The fact that this recording has made classical best-seller lists seems nothing short of miraculous. Saint-Saëns' comic opera Phryné, although it was quite popular in its time, is all but unknown today. The album comes with a weighty (160 pages plus) booklet, with just two languages, French and English. Each album of the first edition of 4,500 is numbered, and the recording, originally slated for a live performance at the Opéra-Comique in Paris but moved to Rouen due to the COVID pandemic, captures a version of the opera ...
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The fact that this recording has made classical best-seller lists seems nothing short of miraculous. Saint-Saëns' comic opera Phryné, although it was quite popular in its time, is all but unknown today. The album comes with a weighty (160 pages plus) booklet, with just two languages, French and English. Each album of the first edition of 4,500 is numbered, and the recording, originally slated for a live performance at the Opéra-Comique in Paris but moved to Rouen due to the COVID pandemic, captures a version of the opera that has never been recorded before, including recitatives that were added by André Messager to remove some of the French in-jokes in the original as the opera went international. It seems for all the world like a pure specialist album, but the reason for the recording's success is simple: the music is delightful. The plot, concerning an ancient Greek magistrate and his nephew, both in love with the titular high-end prostitute (apparently a historical individual), is pretty thin, but...
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