Marais - Ariane et Bacchus

£24.65

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Label: Alpha

Cat No: ALPHA926

Format: CD

Number of Discs: 2

Genre: Opera

Release Date: 24th March 2023

Works

Marais, Marin

Ariane et Bacchus

Artists

Judith van Wanroij (soprano)
Marie Perbost (soprano)
Helene Carpentier (soprano)
Veronique Gens (soprano)
Mathias Vidal (tenor)
Matthieu Lecroart (bass-baritone)
David Witczak (baritone)
Tomislav Lavoie (bass-baritone)
Philippe Estephe (baritone)
Marine Lafdal-Franc (soprano)
David Tricou (tenor)
Les Chantres du Centre de musique baroque de Versailles
Le Concert Spirituel

Conductor

Herve Niquet

Works

Marais, Marin

Ariane et Bacchus

Artists

Conductor

Herve Niquet

About

Hervé Niquet resurrects Ariane et Bacchus (1696), using for the first time the exact performing forces and layout of the Paris Opéra orchestra in 1700 and thus giving us a historically informed version of this tragédie en musique by Marin Marais. The latter became a viol player at the Académie Royale de Musique in 1676, just as his mentor Lully’s Atys triumphed there. Lully subsequently initiated him into the skills of operatic composition, and Ariane et Bacchus was premiered nine years after the older man’s death. This production, made possible by the support of the Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles, was performed in concert at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées to great acclaim in 2022, when Diapason wrote that the work was ‘deservedly rescued from oblivion’ and was ‘magnified by a sober and telling interpretation from Hervé Niquet and Le Concert Spirituel, in perfect consonance with a remarkable cast’, featuring such luminaries as Judith van Wanroij, Véronique Gens, Mathias Vidal, Hélène Carpentier, Marie Perbost, Matthieu Lécroart, David Witczak, Tomislav Lavoie and Philippe Estèphe.

Cast:
- Ariane: Judith van Wanroij (soprano)
- La Gloire, Corcine: Marie Perbost (soprano)
- Terpsichore, Dircée, Un Songe: Hélène Carpentier (soprano)
- La Nymphe de la Seine, Junon: Véronique Gens (soprano)
- Bacchus, Un Songe: Mathias Vidal (tenor)
- Géralde, Jupiter: Matthieu Lécroart (bass-baritone)
- Adraste: David Witczak (baritone)
- Le Roi, Un Sacrificateur: Tomislav Lavoie (bass-baritone)
- Pan, Le Deuxième Matelot, Lycas, Phobétor, Phantase, Alecton: Philippe Estèphe (baritone)
- L’Amour, Élise, La Naxienne: Marine Lafdal-Franc (soprano)
- Un Plaisir, Un Suivant du Roi, Le Premier Matelot, Mercure: David Tricou (tenor)

Sound/Video

Paused

1

Prologue : Ouverture
2

Prologue : Chœur. Bannissons à jamais la crainte et les alarmes
3

Prologue : Air pour la descente de la gloire
4

Prologue : Récit. J’aime vos soins, j’approuve votre zèle
5

Prologue : Chœur. Puissent les destinées
6

Prologue : Ouverture pour entracte
7

Acte 1 : Prélude et récit. C’est en vain que de toutes parts
8

Acte 1 : Duo et récit. Heureux qui peut, au gré de ses désirs
9

Acte 1 : Récit. Les Dieux, les justes Dieux l’auraient-ils bien permis
10

Acte 1 : Air et récit. Le départ d’un rival aimé
11

Acte 1 : Duo et récit. Lorsqu’un juste dépit s’empresse
12

Acte 1 : Prélude et récit. Vous me fuyez, Adraste, ô ciel quelle froideur !
13

Acte 1 : Récit. Prince, ignorez-vous ce qui fait de ma cour
14

Acte 1 : Air et chœur. Souverain de l’humide empire
15

Acte 1 : Chœur. À Neptune nos chants paraissent agréables
16

Acte 2 : Ritournelle et récit. Quel plaisir prenez-vous à prolonger ma peine
17

Acte 2 : Récit. Dans le chagrin qui vous possède
18

Acte 2 : Prélude et récit. Lorsqu’un ingrat vous abandonne
19

Acte 2 : Ritournelle et récit. L’oracle veut qu’ici je perde l’avantage
20

Acte 2 : Chœur. Ah ! Que pour nous ce jour est un jour glorieux !
21

Acte 2 : Chaconne pour les suivants du roi
22

Acte 2 : Duo et chœur. Après un grand orage
23

Acte 2 : Ritournelle et récit. Trop aimable princesse
24

Acte 3 : Ritournelle, récit et duo. Espérez un destin plus doux
25

Acte 3 : Air. Hélas ! Ce n’est point la tendresse
26

Acte 3 : Symphonie du sommeil pour l’entrée des songes
27

Acte 3 : Chœur. Jouissez d’une paix profonde
28

Acte 3 : Duo. Aimons-nous tendrement
29

Acte 4 : Ritournelle et récit. Oui, je vais m’arracher de ce fatal séjour
30

Acte 4 : Duo. Que nos cœurs amoureux
31

Acte 4 : Air et récit. Hâtez-vous d’assurer ma vengeance
32

Acte 4 : Entrée pour les démons
33

Acte 4 : Chœur. Les supplices de l’univers font les délices des enfers
34

Acte 5 : Prélude et air. Junon, dans un lieu solitaire
35

Acte 5 : Prélude et récit. Où sont-ils, ces amants dont je suis outragée
36

Acte 5 : Air pour les combattants
37

Acte 5 : Duo. Amour, cher auteur de ma peine
38

Acte 5 : Air et chœur. Tendres amants, tout succède à vos voeux
39

Acte 5 : Air pour les suivants du roi
40

Acte 5 : Trio. Abandonnons nos âmes
41

Acte 5 : Chœur. Tendres amants, tout succède à vos voeux

Europadisc Review

The myth of Ariadne, the lover abandoned by Theseus on the island of Naxos following his victory over the Minotaur on Crete, has been a fruitful one for composers from Monteverdi and Haydn to Richard Strauss and Roussel. One operatic setting that will be unfamiliar to most listeners, but which deserves wider currency, is Marin Marais’s Ariane et Bacchus (1696). Marais is better known to audiences today as a composer for the viol, his music for which has enjoyed numerous recordings. He was, of course, a virtuoso on the instrument, soon surpassing the standards of his teacher Sainte-Colombe. But Marais’s musical education was a thorough one, and before the age of twenty he was playing in the opera orchestra of his native Paris, taking part in the court premiere of Lully’s Atys (1676). He learned the art of the Lullian tragédie en musique direct from the master, and after Lully’s death he himself took up the baton of the form at a time when it was giving way to lighter types of operatic entertainment.

Ariane et Bacchus was Marais’s second opera (his first, Alcide, was a collaboration with Lully’s son Louis), preceding the better known Alcyone (1706) and Sémélé (1709), both of which have received fine recordings in the past few years. Yet although it lacks the celebrated tempest scene of Alcyone, or the earthquake of Sémélé, it is still a captivating and often exotic work, not least for the ways in which it undermines the tragedy with semi-comic subplots with love rivalries and jealousies that push it in the direction of a pastiche – though a rather more subtle one than in Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos of more than two centuries later.

Musically, too, Marais’s Ariane is an absorbing opera and, with Hervé Niquet at the helm of Le Concert Spirituel (having already recorded the composer’s Sémélé on Glossa), it is a delight from start to finish. The research into scoring and instrumentation underpinning this new Alpha release was undertaken in collaboration with the Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles, whose singers provide the chorus, and the cast is a starry one, with soprano Judith van Wanroij as Ariadne and experienced French tenor Mathias Vidal as the god Bacchus who sweeps the abandoned heroine off her feet. Véronique Gens, no less, is cast as the vengeful Juno, queen of the gods, and baritone David Witczak is the principal antagonist Adraste, whose attempts to win Ariadne for himself are constantly thwarted.

The main action is preceded by the customary allegorical prologue, in which various deities, overlooking the city of Paris, declare that the performance is in honour of the conquests of Louis XIV, although what the Sun King thought of being compared with a god usually more associated with drunken carousing is not known. Right from the start, the very special soundworld of French Baroque opera carries the listener forward, with its beguiling top lines of violins and oboes in heady unisons, bass violins replacing the more customary double basses (which further emphasises the ‘toppy’ timbres), and typically urgent speeds set by Niquet.

Marais, it turns out, is a master of orchestration, and there are many telling touches here, all brilliantly realised by the players of Le Concert Spirituel: sweet-toned recorders herald the arrival of Cupid (Marine Lafdal-Franc), a tambourine that of Bacchus (tenor Mathias Vidal) fresh from his conquest of the Indies, while a rustic guitar accompanies an air for two sailors. A formidable array of instruments is used by percussionist Samuel Domergue, including an ominous low drum for the entry of the Sacrificer. There are thrills aplenty in the orchestral and choral tuttis, owing much to the enlarged double reed section (amalgamated only with a single trumpet and timpani).

Dramatically, too, Ariane is highly effective, with the first fly in the ointment (the appearance of Juno) coming at the end of Act 1, and each subsequent Act turning on a similar predicament, usually resulting in the heroine’s renewed resolve to commit suicide. The fast-paced action eschews the succession of recitative-aria pairings familiar from Italian opera seria. Instead, the music is much more fluid, and it is here that the expertise of the soloists and Niquet is most valuable, keeping the text and action flowing at an ideal pace (abetted by the instrumental petit choeur). Yet there are also many jewels to admire along the way, not least Ariadne’s lovely Act 3 air ‘Hélas ! Ce n’est point la tendresse’ accompanied by soft-toned recorders (here sounding closer to transverse flutes) and muted strings, which also acts as a prelude to a deceptive (and splendidly morphic) dream sequence. The moment when Bacchus and Ariadne first fall for one another (‘Trop aimable princesse’) is another most enjoyable one.

Van Wanroij makes an ideal Ariadne, her tone steely and tragic but also capable of delicacy and vulnerability. Gens is an imperious Juno, Vidal a marvellously ardent and animated Bacchus, and Witczak has just enough menace to make Adraste a plausible enemy without going over the top. Of course, everything turns out well for the lovers in the end. All the remaining cast are impressive, with Hélène Carpentier as the devious, coquettish Dirce, the bright-toned Marie Perbost as the heroine’s companion Corcyna, and Tomislav Lavoie as Oenarus particularly impressive.

The Versailles chorus are a constantly enlivening presence in the larger tableaux, culminating in the opera’s joyous ending, but the other real stars here are the orchestra players under Niquet, beguiling the ear with their combination of flair and sensitivity to tonal and rhythmic nuance. They make Marais’s Ariane et Bacchus (like the titular deity himself) impossible to resist. Splendidly recorded by the Alpha team, this is an important addition to the discography of Baroque opera.

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Marais - Ariane et Bacchus

In stock - available for despatch within 1 working day

Despatch Information

Contents

Works

Artists

Conductor

Works

Artists

Conductor

About

Sound/Video

Paused

Europadisc Review