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Jean-Baptiste Lully’s Atys, a tragédie en musique, became known as the ‘king’s opera’ due to Louis XIV’s fondness for it. The work stands as a testament to the Sun King’s courtly refinement, as well as his moves to make France the center of European artistic culture. The opera’s themes of romantic dilemmas and ultimate tragedy, set amidst the poetic atmosphere of Ovid’s classical mythology, create the perfect vehicle for a narrative filled with dramatic intensity combined with a myriad of moving and expressive arias and duets. William Christie conducts this acclaimed production – hailed by The New York Times as being ‘as satisfying it is bold’.

REVIEW:

The role of Atys is physically as well as vocally taxing, but is here superbly realised by the German tenor, Bernard Richter, while the French soprano, Emmanuelle De Negri, is an excellent Sangaride, with the creamy voice of the mezzo, Stephanie D’Oustrac, as Cybele completing the love triangle. The cast list is large, and with the Compagnie Fetes Galantes providing the dancers, the stage is at times totally filled. The reviews at the time of filimg (2011) were suitably euphoric regarding the casting, and equally of the presence of the period instrument orchestra, Les Arts Florrissants, with the idiomatic conducting of William Christie. The filming itself is immaculate in its ideal mix of full stage and close-up images, while the sound quality is gorgeous.

– David's Review Corner (David Denton)

A musician of genius, Jean-Baptiste Lully put all his musical science at the service of intense oratorical emotion in the Grands Motets. These vast religious compositions, with their powerful dramatic character, were representative of the splendor deployed at the court of Louis XIV. The Dies Irae and the De Profundis, imbued with great solemnity, were both given at the royal funeral of Louis XIV's wife, Queen Maria Theresa of Austria, in 1683 in the Basilica of Saint-Denis. This extraordinary Funerial ostentation was magnified by Lully's works, making Madame de Sevigne remark that at their performance that "all eyes were welled up with tears". Stephane Fuget and Les epopees - a veritable army of generals - deliver a grandiose, shimmering, theatrical and oratorical version of this music, draping it in an abundance of brilliant glittering ornaments, like the sun invigorating the stained-glass windows, mirrors and gilding of Versailles, to the point of eternity.

This recording is the third of Lully's Armide; the other two, from 1983 (Erato) and 1992 (Harmonia Mundi), were led by Philippe Herreweghe. The first, which I've not heard, eliminated the opera's fourth act, in which minor characters are tempted by Armide and the plot is otherwise not advanced. The second recording, starring Guillaumette Laurens and Howard Crook as Armide and Renaud, is complete and is an elegant reading, with some fire from Laurens.

The Washington, DC-based Opera Lafayette's recording under consideration here is trimmed. Gone is the Prologue, which is the usual love poem to Louis XIV that these operas called for, this one with the allegorical figures of Wisdom and Glory praising him to the skies. It contains some lovely music, but is superfluous to the plot; it was cut as early as 1761 (probably a political rather than musical decision; in any event Louis never saw the work). Conductor Ryan Brown also chops a few repeats in the dances, one of the Shepherd's arias, and a few minutes of the fourth act. I didn't miss any of it, dramatically, but it's nice to know it can be heard on Herreweghe's second recording. Brown gives us two hours of cohesive music-drama.

The plot is well-known, and in fact the same libretto (by Phillippe Quinault) was set by Gluck in 1776 (the Lully dates from 1686). Opera lovers also will be familiar with the Rossini and Handel operas that treat the story of the sorceress Armida's infatuation with the knight, Rinaldo; there are variations, but the outlines are the same.

Lully's opera, his last, was a great and lasting success, what with demons destroying enchanted palaces and all, and with music that never ceases to please. Both leads are well drawn, with Armide's wickedness on a grand scale (her love for Renaud almost enough for us to feel for her) and Renaud's valor and sweetness displayed in equal proportion. The dance intervals are colorfully scored and utterly delightful.

The stars of this set, the mezzo Stephanie Houtzeel and tenor Robert Getchell, are excellent. She has plenty of character to her tone, sings with nice ferocity in her second-act "Enfin il est en ma puissance", charm in the fifth-act love duet, and both resignation and fury in her final number. The voice is substantial, and while she never resorts to chest voice, a good snarl occasionally slips out. Laurens has only a slight edge over Houtzeel; the former is more comfortable with ornamentation and dramatic stresses.

No apologies need be made for Robert Getchell, a "French" tenor of the best kind, heroically "bright" enough and gently loving enough, singing with fine French diction. And his tone is beautiful. (A note: He studied with Howard Crook.) The cast's other standout, tenor Tony Boutté, sings a Danish Knight (some of his music is omitted in Act 4) and a Lucky Lover and I'm sure he will soon be graduating to the role of Renaud. His voice sits high and is clear enough for Gluck's Orphée as well.

William Sharp uses his not-very-weighty baritone voice to enliven La Haine, and he means every word. As Armide's confidantes, Ann Monoyios and Miram Dubrow are effective, though the latter strays from pitch early on as Sidonie. François Loup, doing double duty as Hidraot, Armide's wicked uncle, and Ubalde, Renaud's good friend, oversings as the former to compensate for a tone not quite large enough. The others are all excellent.

I wish that Ryan Brown's orchestra were bigger; there are some moments in this work that require more sheer noise than 27 players can make (and they don't always play at once). Herreweghe gets it just right and the drama seems properly dark despite the inherent frills. To sum up, not only is this set the only one currently available, it's a bargain and very good all around. You'll miss about 30 minutes of music, but the two hours you do get are splendid.

--Robert Levine, ClassicsToday.com

Armide, premiered in 1686, was the last joint work of Lully and the poet Philippe Quinault. It immediately became a pillar of the Opéra’s repertory, which it finally left only in 1766, when it was removed to make room for a new wave of composers, Philidor, Grétry, Gossec and soon Gluck. A few attempts to restore former tastes still allowed audiences to hear such works as Persée, revived in 1770 (and recorded in that version by Hervé Niquet, ALPHA967). But these operas were profoundly modified in order to increase the role of the orchestra and tailor the vocal numbers to the singers of the day. This was the context for the fascinating and unpublished version of Armide that has lain dormant in the Bibliothèque Nationale for more than two centuries. The revisions to the original are by Louis-Joseph Francœur, nephew of the celebrated François Francœur, one of Louis XV’s court musicians. This recording of the 1778 version of Armide, made at the Opéra Royal du Château de Versailles in collaboration with the Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles, is not merely the first modern performance but the work’s world premiere, since none of its music was ever actually played at the time. It enables us to grasp the evolution of the ideas and practices of French music over a whole century.

Here are assembled three Grands Motets by Lully, associated with key moments in the reign of Louis XIV. In 1660, the Jubilate Deo celebrating the La Paix des Pyrénées and the king's wedding, erupts in unheard of proportions, that no other composer in France had produced before, and with breathtaking modernity. The music is triumphant, with a French-style overture worthy of future operas, grand theatrical narratives and choruses alternating between plenitude and exaltation: the celebratory motet was thus born with dazzling panache. The Quare fremuerunt gentes, even more dramatic, celebrated la Paix de Ratisbonne (the Peace of Regensburg) in 1685 with powerful operatic accents. Finally, the Miserere (1664) is the most famous French motet of the 17th century. Played in 1672 for the funeral service of Chancellor Séguier, it brought tears to Madame de Sévigné's eyes: "I don't believe there is any other music in heaven." Stéphane Fuget and his ensemble Les Epopées pursue their grace-filled cycle.

In 1670, Molière and Lully presented to the King Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme, a sumptuous Comédie-Ballet performed by Molière's Troupe, with musicians conducted by Lully, ballets by Pierre Beauchamp, scenery by Carlo Vigarani and Turkish costumes by the Chevalier d'Arvieux. The work was inspired by the ambassador Soliman Musta Aga-Feraga, whom Louis XIV had just kept waiting for long weeks before receiving him, provoking his exasperation which amused the King and the courtiers’ sneer, the whole of Paris mocking the outlandish mores of the envoys of the Great Turk. The idea came to Molière of a plot based on fake Turks, ridiculing a Bourgeois aspiring to nobility: thus, a masterpiece was born, with the dazzling Cérémonie Turque, and at the end a sumptuous Ballet des Nations. The magnificent music of this pillar of French theatre is recorded here in its entirety for the first time by Vincent Dumestre: Glory be to Lully and to Molière!