Customer Reviews

Lully - Acis & Galatée / Fouchécourt, Gens, Naouri, Crook, Delunsch, Felix, Masset, Les Musiciens du Louvre, Minkowski

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Jean-Baptiste Lully (né Giovanni Baptista,1632-1687) has the honor of belonging to the vast group of non-French who, for their time, set the very idiom of "French" music (Eric Satie is a more current example). Lully, and his party of "Lullistes," advocated a priority of text over music, or let us say rather than the one was not permitted to obfuscate the other. Minkowski's recording -himself no slouch as a conductor of music of sumptuous vocality -has put together an expert cast that allows this slightly frothy pastoral romp a dignity and pathos less apparent in Handel's version of this story. Jean-Paul Fouchécourt, who along with Veronique Gens incarnated the titular heroes of the "anti-Lully" Rameau's Hippolyte et Aricie (also under Minkowski's baton), are the tragic lovers whose distinctly French articulations of the drama are sure bets. I welcome the long-awaited return of Howard Crook (Apollo), as the well as the participation of the déliceuse Mireille Delunsch (Vénus) with equal joy. With period instruments, masterfully played by Les Musiciens du Louvre.

For me Lully had always been the answer to a trivia question - What baroque composer killed himself by smashing his toe with his conducting stick? Listening to this recording opened my eyes to the composer. It is consistently delightful and full of invention, and I would rank it near the top of baroque opera along with Handel's Julius Caesar and Monteverdi's Orfeo. By the way, if you are wondering how he could have died from a blow to the toe, gangrene set in and finished him off.

This work is an entertainment and as such, it works very well. The cast is perfect and one could hardly ask for more from the orchestra and conductor.

Featured in the cast are Véronique Gens, Mireille Delunsch, Jean-Paul Fouchécourt, Howard Crook, Laurent Naouri, Thierry Félix and a young Rodrigo del Pozo (who sings both alto and tenor roles in his recordings).

The orchestra, playing at a' = 392 Hz, features strings, piccolo flutes, flutes, recorders, panpipe, oboes, bassoon, percussion, theorbos and basso continuo.

The work features some very tuneful and memorable music and the pace of the work is brisk.

I only wish that a DVD was available of this production.

Early on I wasn't disposed to like this work--Lully's last completed opera--very much. Composed at first as something of a trifle for a hunting party for the Dauphin's Vendome set, "Acis and Galatea"'s opening minutes seem disorganized and dramatically ineffectual. Mythological shepherds and shepherdesses provide the cut-out figures for semi-risque byplay. But the work builds in intensity, seriousness, and focus, until, by the opera's final grand passacaglia, Lully has sneaked into our hearts a profound statement on the pleasure of desire--unrequited and requited.

Given that Minkowski has always been my favorite baroque opera conductor, it's not likely I'd criticize the performance here. The soloists, all stars of French baroque opera performance, are quite delightful, though Laurent Naouri, who plays the opera's villain, the giant Polyphemus, seems a slightly-wrong-headed choice. A required purchase for all Lully fans, especially since there really isn't any competition in the catalog currently for this work.