Lucile Richardot News
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2020-07-24 09:43:01
Zest and relish: Handel's comic masterpiece Semele directed by John Eliot Gardiner with young cast enjoying every minute
Handel Semele; Louise Alder, Hugo Hymas, Lucile Richardot, Gianluca Buratto, Carlo Vistoli, Monteverdi Choir, English Baroque Soloists, John Eliot Gardiner; SDG Reviewed by Robert Hugill on 24 July 2020 Star rating: 5.0 (★★★★★) Based on a live performance at Alexandra Palace, Handel's comic masterpiece is presented here in quite a full version combining great zest and character with technical bravura from John Eliot Gardiner and his young castIn 1741, Handel stopped presenting Italian operas in London and, feeling rather off with the London scene entirely, accepted an invitation to perform in Dublin (where Messiah was premiered). Whilst Handel was away, Thomas Arne presented a double bill at Covent Garden, Handel's Alexander's Feast and his own new setting of Congreve's libretto The Judgement of Paris (which was originally written for an English opera competition 40 year earlier, see my article The Invention of English Opera). Handel would have known about […]
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Faces of classical music
2019-07-14 13:25:00
The best new classical albums: July 2019
[…] The two parts are separated by "Night", ravishingly played by three bass viols: a picture in sound that looks forward to Orpheus's "Cessez, cessez, fameux coupables" in La descente d'Orphée aux enfers. As in Caecilia, there's a final chorus of jubilation.The third of these concert mini-dramas is The Death of Saul and Jonathan, composed around 1682. The latter doesn't appear but Saul does, starting with his visit to the Witch of Endor. The mezzo Lucile Richardot is very fine as the witch, raising Samuel in what is virtually a scena in itself. Nicolas Brooymans, a very palpable ghost, is accompanied by the buzzing sound of a regal. The chorus has striking harmonic clashes at "acerba" (grievous) and "amara" (bitter) when lamenting the deaths; David's own lament for Jonathan, beautifully sung by David Cornillot, is underpinned by violins, recorders and those plangent viols. The whole work is on a par with […]
2018-07-19 17:10:00
Dido and Aeneas in the Mediterranean - Aix festival
[…] stage when Traroré sings "Je suis Didon", she's accompanied by a North African n'goni ( a kind of lute) Then she sings a chant. Dido becomes a person, an individual with a past, not just a figure in a play. Extremely moving. The opera proper begins when the cast file in onto a set resembling a pier in an anonymous port. Anaïk Morel sings Didon, Sophia Burgos her sister Belinda. Tobias Greenhalgh sings Aeneas, and Lucile Richardot the Sorceress. The orchestra and choir are Ensemble Pygmalion, baroque specialists, conducted here by Vaclav Luks. The director is Vincent Huguet, mentored by Patrice Chéreau. A stylish performance well paced and expressive : nothing prissy about the baroque ! Please also see my piecesLes Funérailles de Louis XIV (Pygmalion Ensemble) andPerpetual Night - early English Baroque airs - Lucile Richardot Ensemble Correspondances
2018-05-23 07:40:39
Interesting programmes, strange timing - homages to Lully and Louis Couperin
Lucile Richardot Un hommage à Lully / Un hommage à Louis Couperin; Lucile Richardot, Thibault Roussel, Mathilde Vialle, Duo Coloquintes; London Festival of Baroque Music at St John's Smith Square Reviewed by Robert Hugill on 13 Mar 2018 Star rating: 4.0 (Lully) / 3.5 (Couperin) (★★★★ / ★★★½)A pair of intimate concerts paying homage to two major French baroque figuresOn Wednesday 16 May 2018, the London Festival of Baroque Music presented a pair of intimate concerts paying homage to two of the greatest French Baroque Composers. First Lucile Richardot (mezzo-soprano), Thibault Roussel (theorbo & guitar) and Mathilde Vialle (bass viol) presented Un hommage à Lully and then for the late-evening concert, Duo Coloquintes (Alice Julien-Laferrière - violin, Mathilde Vialle - viola da gamba) presented Un hommage à Louis Couperin. Un hommage à LullyIt seems that everywhere we look these days we see evidence of the […]