On Friday, 24 March 2023 at 13:34:47 UTC+11, Andrew Clarke wrote:
Since subscribing to two new streaming services, I've seen and heard some particularly fine productions of French music for the stage, both from ROH Stream and Glyndebourne Encore. Many of these performancess were in fact Anglo-French co-productions,
involving (e.g.) France Televisions and the omnipresent Francois Roussillon et Associ'es. The latest of these that I've seen is a very, very powerful performance of Rameau's 'Hyppolite et Aricie' with Emmanuelle de Negri, conducted by America's greatest -
certainly most influential - native-born conductor, William Christie, de l'Academie Francaise. There is something extraordinary about Rameau's operas, which personally I find much more exotic than those of Lully a generation before. Then there's been
Bizet's Carmen and also Nemrac, also by Bizet, a kind of anti-Carmen, directed by Barrie Kotzky, not to mention Massenet's Cendrillon with Joyce DiDonato. I have already mentioned Poulenc's 'La Voix Humaine' with Veronique Gens plus telephone, directed
by the genius Laurent Pelly and impressively conducted by Robin "Little Tich" Ticciati; even better is the other part of the double bill, 'Les Mamelles de Tiresias', inspired by a French government announcement post WWI for a higher French birth rate in
order to make up for the horrendous losses on the Western Front - perhaps this opera should tour Italy, Germany and Japan, which are turning into retirement homes where the sound of children is rarely heard? On the ballet side, a wonderful 'Sylvia' from
Darcy Bussell and the Royal Ballet -what a wonderful score that is - and also from Delibes, 'Coppelia', with a less ridiculous libretto but much less interesting music IMHO.
We do all tend to have a very Germano-Austrian view of classical music ...
Andrew Clarke
Canberra
Not for those who listen much much more to Russo-Czech-Baltic music.
Ray Hall, Taree
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