Vashegyi Purcell Choir Orfeo Orchestra - Dardanus - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

The remarkable Hypermnestre by Charles- Hubert Gervais is the latest unremembered early 18th-century French opera to be recorded afresh for Glossa, and conducted by György Vashegyi. Gervais was a contemporary of Campra and Destouches, learning from Lully and paving the way for Rameau and, like Marais and François Couperin, open to the Italianising trends of Inchles goûts réunisInch. A high-quality libretto from Joseph La Font tackles the story of Hypermnestra which proved so popular in the early eighteenth century. The Glossa recording contains both the original fifth act and the major revision of it from 1717 and Vashegyi drives the whole tragedy expertly to it's bitter (and not-so-bitter!) end. Musically, this tragédie lyrique provides powerful opportunities for the trio of leading characters, here taken by Katherine Watson (Hypermnestre), Thomas Dolié (Danaüs, her father) and Mathias Vidal (Lyncée, her betrothed), but they are ably supported by Juliette Mars, Chantal Santon-Jeffery, Manuel Núñez Camelino and Philippe-Nicolas Martin. No French opera of this time would have been complete without a generous helping of choral or instrumental music and Gervais - a master of melody, harmony and orchestration - serves these up in a dazzling set of divertissements and festive set pieces full of dances (including a massive passacaille); all this performed with great stylistic awareness and vivacity by Vashegyi's Orfeo Orchestra and Purcell Choir.

The conductor György Vashegyi and his ensembles, the Orfeo Orchestra and the Purcell Choir, are fluent in various fields of baroque and classical music, with a particular predilection for French baroque opera. But one of their favourite lines of work is Lutheran sacred music, and a good example of this is this beautiful work, Wer ist der, so von Edom kömmt (InchWho is this that comes from Edom?Inch), a period pasticcio with pieces by various composers. Graun (a composer at the court of Frederick II who was greatly admired by his contemporary colleagues), rubs shoulders here with Telemann and Johann Sebastian Bach, as well as with a mysterious unknown, who wrote several of the most impressive passages in the work. In fact, this is a Passion Oratorio, a reflection on the events related to the martyrdom of Christ based on freely chosen texts without following a precise Gospel and without summoning the usual characters of the drama into an imaginary setting. The originality of this patchwork also lies in the distribution of the text where - contrary to many passions of the time - the events of the last days of Jesus' life are told by chorales that float in the meditative atmosphere of the recitatives, arias and choruses. These chorales are especially impressive in the second part the density of the writing, the unique dramatic harmonies, the arrangement of the voices are of such an exceptional quality that their author could definitely be Johann Sebastian Bach himself... whom the author of the essay included in the libretto, Gergely Fazekas, also points to as the possible compiler of this masterpiece.

With Jean-Baptiste Stuck's Polydore, György Vashegyi's directing talents alight once again on a French opera from the era between Lully and Rameau. Whist Louis XIV's reign was gradually drawing to a close, his nephew, duke Philippe d'Orléans - due to become regent for Louis XV on the death of the child's great-grandfather, the Sun King - was greatly expanding his own court cultural activities (within which he had a pronounced predilection for Italian music). The Tuscany-born, later-naturalized Frenchman, Giovanni Battista Stuck was a beneficiary of ducal and regental munificence and, given that taste for opera continued at full tilt in Paris after Louis XIV's death in 1715, Stuck was well-placed to prove his worth. His most highly regarded opera is Polydore, a 1720 tragédie en musique with a libretto confected by Simon-Joseph Pellegrin a mythological tale of Greeks, Thracians and Trojans, interweaving war, family and love, with tragedy brewing up throughout the work. Stuck's vocal, choral and orchestral music infuses Pellegrin's libretto with dramatic power intense monologues, mournful laments, forceful duets, as well as sweeping choruses and stirring dance music. A splendid follow up to Vashegyi's reading for Glossa of Gervais' 1716 Hypermnestre (and the selection of his grands motets as well)