Rameau - Les Boréades

N°26

€35

A monument of French opera, long forgotten, performed with an energy that honors it. Everything is there; pain of an impossible love, lamenting distress in the face of blatant injustice, terror of a devastating storm, relief of a favorable ending. May you be seized by this unique masterpiece, directed by Václav Luks!More details

LES BORÉADES

Collegium 1704
Václav Luks, direction

Posthumous work of Jean-Philippe Rameau (1683–1764).

Rameau's career was coming to an end when in 1763 rehearsals began for his last work, Les Boréades, intended for the Fêtes Royales de Choisy in June, celebrating the end of the Seven Years' War. On 27 April the rehearsals took place in Versailles, then… nothing more. Les Boréades was not part of the royal festivities, and the composer's death in 1764 plunged his last tragédie-lyrique into oblivion, and it was not to see the light of day for another two centuries! Yet what a splendid opera it is, Rameau's most accomplished, for he was in full possession of his creative means at eighty years of age. The writing for orchestra and choir is wildly virtuosic, the melodic invention is exceptional, the drama is powerful: it is a veritable musical testament, a succession of violent elements, passionate duets and heartrending lamentations. Taking on this monument of French music, Václav Luks brings together magnificent soloists and his choral and orchestral forces, which regularly resound in the Royal Opera: their determination is admirable and Versailles really does owe it to Rameau, since the unfinished rehearsals of 1763, to make a second recording of his masterpiece!

Recorded from January 23 to 25, 2020 at the Royal Opera of Versailles.

Booklet in French, English, German - 3 CDs duration : 165’15

→ Find this triple CD in digital format on our Live Opéra Versailles platform and on all streaming platforms!