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Rameau: Platee / Minkowski, Agnew, Delunsch, Lamprecht, Naouri

Rameau / Agnew / Delunsch / Beuron
Release Date: 10/25/2011 
Label:  Arthaus Musik   Catalog #: 107335  
Composer:  Jean-Philippe Rameau
Performer:  Valerie Gabail,  Paul Agnew,  Mireille Delunsch,  Yann Beuron,   ... 
Conductor:  Marc Minkowski
Orchestra/Ensemble:  Les Musiciens du Louvre
Number of Discs: 2 
Length: 2 Hours 30 Mins. 

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Notes and Editorial Reviews

The creative team that triumphed with the Theatre du Chatelet production of Offenbach’s La Belle Helene, turned their talents to Platee in this Opera de Paris staging, premiered in 1999 to great acclaim and reprised in 2002, when this recording was made at the magnificent Palais Garnier. Their handling of Rameau’s burlesque on the vicissitudes of love, a piece in which the composer also cocked a snook at the sacrosanct rules of eighteenth-century French opera, is a “pure joy from start to splashing finish” (Wall Street Journal Europe). In the realm of the ancient gods, Mercury and Cithaeron persuade Jupiter that he can cure his wife Juno’s obsessive jealousy by setting up a mock marriage between himself and Plataea, an astonishingly ugly Read more but supremely self-confident marsh nymph who rules a realm of frogs. When Juno sees how ridiculous the situation is, they argue, her jealousy will vanish. Rameau used Jupiter’s feigned courtship of Plataea – during which he appears as a donkey, an owl, a cloud and a shower of fireworks – to gleefully parody every eighteenth-century musical convention in the book, as the music gurgles, hiccups, croaks and brays.

“Here, everything works together to produce a close-to-perfect performance …Tenor Yann Beuron is at his boyishly charming best as a glittering, silver-suited, rock-star Mercury. Soprano Mireille Delunsch does a superb vocal and comic star turn as ‘La Folie’, a prima diva wearing a ball gown of sheet music. And tenor Paul Agnew, in a fishnet body stocking and a pink flower-petal tutu, is absolutely sensational as the ever-hopeful, undaunted green queen of the frogs.”-- Wall Street Journal Europe

“Laurent Pelly’s staging of Platee is an exhilarating display of gags and West Side Story dance routines mixed in with satirical rap...Marc Minkowski conducting the excellent Musiciens du Louvre-Grenoble was the instigator of a sparkling orchestral fete”.-- Opera Now

Jean-Philippe Rameau
PLATÉE

Platée – Paul Agnew La Folie / Thalie – Mireille Delunsch
Thespis / Mercure – Yann Beuron
Jupiter – Vincent Le Texier
Junon – Doris Lamprecht
Cithéron – Laurent Naouri
L’Amour / Clarine – Valérie Gabail
Momus – Franck Leguerinel

Musiciens du Louvre Chorus
Les Musiciens du Louvre – Grenoble
Marc Minkowski, conductor

Laurent Pelly, stage director and costume designer
Laura Scozzi, choreographer
Chantal Thomas, set designer
Joël Adam, lighting designer
Recorded at the Opéra national de Paris, Palais Garnier, 2002.

Picture format: NTSC 16:9
Sound format: PCM Stereo / Dolby Digital 5.0 / DTS 5.0
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Subtitles: English, German, French, Spanish, Italian
Running time: 150 mins
No. of DVDs: 2
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Works on This Recording

1. Platée by Jean-Philippe Rameau
Performer:  Valerie Gabail (Soprano), Paul Agnew (Tenor), Mireille Delunsch (Soprano),
Yann Beuron (Tenor), Vincent Le Texier (Voice), Doris Lamprecht (Mezzo Soprano),
Laurent Naouri (Baritone), Franck Leguérinel (Baritone)
Conductor:  Marc Minkowski
Orchestra/Ensemble:  Les Musiciens du Louvre
Period: Baroque 
Written: 1745; France 

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