his talent; the other, a less affected but more amiable Orpheus, flatters his listener and bring him within his grasp.'

"Mondonville certainly showed an innovative bent not only in his instrumental writing, with its use of harmonics and novel orchestration, but also in creating new genres, including harpsichord sonatas with violin accompaniment, vocal concertos and oratorios set to French words. But this is not the style of his operas, where he prefers to seduce his listeners with grace and tenderness, elegance, delicacy and lightness of approach. As the success of his works attests, they must be judged as the perfect embodiment of a taste that is typical of a refined century. As Caux de Cappeval wrote in his 'Apologie du goût françois', 'To glorify that taste which France may call her own, Rameau will be Virgil, as Lully once was Homer: baside them at the opera Mondonville now rises to support them, like some new constellation.' (Jean-Paul Burgos, 17th July 1991, tr. Stewart Spencer. From the liner notes.)

Performers: Ensemble Vocal Françoise Herr, Les Musiciens Du Louvre, Marc Minkowski, Jean-Paul Fouchécourt, Catherine Napoli, Philippe Huttenlocher, Jennifer Smith, Anne Monoyios

1.1. Ouverture

1.2. Prologue, Scène I: 'Dieux! Connaissez-vous D'autre Félicité'

1.3. Prologue, Scène I: 'Faisons De Leur Repos Rougir Les Immortels'

1.4. Prologue, Scène I: 'Esprits Soumis À Mon Empire, Que Ce Peuple S'anime'

1.5. Prologue, Scène I: Air Pour Les Esprits Du Feu

1.6. Prologue, Scène I: 'Soyez De L'Univers Le Plus Parfait Ouvrage'

1.7. Prologue, Scène I: Lent

1.8. Prologue, Scène I: 'Chantez Mortels'

1.9. Prologue, Scène I: 'Quelle Clarté Brille À Nos Yeux?'

1.10. Prologue, Scène I: 'Vous, Dont L'obéissance A Rempli Mes Souhaits'

1.11. Prologue, Scène I: Air Léger

1.12. Prologue, Scène I: 'Quelle Agréable Mélodie'

1.13. Prologue, Scène II: 'Lorsque Des Eléments J'ai Terminé La Guerre' (L'Amour, Prométhée)

1.14. Prologue, Scène II: 'Qu'on Ne Parle Que De Ta Gloire' (L'Amour, Prométhée, Chœur)

1.15. Prologue, Scène II: 'Vous, Qui De Tant D'attraits Embellissez Cythère'

1.16. Prologue, Scène II: Air Pour Les Grâces

1.17. Prologue, Scène II: Premièr Et Deuxième Gavottes

1.18. Prologue, Scène II: 'Jeunes Mortels, Livrez Vos Armes Aux Douceurs De La Volupté'

1.19. Prologue, Scène II: Air

1.20. Prologue, Scène II: 'De L'Amour Le Pouvoir Suprême'

1.21. Prologue, Scène II: 'Célébrons Le Dieu Des Amours'

1.22. Prologue, Scène II: Reprise De L'Ouverture

1.23. Acte I, Scène I: 'Que L'Aurore Tarde À Paraître'

1.24. Acte I, Scène II: 'Je Vous Revois Enfin'

1.25. Acte I, Scène II: 'Règne, Amour Dans Nos Âmes'

1.26. Acte I, Scène II: 'Bergers, Soyez Témoins De Nos Tendres Soupirs'

1.27. Acte I, Scène III: 'Célébrons L'amour Et L'Aurore'

1.28. Acte I, Scène III: Musette/'Votre Cœur, Aimable Aurore'

1.29. Acte I, Scène III: Air Pour Les Pâtres

1.30. Acte I, Scène III: Venez Sous Ce Riant Feuillage'

1.31. Acte I, Scène III: Air Léger

1.32. Acte I, Scène IV: Prélude/'Que Vois-je, Ô Ciel!'

1.33. Acte I, Scène IV: 'Vous Me Fuyez En Vain'

1.34. Acte I, Scène IV: 'Divinité Des Cœurs Jaloux'

1.35. Acte I, Scène V: 'Eole, Quel Sujet Cause Votre Fureur?'

1.36. Acte I, Scène V: 'Fiers Aquilons, Soumis À Mon Obéissance'

1.37. Acte I, Scène VI: 'Quel Succès, Quel Bonheur!'

1.38. Acte I, Scène VI: 'Tout Favorise Dans Ce Jour Mes Feux Et Ma Vengeance'

2.1. Acte II, Scène I: 'Dois-je Amour De Tant De Larmes'

2.2. Acte II, Scène II: 'L'Instant Ou L'on Perd Ce Qu'on Aime'

2.3. Acte II, Scène III: 'Avez-vous Adouci Les Regrets De L'Aurore?'

2.4. Acte II, Scène IV: 'Vents Furieux, Sortez De La Grotte Profonde'

2.5. Acte II, Scène IV: Air Pour Les Vents

2.6. Acte II, Scène IV: 'Partez, Et Que Titon Éprouve Ma Fureur'

2.7. Acte II, Scène V: 'Bergers, Je Connais Vos Malheurs'

2.8. Acte II, Scène V: Air Pour Les Nymphes

2.9. Acte II, Scène V: Air Lent Et Très Doux

2.10. Acte II, Scène V: 'Que Je Plains Les Cœurs Amoureux'

2.11. Acte II, Scène V: Rondeau

2.12. Acte II, Scène V: 'Ce Ruisseau Qui Dans La Plaine'

2.13. Acte II, Scène V: Première Et Deuxième Gavottes

2.14. Acte II, Scène V: 'Amour, Amour Lance Dans Nos Ames'

2.15. Acte II, Scène VI: 'Rien Ne Peut Dissiper L'ennui Qui Vous Dévore'

2.16. Acte II, Scène VII: 'Tu Vas Sentir Les Effets De Ma Rage'

2.17. Acte III, Scène I: Ritournelle

2.18. Acte III, Scène I: 'Avez-vous Triomphé Du Rival Que J'abhore!'

2.19. Acte III, Scène I: 'Ne Craignez Aucun Retour'

2.20. Acte III, Scène I: 'Pour Le Sauver, Vous Cherchez Un Détour'

2.21. Acte III, Scène I: 'Connaissez Votre Erreur'

2.22. Acte III, Scène I: 'Ah! Quel Plaisir Dans Nos Malheurs'

2.23. Acte III, Scène II: 'Que Vois-je?'

2.24. Acte III, Scène III: 'C'est La Voix De Titon'

2.25. Acte III, Scène III: 'Quels Sons Harmonieux? Quelle Clarté Nouvelle?'

2.26. Acte III, Scène IV: 'Ne Craignez Plus La Jalouse Vengeance De Palès'

2.27. Acte III, Scène IV: 'Quel Dieu M'anime Et Me Rend La Clarté?'

2.28. Acte III, Scène IV: 'Amour, Amour, Après Tant De Bienfaits'

2.29. Acte III, Scène IV: 'De Deux Parfaits Amants, Occupez Les Loisirs'

2.30. Acte III, Scène V: 'Chantons, Chantons La Gloire Et La Puissance'

2.31. Acte III, Scène V: Aria Et Altro

2.32. Acte III, Scène V: 'La Tourterelle Tendre Et Fidèle'

2.33. Acte III, Scène V: Rondeau En Chaconne

2.34. Acte III, Scène V: 'Du Dieu Des Cœurs, On Adore L'empire'

2.35. Acte III, Scène V: Contre Danse

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Georg Friedrich Händel - Agrippina

"In the summer of 1703 the eighteen-year-old Handel left his native Halle for Hamburg, where he found work at the Gansemarkt opera house, gradually rising through the ranks from back-desk violinist until his first opera, 'Almira', was premiered there in January 1705. Less than two months later, the Gansemarkt produced his second opera, 'Nero', the music for which is lost, though Friedrich Christian Feustking's libretto has a plot similar to that of Busenello's 'L'incoronazione di Poppea'. By mid-1706, having become increasingly fascinated by Italianate music, Handel resolved to travel to Italy at his own expense to develop his craft. By the end of the year he was in Rome, and was to spend the next three years in the Italian peninsula.

"He wrote an opera for the Teatro di via del Cocomero in Florence (Rodrigo, 30 October 1707) and a serenata for an aristocratic wedding celebration near Naples ('Aci, Galatea e Polifemo', on or around 19 July 1708), but seems to have passed most of his time in Rome, where he composed his first two oratorios 'Il trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno' (probably for its librettist Cardinal Benedetto Pamphili, in early 1707) and 'La Resurrezione' (for Marquis Francesco Maria Ruspoli, and performed on Easter Sunday, 1708) and spectacular church music composed between April and July 1707, including music for Vespers, Dixit Dominus and numerous Marian motets. He also wrote a large number of secular cantatas. The majority of these were intimate settings of Arcadian poetry for one singer with continuo accompaniment; a few were larger pastoral dramas, featuring several characters and imaginative use of small orchestras, and others were scaled somewhere in between; a few were intensely dramatic miniature tragedies. Although they date from Handel's entire period in Italy, most of these cantatas were composed in Rome for patrons who were leading lights of the Accademia degli Arcadi ('Arcadian Academy'), a group of literary, artistic, musical and aristocratic cognoscenti whose reformist ideas aimed to purify the corrupting indulgence of contemporary writing through the restoration of classical Greek simplicity.

"Having achieved as much as he could without converting to Roman Catholicism, it seems that Handel then resolved to seek a permanent position in suitably Protestant climes. In late 1709 he travelled north to Florence and then to Venice, where, according to his first biographer John Mainwaring (London, 1760), he was recognised whilst playing the harpsichord at a masked ball:

"'Being thus detected, he was strongly importuned to compose an Opera. But there was so little prospect of either honour or advantage from such an under-taking, that he was very unwilling to engage in it. At last, however, he consented, and in three weeks he finished his 'Agrippina', which was performed twenty-seven nights successively [...] The audience was so enchanted with this performance, that a stranger who should have seen the manner in which they were affected, would have imagined they had all been distracted.

"'The theatre, at almost every pause, resounded with shouts and acclamations of 'viva il caro Sassone!' and other expressions of approbation too extra-vagant to be mentioned. They were thunderstruck with the grandeur and sublimity of his style: for never had they known till then all the powers of harmony and modulation so closely arrayed, and so forcibly combined.'

"The exact dates of Agrippina's composition are unknown, but it was certainly written on Venetian paper with Handel's customary speed shortly before the first performance at the Teatro Grimani di San Giovanni Grisostomo in Venice on 26 December 1709, a couple of months before Handel's twenty-fifth birthday. The title-role was sung by Margherita Durastanti, who had begun her long association with Handel two years earlier in Rome; it is possible that she was replaced in some later performances by the Bolognese soprano Elena Croce Viviani. The cast also included Diamante Maria Scarabelli (Poppea, soprano), Valeriano Pellegrini (Nerone, soprano castrato), Antonio Francesco Carli (Claudio, bass), Francesca Vanini-Boschi (Ottone, contralto), her husband Giuseppe Boschi (Pallante, bass), Giuliano Albertini (Narciso, alto castrato) and Nicola Pasini (Lesbo, bass). The identity of the alto who sang the goddess Giunone in the opera's concluding Deus ex machina is unknown. On 11 February 1710, the London newspaper The Post-Boy reported the previous month's news from Venice:

"'Mr. Hendle's Opera, which is now performed at San Giovani Chrysostomo, is the best that ever was heard for the Musick; but the Words are but indifferent. Albino[n]i's Opera at San Cassan is also very well lik'd, both for the Words and Musick.'

"This is the only known contemporary reception of 'Agrippina'; it is also the earliest mention of Handel in an English newspaper — about eight months before he set first foot in the country that would eventually become his permanent home.

"Despite The Post-Boy's low opinion, the libretto is one of the finest that Handel set to music. Its author was almost certainly Cardinal Vincenzo Grimani (1652/5-1710), a member of the wealthy Venetian patrician family that had owned and run several of, the city's opera houses for two generations. His father Antonio and uncle Giovanni built and managed the Teatro SS Giovanni e Paolo (which opened in 1639), and in 1678 Vincenzo and his brother Giovanni Carlo inaugurated their magnificent new theatre just behind the church of San Giovanni Grisostomo, a tiny parish in the Cannaregio district not far from the Rialto (on the site of the present-day Teatro Malibran). By 1700 Venice had about sixteen opera houses, but San Giovanni Grisostomo was the largest: its stage had a particularly large proscenium and powerful stage machinery, and the auditorium was decorated with gilded boxwood reliefs and had five tiers of thirty-one boxes each, with another four on either side of the stage; including the parterre, its capacity is estimated to have been more than 1,400. It quickly established a reputation as Venice's foremost opera house, attracting the best singers and composers until well into the eighteenth century.

"At the time of Handel's arrival in Venice in late 1709, Giovanni Carlo Grimani's home was the regular meeting place of the local branch of the Arcadian Academy, so we can imagine a social connection occurring between the young Saxon visitor and the theatre's co-owner. Vincenzo Grimani had not let being ordained to the priesthood prevent him from writing the librettos 'Elmiro Re di Corinto' (set by Carlo Pallavicino for carnival, 1686/7) and 'Orazio' (set by Giuseppe Felice Tosi, 1687/8). It seems likely that his 'Agrippina' originated during the same period but was not used, perhaps because its author was banished from Venice in 1690 after the French complained about his overtly pro-Habsburg political sympathies when negotiating an alliance between the Duchy of Savoy and the Holy Roman Empire. Nevertheless, in 1697 Grimani was elevated to the rank of cardinal. Although pardoned by the Venetian Republic, he spent the remainder of his life working for the Habsburgs; on 1 July 1708 he took up his appointment as the Viceroy of Naples, where he might briefly have encountered Handel — although they had probably met in Rome in 1706-8, when Grimani was the Holy Roman Empire's representative to the Vatican. The cardinal was busy with official duties in Naples throughout the entire period of the commission, composition and performances of 'Agrippina', so it is unlikely that author and composer collaborated directly. An old spare text lying around from twenty years earlier was probably picked out for Handel, whose judicious self-borrowing from his own recent Roman and Neapolitan works (both music and words) suggests that it was refashioned for his purposes in collaboration with one or more unknown Venetian poets associated with the Grimani family's flagship theatre.

"The plot is drawn from the histories of Tacitus and Suetonius, and the drama is set in Rome, c.50 AD. The ambitious Julia Agrippina (fourth wife of the Emperor Claudius and sister of Caligula) schemes to put her son Nero (from a previous marriage to the consul Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus) on the throne. It is reported that Claudius has died in a shipwreck on his way back from an invasion of Britain. Having secured the loyalty of the influential and wealthy freedmen Marcus Antonius Pallas and Narcissus, Agrippina attempts to proclaim her son emperor - but is thwarted when news arrives that Claudius was rescued from drowning by Marcus Salvius Otho, whose reward is to be named the emperor's successor. Agrippina discredits Otho and deceives his lover Poppaca Sabina (who also fends off amorous attentions from Claudius and Nero), and when her increasingly desperate intrigues fail, she cunningly twists the truth to create an illusion of her political and emotional fidelity. Claudius reconfirms Otho as his heir and instructs Nero to marry Poppaca, but Otho renounces the throne rather than lose Poppaea— which suits Nero very well, and brings about the triumph of his devious mother. The goddess Juno descends to bless the marriage of Poppaca and Otho.

"Agrippina is a comedy of antiheroic characters with an unquenchable thirst for political and sexual power, whose amoral, corrupt and decadent intrigues are shown as intrinsic parts of everyday life among ancient Rome's ruling class. The pervasive tone of irony and humour in the subject matter is the natural by-product of a Venetian text much closer in spirit to the mischievous world view found in the operas of Cavalli and his successors than to the virtuous heroism and moral integrity championed by Apostolo Zeno, Pietro Pariati and Metastasio, the Arcadian-inspired librettists active in Venice during the first few decades of the eighteenth century. Beneath the satirical surface of Agrippina, Handel's inventive musical treatments and youthful playfulness bring to the fore an unusually wide range of emotions as his characters display by turns seductive charm, deceit, exasperation, naivety, despair, barely controlled lust, fury and gleeful one-upmanship, as well as genuine tenderness and sincere love (Poppea and Ottone are not yet the characters we find in 'L'incoronazione di Poppea', although Nerone is well on his way there).

"Handel's music vividly portrays this emotional roller coaster, notwithstanding the fact that about seventy-five per cent of the score was remodelled from works he had written in Italy over the previous three years. The opening section of the overture was adapted from the Marian motet 'Donna, che in ciel di tanta luce splendi' (probably performed in Rome on 2 February 1707). Narciso's enthusiastic reply to Agrippina's suggestive proposal in Act 1 Scene 5 ('Volo pronto', with chirpy recorders) was based on an aria from the continuo cantata L'ungi da me, pensier tiranno' (copied in August 1709 for Ruspoli in Rome). Pallante's amorous response to the same promise ('La mia sorte fortunata', I:3) was based on the jealous Polyphemus getting hot under the collar in the Neapolitan serenata 'Adi, Galatea e Polifemo', while an aria for the sea-nymph Galatea was the basis for Poppea's 'Vaghe perle', the delightful music refitted for our first encounter with the vain beauty, gleefully admiring herself in a mirror. Claudio's seductive 'Vieni, O cara' is refashioned from a slow moment in the soprano motet 'Saeviat tellus inter rigores' (probably for Carmelite vespers feasts in Rome, July 1707). From his first oratorio 'Il trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno', Handel reworked musical material for Ottone's lonely 'Vaghe fonti', the pastoral lament with bubbling recorders evoking fountains modelled after Disinganno's 'Crede l'uom', while 'Come nube che fugge dal vento' reapplied the malevolent fury of Piacere to the psychopathic Nerone revealing his true nature in a violent tantrum: scolded by his exasperated mother for ruining his chances of becoming emperor, Nerone declares that he will abandon any interest in Poppea - a protestation that we know from history to be untrue. Two bass arias from 'La Resurrezione' were adapted, one for Claudio's boast of being conqueror of the world ('Cade il mondo', based on Lucifer's claim to have defeated God in 'Caddi, è ver'), the second for Pallante's devious promise to fulfil his part in Agrippina's murderous plot ('Col raggio placido', based on Lucifer's infernal 'O voi dell'Erebo').

"Durastanti was given several arias based on music she had sung previously for Handel in Rome, most notably 'Ho un non so che nel cor' - Mary Magdalene's words and music from 'La Resurrezione' changed only slightly to transform joy at Christ's resurrection into Agrippina's encouragement to the anxious Poppea to carry out her instructions (I:18), Perhaps Durastanti had sung the earlier incarnation of 'Non ho cor che per amarti' (I:23) in the cantata 'Qual ti riveggio, oh Dio' (Rome, 1707), and she had certainly performed the original version of 'Ogni vento, ch'al porta'; the lilting Act 1 finale, where it appears that Agrippina has secured everything she desires, was based on the fickle Fillide's 'Fiamma bella che al ciel s'invia' from the pastoral cantata 'Arvesta il passo' (Rome, 1708). Moreover, Agrippina's final aria 'Se vuoi pace? (III:I4, in which she appears to offer calm counsel to her beleaguered husband) was based on an aria Durastanti had sung as the two-timing minx 'Chloris in Clori, Tirsi e Fileno' (Rome, 1707). Several of the arias in the opera recycled music from Roman cantatas that were initially constructed using borrowings from works by Reinhard Keiser, six of them from his Hamburg opera 'Octavia' (1705) in which Handel had probably played in the orchestra.

"Poppea's 'Se giunge un dispetto' (which concludes Act 1, at which point she believes Ottone has betrayed her) is based on an aria from 'Tis fedel? tn costante?', and Ottone's lament 'Voi che udite il mio lamento' (II:5) contains material adapted from 'Alpestre monte' — both cantatas that might have originated in Florence, c. 1706-7. Agrippina's soliloquy 'Pensieri, voi mi tormentate' (II:13), her most private moment in the opera and one that exposes her anxieties as she desperately plots a triple murder to cover her treason, is a transformation of a jagged musical idea for unison strings that Handel had initially utilised for the comparably worried eponymous anti-hero midway through Rodrigo ('Siete assai superbe, o stelle'); for Agrippina's show-stealing prayer to the gods to aid her intrigues, Handel added a tormented solo oboe part, reinvented the string parts and created a new and much tauter voice part.

"Handel's autograph lacks the overture and the first, folio of the opening scene, but contains a large amount of material that he cancelled, transferred or substituted during the compositional process. A neater performing score would have been prepared for use during the 1709/10 Venice carnival, but is now missing. However, it appears to have been copied in its entirety at two different stages of the original production's run of performances. Both of the early manuscript copies are written on Venetian paper-types of the right period and the first of these, now in the British Library, appears to have been made shortly before or soon after the premiere: it contains Agrippina's 'Se vuoi pace' in F major, in accordance with Handel's instruction in the autograph for it to be transposed up from E major, and confirms that the 'Deus ex machina' for Giunone was performed after the chorus 'Lieto il Tebro'. The second copy; now held in the Austrian National Library, was probably made after the end of the run of performances; by this time, Poppea's 'Ingannata una sol volta' (II:8) had been replaced by a new aria and the final scene for Giunone had been cut. Both copies confirm that Handel's original setting of 'Pensieri, voi mi tormentate' was replaced by a new version that was, recomposed, condensed and without the unexpected coda. This recording follows customary modern-day practice in preferring Handel's first and more complex version of the scene, Other differences between Handel's autograph and the first performance are preserved in the libretto printed by Marino Rossetti (Venice, 1709), which also clarifies scene headings, stage directions and numerous small points of spelling and text. The wordbook contains a list of stage settings that includes three ballets for Germans ('Di Tedeschi'), Gardeners ('Di Giardinier') and Knights and Ladies ('Di Cavalieri, e Dame'), but their positions are not cued cither in the libretto or in the musical sources and it cannot be assumed that the lost dance music was by Handel. Moreover, after Giunone's aria at the end of the opera, the wordbook prints 'Segue il Ballo di Deita seguaci di Giunone' (There follows a dance for deities, attendants of Juno), but no music for this is known.

"A new performing edition was prepared for this recording by Peter Jones and the present author. It predominantly reconstructs the text and music given at the first performance. This means that we have chosen the shorter middle section of Ottone's 'Lusinghiera mia speranza' (I:13) and the slightly shortened version of Claudio's 'Pur ritorno a rimirarvi' (I:21). Handel's extensively recomposed final version of 'Se giunge un dispetto' has only superficial similarities to the rejected first version usually heard on other recordings. This performance adopts the simplified second section of the chorus 'Di timpani e trombe' (II:3) and prefers Handel's second setting of Nerone's 'Sotto il lauro' (14) in B-flat major because it captures Nerone's sneering mockery of Ottone's misfortune more adroitly than Handel's rejected siciliano-like E minor first setting.

"'Bella pur nel mio diletto', an elaborate virtuoso aria for Poppea in Act II Scene 6, featuring two concertante oboes and fully scored for four-part strings, was never performed by Handel. It was replaced before the first performance with 'Spera, alma mia', an entirely different text printed in the 1709 wordbook but for which no music survives. Musicologists John H. Roberts and John E. Sawyer both point out that 'Spera, alma mia' is probably a parody text that perfectly fits a simple continuo aria borrowed from 'Il trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno' that Handel had already tried unsuccessfully to accommodate twice during the composition of Agrippina. It is recorded here in its proper context for the first time; its gentle intimacy conveys Poppea's sorrow and her uneasiness about Ottone's alleged guilt, and forms a more effective dramatic transition from Ottone's preceding soliloquy than 'Bella pur'. We have opted for the recomposed setting of Poppea's 'Ingannata una sol volta' (II:8), and Agrippina' 'Se vuoi pace' is given in its F major transposition.

"A small number of Handel's rejected ideas from his autograph have been reinstated. In addition to the first version of 'Pensicri, voi mi tormentate' we use the slightly more elaborate setting of Lesbo's arietta 'Allegrezzal!' (I:10), as he bursts in after the trumpet fanfare that heralds Claudio's safe return (the fanfare was probably improvised, but to announce the emperor's miraculous return from the grave we could not resist the mischievous appropriation of the trumpet parts from the Angel's proclamatory first aria in 'La Resurrezione'). We have reinstated a two-bar phrase that Handel deleted at the harmonically twisting climax of Ottone's suffering in 'Voi che udite il mio lamento' (on the phrase 'il mio dolor'), valuing the prolonged emotional tension it offers at the epicentre of the opera; having been unjustly scorned and abandoned by each of the characters in turn, Ottone expresses his misery echoed by a doleful oboe and the resolutions of chromatic clashing suspensions for the strings in F minor express pathos and catharsis.

"The final post-chorus scene for Giunone is included but does not form a suitable climax to the entertainment — so the 'Balli' for the followers of Juno are reconstructed using five dances selected from an orchestral suite now bound in Handel's autograph of 'Rodrigo'. Curiously, the entire overture-suite is on Venetian paper, whereas the rest of Rodrigo was written on Roman paper in advance of Handel travelling from Rome to Florence for the opera's production in autumn 1707. Perhaps these folios originated as ballet music in 'Agrippina'. We have sequenced a lively Gigue, an elegant Sarabande, an energetic Bourrée (that corresponds to Giunone's aria), a graceful Menuet (that has the same music as the chorus 'Lieto il Tebro'), and we conclude with an exquisite Passacaille.

"An aria for Poppea after the recitative in I:19, 'Fa' quanto vuoi', was cut before the first performance. Instead, the action proceeded directly into the following scene, leaving Poppea no time to question whether the devious Agrippina has told the truth about Ottone's betrayal before having to fend off the advances of Claudio. The little animated continuo aria (with closing ritornello for four-part strings) has often been restored to its envisaged context in modern productions and recordings; listeners can choose for themselves whether to reinstate it.

"The sincere love duet 'No, no, ch'io non apprezzo' for Poppea and Ottone originally ended II:10, a moment of calm and tenderness following the farcical storm of comings and goings in Poppea's bedroom. Handel adapted the duet from the Roman cantata 'Il duello amoroso' (August 1708), in which the frustrated Daliso and disinterested Amarilli express bitter cynicism about love. Almost identical musical material would have represented the exact opposite sentiment for Ottone and Poppea in Agrippina, but Handel discarded the duet and instead prepared two increasingly different and longer schemes for the scene before he or his singers were satisfied. If listeners want to reconstruct Handel's concise first plan for II:10, culminating in the two lovers joining blissfully together, their duet can replace Ottone's declaration of love in his exit aria 'Pur ch'io ti stringa al sen' (also adapted from 'Il duello amoroso') and Poppea's giddy expression of joy (the recitative 'Piega pur del mio cor' and aria 'Bel piacere'), before proceeding to Nerone complaining to his mother in III:I I. (David Vickers. From the liner notes.)

Performers: Il Pomo d'Oro, Maxim Emelyanychev, Joyce DiDonato, Franco Fagioli, Elsa Benoit, Luca Pisaroni, Jakub Józef Orliński, Andrea Mastroni, Carlo Vistoli, Biagio Pizzuti, Marie-Nicole Lemieux

1.1. Sinfonia

1.2. Atto I, Scena I: 'Nerone, Amato Figlio'

1.3. Atto I, Scena I: 'Col Saggio Tuo Consiglio'

1.4. Atto I, Scena II: 'Per Cosi Grand'impresa'

1.5. Atto I, Scena III: 'A' Cenni Tuoi Sovrani'

1.6. Atto I, Scena III: 'La Mia Sorte Fortunata'

1.7. Atto I, Scena IV: 'Or Che Pallante È Vinto'

1.8. Atto I, Scena V: 'Umile Alle Tue Piante'

1.9. Atto I, Scena V: 'Volo Pronto'

1.10. Atto I, Scena VI: 'Quanto Fa, Quanto Puote'

1.11. Atto I, Scena VI: 'L'alma Mia Fra Le Tempeste'

1.12. Atto I, Scena VII: 'Qual Piacer'

1.13. Atto I, Scena VII: 'Amici, Al Sen Vi Stringo'

1.14. Atto I, Scena VIII: 'Ecco Chi Presto'

1.15. Atto I, Scena IX: 'Voi, Che Dell'alta Roma'

1.16. Atto I, Scena IX: 'Il Tuo Figlio'/'La Tua Prole'

1.17. Atto I, Scena IX: 'Ma Qual Di Liete Trombe'

1.18. Atto I, Scena X: 'Allegrezza, Allegrezza!'

1.19. Atto I, Scena X: 'Che Sento!'

1.20. Atto I, Scena XI: 'Alle Tue Piante, O Augusta'

1.21. Atto I, Scena XII: 'Augusta, Amo Poppea'

1.22. Atto I, Scena XII: 'Tu Ben Degno'

1.23. Atto I, Scena XIII: 'L'ultima Del Gioir'

1.24. Atto I, Scena XIII: 'Lusinghiera Mia Speranza'

1.25. Atto I, Scena XIV: 'Vaghe Perle'

1.26. Atto I, Scena XIV: 'Otton, Claudio, Nerone'

1.27. Atto I, Scena XV: 'Signora, O Mia Signora!'

1.28. Atto I, Scena XVI: 'Di Lieta Nuova'

1.29. Atto I, Scena XVII: 'Perché Invece Di Claudio'

1.30. Atto I, Scena XVII: 'È Un Foco Quel D'amore'

1.31. Atto I, Scena XVIII: '(Ma Qui Agrippina Viene)'

1.32. Atto I, Scena XVIII: 'Ho Un Non So Che Nel Cor'

1.33. Atto I, Scena XIX: 'Cieli, Quai Strani Casi'

1.34. Atto I, Scena XX: 'Non Veggo Alcun'

1.35. Atto I, Scena XXI: 'Pur Ritorno A Rimirarvi'

1.36. Atto I, Scena XXI: 'Ma, O Ciel, Mesta E Confusa'

1.37. Atto I, Scena XXI: 'Vieni, O Cara'

1.38. Atto I, Scena XXI: '(Che Mai Farò?)'

1.39. Atto I, Scena XXII: 'Signor, Signor, Presto'

1.40. Atto I, Scena XXII: 'E Quando Mai / Quando Vorrai'

1.41. Atto I, Scena XXII: 'Pur Al Fin Se N'andò'

2.1. Atto I, Scena XXIII: 'O Mia Liberatrice'

2.2. Atto I, Scena XXIII: 'Non Ho Cor Che Per Amarti'

2.3. Atto I, Scena XXIV: 'Se Ottone M'ingannò'

2.4. Atto I, Scena XXIV: 'Se Giunge Un Dispetto'

2.5. Atto II, Scena I: 'Dunque Noi Siam Traditi'

2.6. Atto II, Scena II: 'Coronato Il Crin D'alloro'

2.7. Atto II, Scena II: 'Roma, Più Ch'il Trionfo'

2.8. Atto II, Scena III: Preludio

2.9. Atto II, Scena III: 'Ecco Il Superbo'

2.10. Atto II, Scena III: 'Di Timpani E Trombe'

2.11. Atto II, Scena IV: 'Nella Britannia Vinta'

2.12. Atto II, Scena IV: 'Cade Il Mondo'

2.13. Atto II, Scena IV: 'Signor, Quanto Il Mio Cuore'

2.14. Atto II, Scena IV: 'Nulla Sperar Da Me'

2.15. Atto II, Scena IV: 'E Tu Poppea'

2.16. Atto II, Scena IV: 'Tuo Ben È Il Trono'

2.17. Atto II, Scena IV: 'Soccorri Almen Nerone'

2.18. Atto II, Scena IV: 'Sotto Il Lauro'

2.19. Atto II, Scena IV: 'Scherzo Son'

2.20. Atto II, Scena V: 'Otton, Otton'

2.21. Atto II, Scena V: 'Voi Ch'udite'

2.22. Atto II, Scena VI: 'Spera, Alma Mia'

2.23. Atto II, Scena VI: 'Il Tormento D'Ottone'

2.24. Atto II, Scena VII: '(Par Che Amor Sia)'

2.25. Atto II, Scena VII: 'Vaghe Fonti'

2.26. Atto II, Scena VII: 'Ma Qui Che Veggo'

2.27. Atto II, Scena VII: 'Fantasme Della Mente'

2.28. Atto II, Scena VII: 'Ti Vuo' Giusta'

2.29. Atto II, Scena VIII: 'Da Quali Ordite Trame'

2.30. Atto II, Scena VIII: 'Ingannata Una Sol Volta'

2.31. Atto II, Scena IX: 'Pur Alfin Ti Ritrovo'

2.32. Atto II, Scena X: 'A Non Pochi Perigli'

2.33. Atto II, Scena XI: 'Son Qui, Mia Vita'

2.34. Atto II, Scena XI: 'Col Peso Del Tuo Amor'

2.35. Atto II, Scena XII: 'Qual Bramato Piacere'

2.36. Atto II, Scena XII: 'Quando Invita'

2.37. Atto II, Scena XIII: 'Pensieri, Voi Mi Tormentate'/'Quel Ch'oprai'

2.38. Atto II, Scena XIV: 'Se Ben Nemica Sorte'

2.39. Atto II, Scena XIV: 'Col Raggio Placido'

2.40. Atto II, Scena XV: 'Di Giunger Non Dispero'

2.41. Atto II, Scena XVI: 'Or È Tempo'

2.42. Atto II, Scena XVI: 'Spererò, Poiché Mel Dice'

3.1. Atto II, Scena XVII: 'Per Dar La Pace Al Core'

3.2. Atto II, Scena XVIII: 'A Vagheggiar Io Vengo'

3.3. Atto II, Scena XIX: 'Signor, Poppea'

3.4. Atto II, Scena XIX: 'Basta Che Sol Tu Chieda'

3.5. Atto II, Scena XX: 'Favorevol La Sorte'

3.6. Atto II, Scena XX: 'Ogni Vento'

3.7. Atto III, Scena I: 'Il Caro Otton'

3.8. Atto III, Scena II: 'Ah, Mia Poppea'

3.9. Atto III, Scena II: 'Tacerò'

3.10. Atto III, Scena III: 'Attendo Qui Nerone'

3.11. Atto III, Scena IV: 'Anelante Ti Reco'

3.12. Atto III, Scena IV: 'Coll'ardor Del Tuo Bel Core'

3.13. Atto III, Scena V: 'Amico Ciel'

3.14. Atto III, Scena VI: 'Qui Non V'è Alcun'

3.15. Atto III, Scena VII: 'Temerario Insolente'

3.16. Atto III, Scena VIII: 'Ora, Claudio, Che Dici?'

3.17. Atto III, Scena VIII: 'Io Di Roma'

3.18. Atto III, Scena IX: 'Pur Alfin Se N'andò'

3.19. Atto III, Scena X: 'Ora Ottone, Che Dici?'

3.20. Atto III, Scena X: 'Pur Ch'io Ti Stringa Al Sen'

3.21. Atto III, Scena X: 'Piega Pur Del Mio Cor'

3.22. Atto III, Scena X: 'Bel Piacere'

3.23. Atto III, Scena XI: 'Cotanto Osò Poppea?'

3.24. Atto III, Scena XI: 'Come Nube'

3.25. Atto III, Scena XII: 'Evvi Donna Più Empia?'

3.26. Atto III, Scena XIII: 'Agrippina, Nerone'

3.27. Atto III, Scena XIV: 'Adorato Mio Sposo'

3.28. Atto III, Scena XIV: 'Se Vuoi Pace'

3.29. Atto III, Scena XV: 'Ecco La Mia Rivale'

3.30. Atto III, Scena XV: 'Lieto Il Tebro'

3.31. Atto III, Scena XVI: 'D'Ottone E Di Poppea'

3.32. Atto III, Scena XVI: 'V'accendano Le Tede'

3.33. Atto Terzo, Balli: Gigue

3.34. Atto Terzo, Balli: Sarabande

3.35. Atto Terzo, Balli: Bourrée

3.36. Atto Terzo, Balli: Menuet

3.37. Atto Terzo, Balli: Passacaille

3.38. Appendix. Atto I, Scena XIX: 'Fa' Quanto Vuoi'

3.39. Appendix. Atto III, Scena X: 'No, No, Ch'io Non Apprezzo'

flac/16-bit

Marc-Antoine Charpentier - Médée

"Reporting on the premiere performances of 'Médée' at the Academie de la Musique (the Opéra) in Paris in December 1693, the monthly Mercure Galant enthused. Louis XIV had accepted the dedication to him of the work, though neither its composer Marc-Antoine Charpentier nor its librettist Thomas Corneille were in his service, and His Majesty had been heard to say of Charpentier that 'He was convinced that [Charpentier] was an able man, and He knew that there were very fine things in his opera.' Of ten performances, the Grand Dauphin had attended two, and Monsieur (the king's brother) four. Marthe Le Rochois, the most celebrated soprano of the era, had portrayed Medea 'with warmth, subtlety and intelligence.' In the libretto of Corneille (younger brother of the more celebrated Pierre), 'The emotions are so vivid in it that, even if the role [of Medea] were only to be spoken, it would not fail to make a great impression on the audience.' In sum, 'true connoisseurs found many admirable passages in the opera 'Médée.' 

 

"But not everyone agreed with the gossipy monthly's opinion — especially since the Mercure was exceptionally partial to Charpentier, its editor having collaborated several times with the composer (and with Corneille, too). A more impartial report, if much later, would seem to be that of Sebastien de Brossard, composer and erudite music scholar; writing in 1724, Brossard said: "[The opera 'Médée'] is unquestionably the most expert and exquisite of all that have been published, at least since the death of M. de Lully; and although thanks to cabals of the envious and ignorant it was not received by the public as well as it deserved, or even as well as many others, it is this one, more than all other operas without exception, from which may be learned the essentials of good composition.' 

 

"Note the qualification: '...at least since the death of M. de Lully.' Jean-Baptiste Lully, born in Florence in 1632 but at the French royal court from 1646, and at the time of his death in 1687 effectively composer-laureate of the realm, was still being considered — thirty-seven years later, and by an unprejudiced and learned musician — the unparalleled musical dramatist of France. This suggests who were behind the 'cabals of the envious and ignorant' that doomed Charpentier's 'Médée': Lullistes, faithful to the memory of the late Superintendent of the King's Music, who had virtually invented French opera with a series of annual 'tragédies en musique' beginning with 'Cadmus et Hermione' (1673) and culminating with 'Armide' (1686). For such Lullistes, Charpentier — who had been shaped as a composer in Rome under Giacomo Carissimi — was the enemy: not a composer of 'pure' French music but one who had been seduced by the 'excesses' of Italian Baroque music. And 'Médée' was indeed doomed, at least for almost three hundred years. Charpentier's score was printed in 1694 under royal privilege, and the opera made an abortive appearance in Lille in 1700 (a fire destroyed the decors and the opera's run had to be cancelled). But then it was forgotten and never heard integrally again until 1984 — in a Robert Wilson/Michel Corboz production at the Opera de Lyon and in a different version recorded by Les Arts Florissants under William Christie, which was revised and given a triumphant stage production in 1993-94, giving rise to the present recording. And now that we are able to take the full measure of the work, it is generally agreed that Med& is Charpentier's consummate masterpiece. 

 

"Ironically, 'Médée' is very much a Lullian opera —in its external form (prologue and five acts); its subject matter (classical myth); its literary style (poetic throughout, and versified mostly in couplets and quatrains of alexandrines); its precise declamation and text-dominated vocalism (as opposed to the Italians' music-dominated, aria-filled 'concerts in costume'; its exotic and fantastic divertissements rich in song-and-dance delights (one in every act but the last); its substantial choruses; its double orchestra (a full grand chœur — with strings in five parts, winds, trumpets, and percussion — aerated often with a petit chœur of solo instruments in three parts) and of course an accompanimental basse continue of semi-improvising harpsichords, lutes, and bowed and blown bass instruments. Having said that in 'Médée' Charpentier and Corneille accepted the Lullian mould of the tragédie lyrique, one must immediately insist on the ways they broke the mould. First of all, Charpentier filled the opera with some of his most magnificent music, sustaining the inspiration throughout a very long work. The elements of his personal style shine all through it: a unique synthesis of lyrical, warmly Italianate vocalism and precise French declamation; a rich harmonic palette abounding in poignant chromaticism and evocative dissonances; a unique vocal arioso for the solo recits; a flair for unusual orchestral colors; and a magisterial command of instrumental and choral polyphony. 

 

"One is perhaps struck most by the sheer theatricality of 'Médée' and its powerful evocation of diverse characters and the complete range of their emotions. As the French scholar Catherine Massip has emphasized, this is 'an opera whose subtlety and complexity are found as much in its dramatic texture as in Charpentier's response to the libretto.' Like virtually every earlier playwright reworking the legend of Jason and Medea, Thomas Corneille had his own slant on it. Unlike the versions of Euripides, Seneca, and even his older brother, Corneille begins his account with the first days in Corinth of Medea and Jason (Medea having fled her own country with Jason after he acquired the Golden Fleece, and having borne his children) and with Jason's infatuation with the Corinthian princess Creusa, daughter of King Creon. Corneille portrays Jason as a weak-willed anti-hero — irresolute, impressionable, and opportunistic — while his Medea is a complex character —aware of her supernatural powers; jealous but proud; wanting acceptance as a desirable woman rather than rejection as a rank outsider, as a loving mother rather than a sorceress; and resistant to believing the worst about the man she loves, though, when she does, resolving, 'Et que le crime nous separe/Comme le crime nous a joints' ('And may murder separate us/Just as murder has united us.') 

 

"At the moment of that resolution (Act III, scene 4), Corneille and Charpentier climactically invoke sorcery and black magic. Understandably: the 1680s had been full of them, at court and in Paris. The scandals of the 'Affaire of the Poisons,' which led to many trials and tortures, convictions and deaths, and in which even the king's longtime mistress, Madame de Montespan, had been implicated, was on everyone's lips. So, of course: sorcery in 'Médée.' But, as Jean-Marie Villegier, director of the production of Les Arts Florissants, has written, one of the opera's main subtexts is that 'Even if woman is a sorceress, this sorceress is a woman.' 

 

"Charpentier brings to Corneille's libretto an extraordinary sensitivity to dramatic nuance, his music powerfully conveying human passions and affects. The Prologue leaves little room for such characterization: it is antiseptically allegorical, all about the peaceable reign (!) of Louis XIV. (Such a prologue, on such a theme, was obligatory under the Sun King.) Pleasant vocal trios are echoed in choruses punctuated by bright orchestral ritournelles. Toward the end, a chain of cheerful dances - loure, canaries, menuet, passepied - confirms a message of peaceful pleasures: 'Le bruit des tambours, des trompettes / Ne viendra point troubler nos jeux.' ('The noise of drums and trumpets/Shall no more disturb our games.') 

 

"In Act I, Charpentier swiftly plunges us deep into Medea's passionate, proud, fierce character. Her big récit 'S 'il me vole son cœur, si la princesse y règne,/De plus grands efforts feront voir/Ce qu'est Médée et son pouvoir' (If his heart has been stolen, if the Princess holds sway there,/Greater efforts will reveal/Who Medea is, and what are her powers') has a unique accompaniment, pulsing with barely contained power; and the récit, which establishes the main theme of the drama, is framed with angry, rushing passagework for the strings. In the divertissement that concludes the act, Charpentier is careful to distinguish the four-part Chorus of Corinthians (initially offstage, a nice coup de theatre and a great novelty) from the three-part Chorus of Argians. In Act II, we meet Medea as mother, and her softer side is deftly suggested, especially in the accompaniment, for soft strings and two gentle flutes, of her récit 'Princesse, c'est sur vous que mon espoir se fonde' ('Princess, 'tis upon you that my hopes are founded.') This act also closes with a divertissement, a fantasy in which the nubile Creusa is addressed by Cupid and 'Captifs d'amour de plusieurs nations' ('Slaves of Love from several nations') (including Italy, of course, as an excuse for a distinctly Italianate air, to an Italian text); the concluding 'Passecaille en rondeau' finds the chorus alternating with a vocal trio, representing 'Three Slaves of Love,' that is enchantingly reminiscent of sixteenth-century chanson style. The dramatic tension deepens and intensifies in Act III. Medea has several powerful monologues, each differentiated sonorously and rhythmically. The first 'Quel prix de mon amour?' ('Such is the price of love') is rounded off with a return to the opening lines of text, but with subtle reshaping of their music. The second 'C'en est fait, on m'y force' ('But it's all over, I'm forced to it') displays the angry Medea, competing once again with rushing strings. Her resolution to turn to malignant sorcery is forcefully projected in both 'Noires filles du Styx' ('Black daughters of the Styx'), with a string accompaniment kept low and dark, and 'Dieu du Cocyte et des royaumes sombres' ('God of Cocytus and of the dark kingdoms,') even more darkly scored. These two récits are integrated into a divertissement that introduces fantastic creatures — snarling Vengeance and Jealousy, and a crowd of Demons. 

 

"Act IV begins with a delicately chromatic prelude for two flutes, two violins, and continuo: our first view of Creusa clad in the deceptively beautiful poisoned robe given her by Medea 'Jamais on ne la vit si belle' ('Never has she looked so beautiful.') Charpentier composes a stunning love scene for Creusa and Jason beginning with lyrical solos for each, out of the 'air de cour' tradition; the dialogue ends with a brief, wistful duet. Later in the act Creon and Medea have their final confrontation. Creon calls on his guards to seize her. Medea magically causes the guards to reject their king, then calls up a horde of phantoms to immobilize them — which they do in an utterly eerie divertissement. (Charpentier suggests the insubstantial phantoms with a mysterious, bassless chorus.) Creon finishes the act with a desperate récit 'Noires divinites, que voulez-vous de moi?' ('Black Divinities, what do you want of me?'). For Creon's drift into madness, Charpentier takes a cue from the line 'Tout s'abime, la terre s'ouvre!' ('There is an abyss, the earth opens up') and omits the treble instruments, divides the basses into two parts, and creates a dense, dark, literally abysmal accompaniment. An intermède leading to Act V is based appropriately on Medea's ferocious 'anger music,' which has by now become a leitmotif.

 

"Act V is highlighted by the Corinthians' choral lament on the death of Creon (evoking the memory of Lully's celebrated choral lament, 'Alceste est morte!') ('Alceste is dead!'); by the almost unbearably poignant scene of Creusa in torment in the poisoned robe; and by her death, postponed just long enough to permit an extraordinarily moving, bittersweet love-death duet for her and Jason 'Hélas! prets d'être unis par les plus douces chaines' ('Alas! Ready as we are to be united in the sweetest bonds'); and finally by Medea's ferocious adieu to Jason — introduced and followed, as by now we almost expect, by orchestral ritournelles in Medea's 'angry' style. That is the last sound we hear." (H. Wiley Hitchcock. From the liner notes.)

Performers: Les Arts Florissants, William Christie, Lorraine Hunt, Mark Padmore, Bernard Deletré, Monique Zanetti, Jean-Marc Salzmann

1.1. Prologue: Ouverture

1.2. Prologue: 'Louis Est Triomphant'

1.3. Prologue: 'Paroissez, Charmante Victoire'

1.4. Prologue: 'Le Ciel Dans Nos Vœux S'intéresse'

1.5. Prologue: Loure

1.6. Prologue: 'Dans Le Bel Âge, Si L'on N'est Volage'

1.7. Prologue: Passepied

1.8. Prologue: Ouverture (Reprise)

1.9. Acte I, Scène I: 'Pour Flatter Mes Ennemis'

1.10. Acte I, Scène I: 'Qu'il Le Cherche, Mais Qu'il Me Craigne'

1.11. Acte I, Scène II: 'D'où Vous Vient Cet Air Sombre?'

1.12. Acte I, Scène III: 'Que Je Serois Heureux, Si J'étais Moins Aimé'

1.13. Acte I, Scène III: 'Que Me Peut Demander La Gloire'

1.14. Acte I, Scène IV: 'L'Allégresse En Ces Lieux'

1.15. Acte I, Scène V: 'Seigneur, La Thessalie Attaquant Vos Estats'

1.16. Acte I, Scène VI: 'Courez Aux Champs De Mars'

1.17. Acte I, Scène VI: 'Que D'épais Bataillons, Sur Nos Rêves Descendent'

1.18. Acte I, Scène VI: Rondeau Des Corinthiens

1.19. Acte I, Scène VI: 'Quel Bonheur Suit La Tendresse'

1.20. Acte I, Scène VI: 'Que D'épais' (Reprise)

1.21. Acte I, Scène VI: Entr'acte

 

2.1. Acte II, Scène I: 'Il Est Temps De Parler'

2.2. Acte II, Scène I: 'Vos Reproches, Seigneur, Ne Sont Pas Légitimes'

2.3. Acte II, Scène II: 'Princesse, C'est Sur Vous Que Mon Espoir Est Permis'

2.4. Acte II, Scène III: 'Enfin À Ton Amour Tout Espoir Est Permis'

2.5. Acte II, Scène IV: 'Prince, Venez Apprendre Une Heureuse Nouvelle'

2.6. Acte II, Scène V: 'Qu'ay-je À Résoudre Encor?'

2.7. Acte II, Scène V: 'Quand Son Amour Seroit Extrême'

2.8. Acte II, Scène VI: 'Puisqu'un Fier Ennemy'

2.9. Acte II, Scène VII: 'Quelle Est Charmante'

2.10. Acte II, Scène VII: Chaconne

2.11. Acte II, Scène VII: Passacaille

2.12. Acte II, Scène VII: 'Vous Voyez À Quoi J'aspire'

2.13. Acte III, Scène I: 'L'orage Est Violent'

2.14. Acte III, Scène I: 'Souffrirez Vous Qu'on Vous Enlève'

2.15. Acte III, Scène II: 'Vous Savez L'exil Qu'on M'ordonne'

2.16. Acte III, Scène III: 'Quel Prix De Mon Amour'

2.17. Acte III, Scène IV: 'Croiras-tu Mon Malheur?'

2.18. Acte III, Scène V: 'Noires Filles Du Stix'

2.19. Acte III, Scène VI: 'L'Enfer Obéit À Ta Voix'

2.20. Acte III, Scène VII: 'Je Vois Le Don Fatal'

2.21. Acte III, Scène VII: Premier Air Pour Les Démons

2.22. Acte III, Scène VII: 'Dieu Du Cocyte & Des Royaumes Sombres'

2.23. Acte III, Scène VII: Seconde Entrée Des Démons

 

3.1. Acte IV, Scène I: 'Jamais On Ne La Vit Si Belle'

3.2. Acte IV, Scène II: 'Ah! Que D'attraits'

3.3. Acte IV, Scène III: 'Si-tost Que Je Parois'

3.4. Acte IV, Scène IV: 'Vos Soupçons Estoient Vrais'

3.5. Acte IV, Scène V: 'D'où Me Vient Cette Horreur?'

3.6. Acte IV, Scène VI: 'Objets Agréables'

3.7. Acte IV, Scène VI: 'Vos Adieux Sont-ils Faits?'

3.8. Acte IV, Scène VII: Premier Air Des Phantômes

3.9. Acte IV, Scène VII: Phantômes Et Gardes

3.10. Acte IV, Scène VII: 'Tout Resent Le Pouvoir'

3.11. Acte IV, Scène VIII: 'Mon Pouvoir S'est Connu'

3.12. Acte IV, Scène IX: 'Noires Divinités'

3.13. Acte V, Scène I: 'On Ne Peut Sans Effroy'

3.14. Acte V, Scène I: 'Ne Les Épargnons Pas'

3.15. Acte V, Scène II: 'Si La Pitié Vous Peut Trouver Sensible'

3.16. Acte V, Scène III: 'Venez, Parlez'

3.17. Acte V, Scène III: Air Funeste (Reprise)

3.18. Acte V, Scène IV: 'Eh Bien, Barbare'

3.19. Acte V, Scène V: 'Quel Feu Dans Me Veines S'allume'

3.20. Acte V, Scène VI: 'Ah, Roy Trop Malheureux'

3.21. Acte V, Scène VII: 'Elle Est Morte, Et Je Vis!'

3.22. Acte V, Scène VIII: 'C'est Peu, Pour Contenter La Douleur'

 

flac/16-bit

Jean-Philippe Rameau - Naïs

"When 'Naïs' first appeared in 1749, Rameau's prestige stood higher than at any other period of his life-time. The quarrels between his detractors (the conservative lullistes) and supporters (ramistes) that had raged around his first operas in the 1730s had now largely abated; the notorious Querelle des Bouffons was not to begin until the next decade. 

 

"In the intervening lull, Rameau enjoyed the enthusiastic support of a wide cross-section of the French public, and his works now dominated the stage of the Paris Opera. Be-tween February 1748 and December 1749, no fewer than seven of them ('Naïs' being the last but one) were given in quick succession, prompting the Marquis d'Argenson, who had overall control of the Opera and who disliked Rameau's music, to decree that no more than two of his works should be given in the same season. 

 

"'Naïs' was the fourth of at least seven operas in which Rameau collaborated with Louis de Cahusac, the librettist of 'Zaïs' and 'Zoroastre'. Although not classified by the composer, it belongs to that sub-species of French opera known as the pastorale heroique. Such works are clearly distinguishable from opera-ballet by their use of a single continuous plot; at the same time, they lack the sustained dramatic tone of the tragedie en musique, and are normally cast in three acts rather than five. They are 'heroic' only in that they happen to involve the actions of heroes or gods.

 

"The work was commissioned by the Opéra to celebrate the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, the much-criticised conclusion of the War of the Austrian Succession (1740-48). Whatever reservations the French public may have had about the event it celebrated, this 'Opera pour la Paix' was popular enough in Rameau's day, and received the very respectable total of 34 performances on its first run. This is hardly surprising, since the opera contains some of the composer's most inventive and entertaining music, and shows little sign of the lack of enthusiasm on his part suspected by some earlier commentators. 

 

"The topicality of the work is confined entirely to the prologue, 'L'Accord des Dieux', an allegory in which the recent war is represented as the attempt of the Titans and Giants to storm the heavens. Its portrayal of the mananimity of the victorious Jupiter attracted some sardonic comment, since it was widely thought that the French king's concessions in the recent treaty had been unwisely generous: 'Jupiter is seen there, with his thunderbolts, surrounded by his gods and smiting the Giants. He is Louis XV, by your leave. But do not worry; you will see George II represented by Neptune and sharing the Universe with his brother' (Clement, 'Les Cinq annees litte-raires', 20 May 1749). 

 

"The staging of this battle seems to have been spectacular. The diarist Colle was particularly impressed by the stage machine which the Giants used 'to pile up the mountains' and by its sudden collapse that cause them all to fall helter-skelter to the ground.

 

"The music that Rameau provided for the scene is astonishingly bold. The violent syncopations and pungent dissonances of the Overture, depicting 'the Titans' cries and tumultuous movements', continues into the first choruses, to create a lengthy and amazingly powerful opening sequence. (The composer had already used this linking of overture and first scene in 'Zaïs' (1748) and was to return to it in 'Les Boreades'; it was, in fact, only one of a number of ways he devised of integrating overture and drama in his later operas, anticipating Gluck's 'innovations' in this respect by several decades.) 

 

"The main subject matter of the opera owes nothing to contemporary events, and had probably already been chosen by Rameau and Cahusac before the commission was issued. Like so many French librettos of the period, it is derived from classical mythology. Modern reference works, however, have very little to say about the water-nymph Naïs herself, and nothing about Neptune's love for her that forms the mainspring of a very straightforward plot. Cahusac tells us that she was renowned for her beauty and her entrancing voice; lacking information on her parentage, he has supposed her to be the daughter of Tiresius, the blind soothsayer who could predict the future by interpreting birdsong. 

 

"Such liberties with classical sources allow the librettist to construct a plot rich in spectacle and 'local colour', for both of which he was well known. In Act I, for example, he can justify the introduction of the Isthmian Games which form the colourful background to much of the act (and which were similar to the Olympics in character) since the games were the chief festival sacred to Neptune. The author cleverly manages to keep the action going during what was traditionally pure divertissement, and even derives a certain irony from the fact that, when the disguised Neptune first pays court to Naïs, she is forced to conceal her feelings for the 'unknown stranger' while presiding over a celebration in his honour.

 

"Similarly, the Act II divertissement, during which Neptune's rivals ask Tiresius to predict who would eventually win Naïs's affections, is also used to further the action, in providing the motivation for the denouement: the answer that the soothsayer gives — to beware of the 'inconnu' and of the God of the Seas —causes the rivals to take up arms against the stranger, Neptune himself. 

 

"'Naïs' contains a wealth of fine and varied vocal music. The choruses, in particular, maintain a remarkably high level of invention. Those of the prologue have already been mentioned; their forcefulness is in striking contrast to the jaunty music for the arrival of the Sea divinities 'Chantons Naïs' (I, 8), or the undulating lines of 'Coulez, ondes' (III, 5) as Neptune and his bride are welcomed to their underwater abode. 

 

"The chief glories of the opera, however, are to be found among the many airs de ballet. Rameau's resourceful treatment of the dances in his operas has been demonstrated many times in recent years; yet few of his works surpass Naïs in the variety and sheer beauty of the ballet movements. From their youthful quality, one would scarcely guess that the composer was 66 years old when the opera was composed. Especially notable are the Sea divinities' breezy melodies with pizzicato accompaniments, contrasting effectively with the athletes' vigorous, sparse-textured music (including a huge chaconne of nearly 250 bars) in Act I. For the shepherds' music of Act II, Rameau takes us into that enchanted pastoral world which he made uniquely his own, the slower pieces saturated with a drowsy yet wistful languor, the faster ones sometimes tinged with regret; outstanding in this respect are the musette tendre and the gavotte legere et gracieuse. 

"The extent to which composer and librettist strove to achieve a close rapport between these dance movements and the action is revealed by the libretto. Cahusac favoured the danse en action, a sort of mime, rather than the more purely decorative danse simple; with few exceptions, he provided the choreographic outlines of each dance or group of dances by means of often quite elaborate stage directions. The best developed examples may be found in the ballets figures (collective ballets during which groups of dancers represented in stylized figures an action linked to the drama), the most spectacular of which occur during the Isthmian Games. The big chaconne in Act I, for example, is introduced by a 100-word stage direction giving details of the various athletic events — wrestling, boxing and racing — that take place, ending with the placing of a crown of honour on the head of the most distinguished athlete. 

 

"With such emphasis on the divertissements, it is not surprising that the music of 'Naïs' inhabits a world closer to opera-ballet than to tragedie lyrique. The work contains no serious emotional conflict, nor is there much attempt at characterisation. Inevitably, it remains a less powerful work than the great tragedies of the 1730s — 'Hippolyte', 'Castor', 'Dardanus'. Even so, the quality of most of the music raises it well above the level of a routine oeuvre de circonstance, and is more than enough to justify its modern revival. The present recording results from the English Bach Festival performances staged at the Opera Royal, Versailles, in June 1980, and at the Old Vic Theatre, London, the following month. The cuts made during Rameau's own lifetime have largely been observed, and some others that proved necessary have been retained." (Graham Sadler. From the liner notes.)

Performers: English Bach Festival Baroque Orchestra and Festival Singers, Nicholas McGegan, Linda Russell, Ian Caley, Ian Caddy, John Tomlinson

1.1. L'Ouverture

1.2. Prologue, Scène I: 'Attaquons Les Cieux'

1.3. Prologue, Scène II: 'Arrêtez, Monstres, Arrêtez'

1.4. Prologue, Scène III: 'Au Fond Des Gouffres Éternels'

1.5. Prologue: Symphonie

1.6. Prologue, Scène V: 'Ah ! Que La Paix Nous Promet De Douceurs'

1.7. Prologue, Scène V: Ballet Figuré. 'Brillez De Mille Traits Nouveaux'

1.8. Prologue, Scène V: 'Dans Une Heureuse Intelligence'

1.9. Acte I, Scène I: 'Que Ces Paisibles Bords'

1.10. Acte I, Scène II: 'Palémon, L’Amour Est Vengé'

1.11. Acte I, Scène III: 'Accourés À Ma Voix'

1.12. Acte I, Scène IV: 'Peut-on L’entendre'

1.13. Acte I, Scène V: 'Tendres Oiseaux Éveillez-vous'

1.14. Acte I, Scène VI: 'Avant Que Le Soleil Sorte'

1.15. Acte I, Scène VI: 'On Vient'

1.16. Acte I, Scène VII: 'Que Ce Jour Consacré...'

1.17. Acte I, Scène VII: Ballet Figuré. Chaconne

1.18. Acte I, Scène VIII: Ballet Figuré. 'Chantons Naïs...'

1.19. Acte I, Scène VIII: Ballet Figuré. Menuets I & II

1.20. Acte I, Scène IX: 'Règne, Triomphe Dieu Des Mers...'

2.1. Acte II, Scène I: 'Ah ! Ne Me Suivez Point'

2.2. Acte II, Scène II: 'Dois-je Le Croire?'

2.3. Acte II, Scène III: 'Ma Jalouse Tendresse...'

2.4. Acte II, Scène IV: 'Elle Rit Du Trait...'

2.5. Acte II, Scène V: 'Les Ennui De L’incertitude...'

2.6. Acte II, Scène VI: 'La Voix Des Plaisirs M’appelle'

2.7. Acte II, Scène VI: 'D'un Voile Épais Mes Yeux...'

2.8. Acte II, Scène VI: 'Au Berger Que J'adore'

2.9. Acte II, Scène VI: Ballet Figuré. 'Je Ne Scai...'

2.10. Acte II, Scène VI: Ballet Figuré. 'Nous Portons Les Plus Rudes Chaînes'

2.11. Acte II, Scène VII: 'Quel Oracle!'

2.12. Acte II, Scène VII: 'De Coupables Concerts...'

2.13. Acte III, Scène I: 'La Jeune Nimphe Que J'adore'

2.14. Acte III, Scène II: 'O Ciel!'

2.15. Acte III, Scène III: 'Allumez-vous Rapides Feux'

2.16. Acte III, Scène IV: 'Les Flots Les Ont Punis'/Écroulement De La Terre

2.17. Acte III, Scène V: 'Coulez Ondes, Mêlez Votre Plus Doux Murmure'

2.18. Acte III, Scène V: 'Cessez De Ravager La Terre'

2.19. Acte III, Scène V: Contredanse Générale

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Richard Strauss / Richard Wagner / Charles Gounod - Recital

"Montserrat Caballé's career, which began with a legendary lucky break, would eventually make her one of Spain's greatest sopranos -- equaled in status and reputation only by fellow Barcelonian Victoria de los Angeles.

"Her full birth name was Maria de Montserrat Viviana Concepción Caballé i Folch. She was named after the famous Catalan monastery of Montserrat. It is said that her parents feared that they would lose her and vowed that if she were born alive and well they would christen her with the monastery's name. She learned singing at her convent school; at the age of eight, she entered the Conservatorio del Liceo in Barcelona. Her most important teachers were Eugenia Kenny, Conchita Badea, and Napoleone Annovazzi. When she graduated in 1954, she won the Liceo's Gold Medal.

"Caballé made her professional debut in Madrid in the oratorio El pesebre (The Manger) by the great Catalan cellist Pau (Pablo) Casals. She then went to Italy, where she received a few minor roles at various houses. In 1956, she joined the Basel Opera; she was working her way through the smaller roles when one of the principal singers took ill and she took over the role of Mimì in Puccini's 'La Bohéme.' Her unqualified success in that part led to promotion to starring roles, including Pamina ('The Magic Flute'), Puccini's 'Tosca', Verdi's 'Aïda', Marta in Eugene d'Albert's 'Tiefland', and the Richard Strauss roles of Arabella, Chrysothemis ('Elektra'), and Salome. She steadily gained a European reputation, singing in Bremen, Milan, Vienna, Barcelona, and Lisbon, taking such diverse roles as Violetta ('La Traviata'), Tatiana ('Yevgeny Onegin'), Dvorák's 'Armida' and 'Rusalka,' and Marie in Berg's 'Wozzeck.' She debuted at La Scala in 1960 as a Flower Maiden in 'Parsifal.' She sang in Mexico City in 1964 as Massenet's 'Manon.'

"In April 20, 1965, on extremely short notice, she substituted for the indisposed Marilyn Horne in a concert performance in Donizetti's 'Lucrezia Borgia', achieving a thunderous success and "overnight" superstardom. She became one of the leading figures in the revival of interest in the bel canto operas of Bellini and Donizetti, many of which were staged especially for her. Caballé's performances as Elizabeth I ('Roberto Devereux') and that monarch's rival Mary Queen of Scots ('Maria Stuarda') are legendary. In 1971, she sang a memorable concert performance of 'Maria Stuarda' in which her fellow Barcelonian José Carreras made his London debut, and after that she helped advance his career. She made her Metropolitan Opera debut in 1965 as Marguerite in 'Faust.' Caballé's career centered around Verdi's important dramatic roles, but also embraced the Marschallin ('Der Rosenkavalier'), the Countess ('Marriage of Figaro'), and Queen Isabella (in the premiere of Leonardo Balada's 'Cristobál Colón' in Barcelona in 1989)." (Biography by Joseph Stephenson for AllMusic. Available in full here.)

Performers: Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg, Alain Lombard, Montserrat Caballé

1. Richard Strauss - Vier Letzte Lieder: Frühling
2. Richard Strauss - Vier Letzte Lieder: September
3. Richard Strauss - Vier Letzte Lieder: Beim Schlafengehen
4. Richard Strauss - Vier Letzte Lieder: Im Abendrot
5. Richard Wagner - Tristan Und Isolde: Isoldes Tod
6. Richard Wagner - Tannhäuser: 'Froh Grüß'ich Dich, Geliebter Raum!'
7. Richard Wagner - Tannhäuser: 'Almächt'ge Jungfrau-hör Mein Flehen!'
8. Charles Gounod - Faust: 'Il Était Un Roi De Thulé'
9. Charles Gounod - Faust: Récitatif
10. Charles Gounod - Faust: 'Ah! Je Ris De Me Voir Si Belle'

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