Barihunk trio touring Lully's rarely performed Isis

Edwin Crossley-Mercer, Philippe Estèphe and Aimery Lefèvre

Lully’s rarely performed Isis will be performed in Paris, Versailles and Vienna with a barihunk trio under the baton of French baroque specialist Christophe Rousset and Les Talens Lyriques. The cast includes Edwin Crossley-Mercer as Jupiter, Aimery Lefèvre as Hierax and Philippe Estèphe as Neptune. They'll be joined by Eve-Maud Hubeaux as Isis, Bénédicte Tauran as Juno, Ambroisine Bré as Iris, Cyril Auvity as Apollo and Fabien Hyon as Mercury.

The opera is best remembered today for the "Peoples from Frozen Climes" music, whose  tremolos inspired the ‘Frost Scene’ in Purcell’s more widely performed King Arthur. Isis has been neglected because the five-act opera gets off to a slow start in the first two acts with lengthy dialogue before it kicks into gear for the final three acts.

Christophe Rousset talks about Isis:

The opera deals with the jealously and conflict between Jupiter, Juno and Isis. The two women love the same man, wth Juno opting for e a violent course of revenge and Io lamenting her loss. 

The opera was written for Louis XIV in order to celebrate the Sun King’s reign. However, the libretto's tale of Jupiter pursuing the nymph Io, only reminded audiences of the king's affairs with his mistresses, Madame de Montespan and Mademoiselle de Ludres. The French immediately associated Juno with Madame de Montespan and Io with Madame de Ludres.

The opera will be performed at the Theatre des Champs-Elysées on December 6, at the Opéra Royal in Versailles on December 10 and the Théâter an der Wien on February 22.

Reader Submission: Aimery Lefèvre

Aimery Lefèvre

Our latest reader submission is 30-year-old French barihunk Aimery Lefèvre. A reader notified us after buying tickets for the world premiere of Philippe Hurel's Les Pigeons D'Argile at the Théâtre du Capitole, in which Lefèvre is singing Toni. Performances run from April 15-22 and additional information is available online.

Lefèvre studied piano and organ performance as well as singing at the Centre de Musique Baroque in Versailles, where he specialized in 17th- and 18th-century music performance. He continued his education at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse in Lyon under the direction of Brian Parsons, and then became a member of the Paris Opera’s Atelier Lyrique.

His debut was the male title role in Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas under the direction of Kenneth Weith. In 2010,  he made his Paris Opera as Fiorello in Rossini’s Il barbiere di Siviglia, as well as Momus in Rameau’s Platée, the latter under the baton of Marc Minkowski. He returned in 2011 to sing Curio in Handel's Giulio Cesare and in 2012 to sing Arcas and Parque in Rameau's Hippolyte et Aricie.

This summer, Lefèvre heads to Santiago, Chile where he will sing Frédérick in Delibes' Lakme. Performances run from July 5-14 and tickets are available online.