Philippe II d’Orléans (1674-1723)
Suite d’Armide ou Jérusalem délivrée (1704)
Véronique Gens (soprano) – Armide
Marie Lys (soprano) – Herminie
Cyrille Dubois (tenor) – Renaud
David Witczak (baritone) – Ismene/Tissapherne
Victor Sicard (baritone) – Tancrède
Choeur de Chambre de Namur
Cappella Mediterranea/Leonardo García- Alarcón
rec. live, 27/30 June 2023, Château de Versailles, France
Text and translations in French, English,German
Premiere recording
Château de Versailles CVS125 [122]

Philippe II d’Orléans, the nephew of Louis XIV of France seems to have received a very thorough musical education if this opera is anything to go by. His instructors numbered some of the more famous composers of the ancien régime including Marc-Antoine Charpentier, André Campra , Nicolas Bernier and Charles-Hubert Gervais , who may have assisted the duke with the composition of this opera. The opera was likely first staged at Fontainebleau in October 1704 although the records are not conclusive. It appears to have had only 3 performances between October 1704 and its final performance at the Palais-Royale in March 1705. There is only a single manuscript copy of the score residing in the Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal in Paris. Little wonder then that it has escaped public scrutiny before the public concerts from which this welcome recording derives.

Far from having to be apologetic about the musical gifts of a royal composer it comes as a surprise to discover just how gifted a composer he was. Freed from any constraints of patronage or financial worries, Philippe’s compositional style is quite bold for its era. He ventures much more harmonic freedom in the vocal and instrumental lines than other works of a similar nature from that same period. Additionally he is a fairly original orchestrator, as witnessed by some interesting techniques of scoring that occur throughout the opera. What one immediately notices is that he dispenses with the customary sycophantic prologue that occurs in nearly all of the stage works of this period. In addition, for a work intended for court performance, the purely instrumental numbers are few and far between. This opera is definitely more in the Italian mode, which primarily shows off the voices rather than the traditional French mode which gave equal prominence to dancers. As with so many works of this period it takes its foundation from Tasso’s Gerusaleme Liberata. Among the highlights of this remarkable composition are a very unusual but beautiful trio with chorus in the First Act. In the introduction to the final Act the trumpets and drums ring out in some splendid music depicting the final battle for Jerusalem between the Christians and Saracens.

Vocally this recording has been cast with great care, and the talent on display here pays real dividends to the prospective purchaser. For the finest singing achievements the honours are divided between Marie Lys as Herminie and Victor Sicard as Tancrède. Lys sings her role with a heavenly mix of limpidly pure tone and just a soupçon of vibrato. Her singing on this set is approaching sheer perfection. Sicard too is dramatically haunting as the grieving knight Tancrède. His clear ringing baritone is an absolute delight and he gives a truly touching account of Tancrède’s guilt over having been the instrument of the death of his beloved Clorinda.

This does not mean that the contributions of the other cast members here are in any way negligible. Véronique Gens is a formidable Armide. Ms. Gens is now a veteran singer who vocalises mostly in the mezzo register. Her tone is no longer produced with quite the same ease or level of firmness as in bygone days, still her singing here is something to treasure, as shown in her very touching singing of the lament in Act 2. In this opera Armide consistently has the best scenes and Gens shows herself to be a match for all of the opportunities presented to her.

David Witczak gets doubles in two roles and in both of them he confirms the excellent impression I received from his commanding portrayal of Saul in Charpentier’s David et Jonathias from the same label. (review). In a couple of smaller roles Nicholas Scott shows a clear, sweetly produced tenor which we may get to hear more of in future.

The all-important character of Renaud doesn’t reach the stage until the second half of Act Three. Our Renaud, Cyrille Dubois returns to the French baroque roles in which he first made a name for himself after having ventured into the challenging romantic era of his recent recordings of So Romantique! and Lalo’s Le Roi d’Ys (review). The high flying phrases of the baroque haute-contre repertoire is his true home territory, where he excels in the phrasing and flexibility required to do justice to this type of music.

Leonardo García-Alarcón guides this wonderful score with a firm hand and gives detailed attention to the nuances of the orchestration. Rhythms are strong yet delivered with flexibility and style. The orchestra Cappella Mediterranea plays very stylishly for him and they have been captured exquisitely by the team of engineers. Although this is a live recording the audience is not heard until some applause at the conclusion of the opera.

Alas nothing can ever be perfect and the serious letdown on this set is the unfortunate choice of close microphones. It sounds as if microphones have been wired to the performer’s bodies in order to capture the voices in the presumably acoustically challenging room of the Château in which these concerts occurred. All the voices are rendered loudly with harsh and aggressive presence asi if they are all singing directly into the listener’s ear. The lack of distance and atmosphere surrounding the voices is most damaging dramatically to the long scene in Act Three where Tancrède’s remorse is heightened at the end by calls from the ghost of his beloved Clorinda, charmingly sung by Gwendolyn Blondeel. This episode should really be heard as if the ghost were calling out from a distance rather than sounding like poor Clorinda has materialized and been pasted to ones left speaker. This is another case where a substantial achievement comes close to being ruined by the choice to use inappropriate recording equipment. With 80 plus years of expertise in classical recordings made at live venues with sensistive directional microphones there is little excuse for this practice to continue. This recording should have been a valuable addition to the discography, and could easily have been one of my choices for recording of the year; however, the microphone issue shoots it in the foot entirely.

Mike Parr

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Other cast members
Gwendoline Blondeel: La voix de Clorinde, une suivant d’Armide, une Nymphe
Nicholas Scott: Adraste, Alcaste, un Vieux Berger
Fabien Hyon: Vaffrain, un Guerrier