Rameau - The Opera Collection
£71.20
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Label: Warner
Cat No: 2564636487
Format: CD
Number of Discs: 27
Genre: Vocal/Choral
Release Date: 1st September 2014
Contents
Works
Castor et PolluxDardanus
Hippolyte et Aricie
La Guirlande
Les Boreades
Les Fetes d'Hebe
Les Indes galantes
Les Surprises de l'Amour
Nais
Pigmalion
Platee
Zephyre
Zoroastre
Artists
Anna-Maria PanzarellaAnne-Marie Rodde
Christiane Eda-Pierre
Eirian James
Elisabeth Priday
Eric Martin Bonnet
Francois Bazola
Frederica Von Stade
Gaelle Mechaly
Georges Gautier
Gerard Souzay
Gerda Hartman
Gilles Cachemaille
Gilles Ragon
Guillemette Laurens
Guy de Mey
Ian Caddy
Jacques Villisech
Jeanette Scovotti
Jean-Paul Fouchecourt
Jean-Philippe Lafont
Jennifer Smith
John Aler
John Elwes
John Tomlinson
Jose Van Dam
Laurent Naouri
Lorraine Hunt
Louis Devos
Lynda Russell
Marilyn Hill Smith
Mark Padmore
Martine March
Matthieu Lecroart
Michael Devlin
Michael Goldthorpe
Nathan Berg
Norma Lerer
Paul Agnew
Philip Langridge
Philippe Huttenlocher
Rebecca Ockenden
Roger Soyer
Sarah Connolly
Sophie Daneman
Sophie Decaudaveine
Stephanie Revidat
Thierry Felix
Vincent le Texier
Zeger Vandersteene
Ensemble Vocal A Coeur Joie de Valence
Orchestre Jean-Francois Paillard
Stockholm Kammerkoren
Concentus Musicus Wien
Choeurs et Orchestre du Theatre & National de l’Opera de Paris
Ensemble Vocal Francoise Herr
Les Musiciens du Louvre
English Bach Festival Singers & Baroque Orchestra
Les Arts Florisants
Monteverdi Choir
English Baroque Soloists
Conductors
Jean-Francois PaillardNikolaus Harnoncourt
Raymond Leppard
Marc Minkowski
Nicholas McGegan
William Christie
John Eliot Gardiner
Works
Castor et PolluxDardanus
Hippolyte et Aricie
La Guirlande
Les Boreades
Les Fetes d'Hebe
Les Indes galantes
Les Surprises de l'Amour
Nais
Pigmalion
Platee
Zephyre
Zoroastre
Artists
Anna-Maria PanzarellaAnne-Marie Rodde
Christiane Eda-Pierre
Eirian James
Elisabeth Priday
Eric Martin Bonnet
Francois Bazola
Frederica Von Stade
Gaelle Mechaly
Georges Gautier
Gerard Souzay
Gerda Hartman
Gilles Cachemaille
Gilles Ragon
Guillemette Laurens
Guy de Mey
Ian Caddy
Jacques Villisech
Jeanette Scovotti
Jean-Paul Fouchecourt
Jean-Philippe Lafont
Jennifer Smith
John Aler
John Elwes
John Tomlinson
Jose Van Dam
Laurent Naouri
Lorraine Hunt
Louis Devos
Lynda Russell
Marilyn Hill Smith
Mark Padmore
Martine March
Matthieu Lecroart
Michael Devlin
Michael Goldthorpe
Nathan Berg
Norma Lerer
Paul Agnew
Philip Langridge
Philippe Huttenlocher
Rebecca Ockenden
Roger Soyer
Sarah Connolly
Sophie Daneman
Sophie Decaudaveine
Stephanie Revidat
Thierry Felix
Vincent le Texier
Zeger Vandersteene
Ensemble Vocal A Coeur Joie de Valence
Orchestre Jean-Francois Paillard
Stockholm Kammerkoren
Concentus Musicus Wien
Choeurs et Orchestre du Theatre & National de l’Opera de Paris
Ensemble Vocal Francoise Herr
Les Musiciens du Louvre
English Bach Festival Singers & Baroque Orchestra
Les Arts Florisants
Monteverdi Choir
English Baroque Soloists
Conductors
Jean-Francois PaillardNikolaus Harnoncourt
Raymond Leppard
Marc Minkowski
Nicholas McGegan
William Christie
John Eliot Gardiner
About
September 12th 2014 marks 250 years since the death of Jean-Philippe Rameau (1683-1764), whose sumptuous and exquisitely crafted works for the theatre represent a peak of achievement in French music.
This 27-CD budget-price box brings together nine of his operas and music from four of his other stage works, all in performances led by seven conductors who played a leading role in the revival of interest in Rameau’s music over the past 30 years. All the recordings in this box, first released by Erato between 1974 and 2002, made an important contribution to re-establishing the composer’s reputation as a master of musical theatre.
In recent decades, performances of Rameau’s operas - particularly Hippolyte et Aricie, Platée and Les Indes galantes, but also Castor et Pollux and Les Boréades – have become more frequent in France and internationally. In recent years, his works have been performed at prestigious venues as diverse as the Opéra National de Paris, English National Opera, Glyndebourne Festival Opera and the Theater an der Wien. If they lack the more direct appeal of the Italian(ate) operas of Handel and Vivaldi – which have proved incontrovertibly that Baroque opera ‘speaks’ to today’s audiences – they are works of great beauty and subtlety, and, when stylishly performed, possess considerable dramatic power.
They represent the peak of achievement in French baroque opera. Rameau took the elaborate form, the tragédie lyrique, established by his predecessor Jean-Baptiste Lully (1632-1687), and handled it with great technical and expressive subtlety, and with a striking sense for vocal and instrumental colour. The French style of baroque opera, as embodied by Lully and Rameau, is more fluidly constructed than the Italian style, and demands a different kind of vocal and expressive virtuosity: its prime vocal emphasis is on subtly-coloured dramatic declamation rather than on spectacular vocal agility. The tenor voice (rather than the castrato), the chorus and the ballet also play a far more central role than in Italian baroque opera.
Jean-Philippe Rameau was born in Dijon in 1683 and died in Paris in 1764. He first achieved recognition as an organist and theorist (notably with his influential Traité de l’harmonie, published in 1722), and as a composer of keyboard music. His first opera, Hippolyte et Aricie, a tragédie lyrique based on the story of Phaedra, was performed in 1733, when he was 50, arousing both admiration and controversy. The peak of his career as an operatic composer came in the 1740s – he wrote nine stage works over the decade, and he was appointed to the court of King Louis XV in 1745.
In the 1750s, following the success in Paris of Pergolesi’s comic opera 'La serva padrona', a battle, known as La Querelle des Bouffons, ensued between supporters of the French and Italian operatic styles. The philosopher, writer and composer Jean-Jacques Rousseau became a strident advocate of opera in the simpler Italian style, denigrating the elaborate French style represented by Rameau.
Rameau’s operatic canon, in addition to works on exalted tragic and heroic themes, includes lighter-hearted works – such as Platée, described as both a comédie lyrique and a ballet bouffon, and Les Indes galantes, a spectacular opéra-ballet set in the Middle East and the Americas.
He is recognised as one of the most important and influential of all French composers - Debussy, for instance, admired him greatly, even including a piece called Hommage à Rameau in his Images for piano, while his opera Pelléas et Mélisande can be seen as drawing on the tradition of the tragédie lyrique.
All the conductors in this collection are acknowledged masters of the French baroque style and played an important role in the Rameau revival that took place from the 1970s onwards: William Christie, John Eliot Gardiner, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Marc Minkowski, Nicholas McGegan, and their predecessors, Jean-François Paillard and Raymond Leppard.
Among the singers are such names of the past and present as: Frederica von Stade, Lorraine Hunt, José van Dam, Christiane Eda-Pierre, Jean-Paul Fouchécourt, François Leroux, Sarah Connolly, Mark Padmore and John Tomlinson.
The ensembles include Les Arts florissants, English Baroque Soloists/Monteverdi Choir, Concentus Musicus Wien and Les Musiciens du Louvre.
Contents:
CD 1–3
Hippolyte et Aricie
Anne Maria Panzarella, Mark Padmore, Lorraine Hunt, Eirian James, Laurent Naouri
Les Arts Florissants / William Christie
CD 4–6
Les Indes galantes
Gerda Hartman, Philippe Huttenlocher, Jennifer Smith, Louis Devos, John Elwes
Ensemble Vocal A Coeur Joie de Valence, Orchestre Jean-François Paillard / Jean-François Paillard
CD 7–9
Castor et Pollux
Zeger Vandersteene, Gérard Souzay, Jeanette Scovotti, Norma Lerer, Jacques Villisech
Stockholm Kammerkoren, Concentus Musicus Wien / Nikolaus Harnoncourt
CD 10-11
Les Fêtes d’Hébé
Sophie Daneman, Sarah Connolly, Jean-Paul Fouchecourt, Paul Agnew, Thierry Felix
Les Arts Florissants / William Christie
CD 12-13
Dardanus
Christiane Eda-Pierre, Georges Gautier, Roger Soyer, Frederica Von Stade, Michael Devlin, Jose Van Dam
Choeurs et Orchestre du Theatre & National de l’Opera de Paris / Raymond Leppard
CD 14-15
Platée
Gilles Ragon, Jennifer Smith, Guy de Mey, Vincent le Texier, Guillemette Laurens
Ensemble Vocal Francoise Herr, Les Musiciens de Louvre / Marc Minkowski
CD 16
Pigmalion
Michael Goldthorpe, Marilyn Hill Smith, Anne-Marie Rodde
English Bach Festival Singers & Baroque Orchestra / Nicholas McGegan
CD 17
Les Surprises de l’Amour
Les Musiciens du Louvre / Marc Minkowski
CD 18-19
Naïs
Lynda Russell, Ian Caddy, John Tomlinson
English Bach Festival Singers & Baroque Orchestra / Nicholas McGegan
CD 20–22
Zoroastre
Mark Padmore, Gaelle Mechaly, Matthieu Lecroart, Eric Martin Bonnet, Nathan Berg, Anna-Maria Panzarella, Francois Bazola, Stephanie Revidat
Les Arts Florissants / William Christie
CD 23
La Guirlande
Sophie Daneman, Paul Agnew, Francois Bazola
Les Arts Florissants / William Christie
CD 24
Zéphyre
Gaëlle Méchaly, Rebecca Ockenden, Sophie Decaudaveine
Les Arts Florisants / William Christie
CD 25–27
Les Boréades
Jennifer Smith, Anne-Marie Rodde, Martine March, Philip Langridge, John Aler, Jean-Philippe Lafont, Gilles Cachemaille, Elisabeth Priday
Monteverdi Choir, English Baroque Soloists / John Eliot Gardiner
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