Search - Jean-Baptiste Lully, Hugo Reyne, La Simphonie Du Marais :: Isis (LULLY ou le Musicien du Soleil, Vol. VII)

M. Reyne, please stop!

Peter J. Brand | Memphis, TN United States | 01/14/2009

(2 out of 5 stars)

"I have a great passion for the music of the French Baroque, especially the works of Lully. This should be a great time for fans of Lully because Hugo Reyne and his group La Simphonie du Marais has set out to record most of Lully's operas, including all the unrecorded ones. The problem is that his recordings are frankly dull and lack passion.



Old recordings made of Lully before the 1980s made him sound florid and stuffy. Then came William Christie & Les Arts Florrisants who revolutionized the French Baroque and made it wonderful and popular. Other groups led by his students Marc Minkowski and Christophe Rousset have continued this tradition of great new interpretations of Lully and Rameau. Reyne studied with Christie, but seem to have learned nothing.



I was especially disappointed by "Isis" since this is one of Lully's greatest works. There are wonderful excerpts of "Isis" by Christie on his magnificent "Les Divertissements de Versailles" and others on an excellent soundtrack of "Le Roi Dance" by Reinhard Goebel and Musica Antiqua Köln. These made me crave a full version of "Isis"



Reyne's work came as a huge disappointment even after I was conditioned to such let-downs by Reyne's other vapid releases.



What makes this unbearable is that Lully's operas are rarely recorded. Even Christie and Minkowski's excellent ensembles are overly busy making recordings of Handel operas of which we already have several recordings.



So who will record these operas again after Reyne already has? Opera Lafayette did a decent job of "Armide." Boston Early Music Festival did a good recording of "Thésée" and a serviceable version of "Psyché." But Christie, Minkowski and Rousset have left the field for now and Reinhard Goebel's Musica Antiqua Köln seems to have only done the soundtrack to "Le Roi Dance." This is a shame.



At this point, we can only hope that Hugo Reyne will stop!



"

One of the best pieces composed by Lully and A treasure to f

D. Dunbar | Cincinnati Ohio | 07/06/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This work is a treat to lovers of baroque opera and I believe is one of the best pieces composed by Lully. Mr.Reyne and his orchestra have a great respect for this music and must have spent countless hours in practice to get this sound out.Not once does his orchestra miss the ideal of Lully in his music.The work also illustrates --with flattering words--how the king was idealised at this time and as such gives us a view into the kings court that very few history books can come close to."

Lully's best? possibly...

E. Lyons | Ann Arbor, MI | 02/26/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This is an amazing opera!!! ...since there are no reviews here I just wanted to plug it a lot. From the beginning of the prologue to the end of the final chorus, this is top drawer Lully, and I really wonder why it hasn't been recorded until now. The singers are not big stars, but their names are familiar to French baroque opera fans. they are all accustomed to this repretoire/style, so no worries there...



The opera itself: heartrending laments (see Io in Act V), amazing choruses (Io's apotheosis as Isis at the end of Act V, as well as the Scythians' celebrated "shivering chorus"--"l'hiver qui nous tourmente"--which you can hear a sample from on itunes), and wonderful divertissements. I think I might like it even better than Phaeton, which was my favorite Lully until now. Beautiful. Although it has never been recorded complete, you can look for other arias and bits from it on recital recordings, if you want to sample the music before spending this much money. It is an expensive set, unfortunately.



give it a try!

"