Platée ou Junon jalouse, opera: Act 1, Scene 3: Ariette badine: "Que ce séjour est agréable"
Platée ou Junon jalouse, opera: Act 1, Scene 5: Ariette vive: "Quittez nymphes, quittez"
Platée ou Junon jalouse, opera: Act 2 Scene 1: "A l'aspect de ce nuage"
Platée ou Junon jalouse, opera: Act 3, Scene 3: Marche pour la danse - "Dans cette fête": Mouvement de menuet - Marche pour la dans
La Guirlande ou Les Fleurs Enchantées, acte de ballet: Scene 1: "Peut-on être à la fois si tendre" Ariette très vive: "Ranimez vous" - Musette: Allegro
Platée ou Junon jalouse, opera: Act 1, Scene 3: Ariette badine: "Que ce séjour est agréable"
Platée ou Junon jalouse, opera: Act 1, Scene 5: Ariette vive: "Quittez nymphes, quittez"
Platée ou Junon jalouse, opera: Act 2 Scene 1: "A l'aspect de ce nuage"
Platée ou Junon jalouse, opera: Act 3, Scene 3: Marche pour la danse - "Dans cette fête": Mouvement de menuet - Marche pour la dans
La Guirlande ou Les Fleurs Enchantées, acte de ballet: Scene 1: "Peut-on être à la fois si tendre" Ariette très vive: "Ranimez vous" - Musette: Allegro
Castor et Pollux, tragédie en musique: Act 4, Scene 5: "Séjour de l'éternelle paix"
Naïs, pastorale héroïque: Act 3, Scene 1: Prélude: "La jeune nymphe que j'adore; Que l'univers entier; Amour, tu termines nos
Les Fêtes de l'Hymen et de l'Amour ou Les Dieux d'Égypte, ballet héroïque: Act 1, Scene 1: Gigue - Air graieux: "Que vous connaissez mal; Qu'à la voix d'Osiris" - Mouvement d
Dardanus, tragédie en musique: Act 4, Scene 1: "Lieux funestes"
Zoroastre, tragédie en musique: Act 2, Scene 1: Prélude: "A mes tristes regards"
Zaïs, pastorale-héroïque: Act 2, scene 1: Prélude: "Charmes de c?urs ambitieux..." Ritournelle - Ariette un peu vive: "A mes
Naïs, pastorale héroïque: Act 3, Scene 5: "Cessez de ravager la terre"
Platée ou Junon jalouse, opera: Prologue: Ariette un peu legere: "Charmant Bacchus"
The professional career of French haute-contre (high tenor) Pierre de Jéylotte corresponded almost exactly with Rameau's years of operatic success. His first significant role, in fact, was in the premiere of Rameau's Hippolyte et Aricie in 1733, the composer's first operatic triumph. In this album, haute-contre Jean-Paul Fouchécourt pays homage to Jéylotte with excerpts from Rameau operas and opera-ballets in which Jéylotte performed. The works recorded here demonstrate Rameau's range as a dramatic composer of music ...
Read More
The professional career of French haute-contre (high tenor) Pierre de Jéylotte corresponded almost exactly with Rameau's years of operatic success. His first significant role, in fact, was in the premiere of Rameau's Hippolyte et Aricie in 1733, the composer's first operatic triumph. In this album, haute-contre Jean-Paul Fouchécourt pays homage to Jéylotte with excerpts from Rameau operas and opera-ballets in which Jéylotte performed. The works recorded here demonstrate Rameau's range as a dramatic composer of music appropriate to comic, tragic, and heroic situations. Fouchécourt's voice is not a consistently elegant or timbrally beautiful instrument. He is, however, a compelling singing actor, and he brings these characters to life with his committed and dramatically urgent performances. (Judging from his performance on the DVD of De Nederlandse Opera's L'incoronazione di Poppea, in which he plays Arnalta, he has a riveting and, in that opera, hilarious, stage presence.) Like Peter Pears, the artistry...
Read Less
The Opera Lafeyette with its conductor Ryan Brown is among the finest early music ensembles performing today. I have been fortunate enough to see them several times, performing Gluck, early Mozart and, in this CD, Rameau. The ensemble frequently performs with a period dance company which adds to the enchantment.
On a chilly February afternoon in 2005, I attended the live performance on which this CD is based. The great Haute Tenor Jean-Paul Fouchecourt together with Brown and his ensemble brought magic to a dreary afternoon. As was the recital, the CD is devoted entirely to opera arias by Jean-Philippe Rameau (1683 -- 1764) who has been aptly described as the greatest composer who is relatively unknown to a large public. Rameau wrote a celebrated treatise on harmony and many instrumental works; but he came into his own only after he reached the age of 50 with a long series of operas. A Haute Tenor named Jelyotte (1713 --1797) had leading roles in many Rameau operas. Fouchecourt on this CD recreates the arias first sung by Jelyotte.
This CD consists of arias from nine Rameau operas and ballets, including five arias from the opera Platee which Fouchecourt has sung with the New York City Opera. Most of the works are based upon classical themes, and many were performed in the first instance for the Court of Louis XV. Platee, for example, is a comic opera about how Jupiter pretends to fall in love with a frog nymph in order to placate the jealousy of Juno. Fouchecourt sings the female role of Platee. The arias range from the comic, as in Platee, to the tragic and the yearning. The CD includes a beautiful romantic aria from the opera Castor and Pollux and another from Zoroastre. The ballet "Les Festes de l"Hymen de l"Amour" includes love aria, as is appropriate for a work performed at the marriage of the French Dauphin.
Fouchecourt sings with lyricism, strength, lightness, and impeccable diction. He also displays a sense of humor, which was even more apparent in the live performance I heard. The orchestration is imaginatively done. Rameau's music is eloquent, harmonically adventurous and moving. It reminded me a great deal of his successor, Gluck, who wrote for the French stage late in life. Fouchecourt, Brown, and the Opera LaFayette have, in fact, collaborated on a performance of the Paris version of Gluck's Orfeo, also available on Naxos, which will appeal to those listeners interested in this CD.
This CD is essential listening for lovers of the French baroque and for admirers of Fouchecourt. For listeners new to this period of music, this CD constitutes an ideal introduction. The CD includes texts and translations for all the arias in addition to brief plot summaries of the operas and ballets from which they are drawn.
