Ensemble Marguerite Louise / Gaétan Jarry MARC-ANTOINE CHARPENTIER Les Arts Florissans

At that time, the custom was to allow great exibility in matters of orchestration, which was linked to whatever vital forces were available and depended on when the performance of the works was programmed. Charpentier’s genius lies in the fact that that he had the ability to conceive his scores, even the most minimalist of them as works of a major stature. 

Les Arts Florissants and La Couronne de Fleurs are an unquestionable example of this: the two operas became known as much for their subtlety and their intimacy in their original form (small ensemble and chorus of soloists), as for their depth and their density in their augmented form (use of an orchestra and a full choir). 

We have therefore chosen to explore the “augmented form”, and thus allow the works to offer a more varied orchestration, to benefit from the full choir), and also offer various theatrical effects such as the use of percussion instruments. Expanded in this way, these miniatures rehabilitate a Charpentier who was denied during his time of the great financial means from which only Lully was able to benefit. 

The extracts chosen from the Couronne de Fleurs present the pastoral as a sort of logical epilogue to the Arts Florissans, necessarily joining the springtime of the Arts inspired by Louis to that of Nature. (Gaétan Jarry)

Cyril Auvity / Ensemble Desmarest / Ronan Khalil MARC-ANTOINE CHARPENTIER La Descente d’Orphée aux enfers

Cyril Auvity heads the cast in a new recording of Marc-Antoine Charpentier’s La Descente d’Orphée aux enfers in a production being released by Glossa. Auvity is the lovelorn Orpheus who ventures, with his lyre, into the Underworld to plead with Pluto (Etienne Bazola) for the return of his Eurydice (Céline Scheen), struck down in her prime by a snakebite, being encouraged in his efforts by Proserpine, the wife of the ruler of Hades (Floriane Hasler).

This is a two-act chamber opera, written in 1686, and it is not known whether Charpentier ever composed any more music for the piece (the drama stops at a tantalizing moment in the well-known story). Even still, the composer appears to have invested substantial inspiration into the work, which will have been performed in front of the composer’s patron, Mademoiselle de Guise by a group of singers working within the limitations imposed by Jean- Baptiste Lully’s “musical monopoly” of the time.

For this recording, keyboard-player Ronan Khalil directs his Ensemble Desmarest. The demanding lead role of this entertainment continues Auvity’s strong current presence in French Baroque music-making – as well as his connection with Glossa. His Orpheus follows his previous Charpentier Stances du Cid release on the label, as well as appearances in operas by Campra, Destouches and Lully. Marc Trautmann both informs and entertains in his accompanying booklet essay. (Glossa)

Les Paladins / Jérôme Correas MOLIÈRE À L'OPÉRA Stage music by JEAN-BAPTISTE LULLY

With Molière à l’opéra Jérôme Correas and Les Paladins bring their much-admired combination of Baroque musical stylishness and use of the technique of “parlé-chanté”, adding colour and contrast to the sung text, to comédies-ballets composed by Jean-Baptiste Lully and Marc-Antoine Charpentier during the reign of Louis XIV. The musical and theatrical partnership involving Lully and Molière – they were dubbed “les deux Baptiste” – was one of the most invigorating ever entered into, marrying melody, words, acting and a shared hunger for fame.

The collaboration spanned ten works over a decade from 1661. Although Molière never provided the words for a Lully “opera”, the great dramatist clearly inspired the composer who was ten years his junior, in his later tragédies lyriques, a view upheld by the essayist for this recording, Elizabeth Giuliani. 

As well as presenting scenes from Le Bourgeois gentilhomme, this new Glossa recording draws on the humorous end of the Molière/Lully partnership in Monsieur de Pourceaugnac as well as more tragic airs from Psyché, by way of the trio grotesque from Charpentier’s score for Le Mariage forcé. In Luanda Siqueira, Jean-François Lombard, Jérôme Billy and Virgile Ancely, Jérôme Correas has brought together a versatile vocal quartet, alive to the daunting and frequently crazy characterizations demanded by Lully and Molière. (GLOSSA Music)