ARIEN FÜR COUNTERTENOR - Airs for Haute-Contre / Countertenor; Arien aus *Platée * La Guilrande * Castor et Pollux * NaÏs * Festes de l'Hymen et de l'Amour * Dardanus * Zoroastre Jean-Paul Fouchécourt Opera Lafayette O+C Ryan Brown *** 1 CD - Naxos - 8.557993  -  November 2007 *** Der Name Jean-Paul Fouchécourt ist aus den Bemühungen um das Wiederbeleben der einzigartigen Musik Jean-Philippe Rameaus (1683-1764) ebenso wenig wegzudenken wie die von William Christie, der Gesangeskollegen Bernard Deletré oder Gilles Ragon. Neben Tourneen durch Frankfreich und Europa ist sein Name auch auf den vorliegenden Einspielungen Rameauscher Opern gut präsent (Atys, Fêtes d'Hébé, Les Indes Galantes - alle unter Christie oder Amours de Ragonde, Les ou La Veillée de Village (Libretto: Detouches) mit den Musiciens du Louvre unter Marc Minkowski). Schon länger hat er sich mit dem Ensemble der Opéra Lafayette zusammengetan und einen Querschnitt Rameauscher Arien, in denen der Komponist die verschiedensten menschlichen Regungen und Emotionen eindrucksvoll in Noten gesetzt zu einem sehr hörenswerten Programm gemacht. Dieses liegt nunmehr auf CD vor und wurde im November 2007 von Naxos zu einem eher symbolischen Preis popularisiert. Ein Höreindruck der Sonderklasse abseits des italienischen Barock- oder 19.-Jh.-Belcanto - war die französische Barockoper seit Lully doch eine musikalische Kategorie für sich. Wir können gespannt sein auf die bereits für 2008 angekündigte Einspielung eines bislang noch gar nicht dokumentierten Barockschatzes aus Frankreich des hier vertretenen Gestirns: Rebel und Francoeurs ZÉLINDOR, ROI DES SYLPHES. Bis dahin reicht dieser Genuss. Dirk Carius PS: Mit Fouchécourt liegt bei Naxos auch noch eine Einspielung von Glucks ORPHÉE ET EURIDICE aus 2005 vor (Naxos 8.660185-186) Jean-Philippe Rameau (1683-1764) Operatic Arias – The Artistry of Jélyotte   Jean-Philipp Rameau (1683-1764) Rameau was the leading French composer of his time, in particular after the death of Couperin in 1733. He made a significant and lasting contribution to musical theory. Born in Dijon, two years before the year of birth of Handel, Bach and Domenico Scarlatti, Rameau spent the earlier part of his career principally as organist at Clermont Cathedral. In 1722 or 1723, however, he settled in Paris, publishing further collections of harpsichord pieces and his important Treatise on Harmony, written before his removal to Paris. From 1733 he devoted himself largely to the composition of opera and to his work as a theorist, the first under the patronage of a rich amateur, in whose house he had an apartment. Rameau contributed to a variety of dramatic forms, continuing, in some, the tradition of Lully. These included tragédies lyriques, comédies lyriques and comédies-ballets. His first success in 1733 was Hippolyte et Aricie, but as time went on fashions changed and the stage works he wrote after Les Paladins in 1760 remained unperformed. Keith Anderson ---   The Artistry of Jélyotte, Haute-contre Pierre de Jélyotte was born in the village of Lasseube near the town of Pau in South West France on 13 April 1713. He studied voice and composition as well as harpsichord, organ, violin and guitar in Toulouse and went to Paris in 1733. According to Constant Pierre, he made his début at the Concert Spirituel in May of that year and won a sensational success. He joined the Paris Opéra (The Académie Royale de Musique, as it was then called) where he made his début in the small part of a Greek Man in the revival of the heroic ballet in three acts of Colin de Blamont, Les Festes grecques et romaines, on 11 June 1733. His performance was reviewed very favourably in the June issue of the Mercure de France and he was then chosen to sing l'Amour and one of the Fates for the première of Rameau's first opera Hippolyte et Aricie on 1 October 1733. Jélyotte had a powerful and very supple voice with a wide range (F'to d''). This high tenor voice was known in French as haute - contre, a term that avoids the confusion of divergent definitions of the English word 'countertenor'. The French haute - contre is a high tenor who can sing in natural voice from e to c''. Only occasionally will an haute-contre use falsetto at the top of his range. Jélyotte was soon given increasingly important rôles at the opera. At the première of Rameau's heroic ballet Les Indes galantes on 23 August 1735, he sang the principal male parts of Valère and Don Carlos in the first and second act. At the age of 22, he had become a star, and from then on he would sing both major and minor parts to great applause until his retirement in 1755. After retiring from the Paris Opéra, Jélyotte continued to sing at the service of the court in operatic programs in Versailles and Fontainebleau. In 1762 after one such performance the Mercure de France reported that he was '…still admirable, appearing to enjoy all the brilliance and flexibility of his voice, (and) could not fail to be more charming than ever'. On 9 November 1765, however, he took leave and returned to his home in South West France where, after years of peaceful retirement, he died on 11 September 1797. From 1733 to his retirement from the Paris Opéra in 1755, Jélyotte sang 46 characters in 41 works (36 premières and five revivals) and was given important rôles in thirteen of the sixteen compositions of Rameau mounted during this time. The success of Rameau's operas was due in great part to the artistry of Jélyotte and his colleague, the soprano Marie Fel. Jean-Louis de Cahusac, one of Rameau's librettists underscores the point, writing: 'We enjoy nowadays two singers who have carried taste, precision, expression and lightness of singing to a point of perfection that one would never before have thought possible. The art owes its great progress to them, for without doubt it is to the possibilities that Mr. Rameau saw in their brilliant, flexible voices that opera owes its remarkable pieces with which this illustrious composer has enriched French singing.' Nizam P. Kettaneh

1 CD Naxos 8.557993 November 2007   Interpretation: Klang: ausgezeichnet  ausgezeichnet