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.

Edwin Crossley-Mercer in first performance of Hippolyte et Aricie in Zurich

Edwin Crossley-Mercer in Hippolyte et Aricie (Photo: T+T Fotografie)

Barihunk Edwin Crossley-Mercer performed Thésée in the first performance of Jean-Philippe Rameau's Hippolyte et Aricie at the Zurich Opera House last night, which was conducted by 18th-century French music expert Emmanuelle Haïm. They were joined by Stéphanie d’Oustrac  as Phèdre, Cyrille Dubois as Hippolyte and Mélissa Petit as Aricie.

There are additional performances of this French Baroque rarity on May 22, 24 and 30, and June 2, 7 and 14. Tickets and additional cast information is available online.

Jean-Philippe Rameau was 50 years old when he staged his first opera, Hippolyte et Aricie, in 1733. There was little in his life to suggest he was about to embark on a major new career as an opera composer. He was famous for his works on music theory as well as books of harpsichord pieces. The closest he had come to writing dramatic music was composing a few secular cantatas and some popular pieces for the Paris fairs

As the most important musical theorist of his day, Rameau created a work that far surpassed the conventions of French musical theatre of the time. The French libretto, by Abbé Simon-Joseph Pellegrin, is based on Racine's tragedy Phèdre. The opera takes the traditional form of a tragédie en musique with an allegorical prologue followed by five acts.

After a performance at the Paris Opéra in 1767, the work disappeared from the stage until the 20th century. The first modern performance took place in Geneva in March 1903 and returned to Paris in 1908. More recent performances include Aix-en-Provence in 1983, Lyon in 1984, the Opéra Comique in Paris in 1985, Lausanne in 1987, Versailles, in 1994, Palais Garnier in Paris in 1996 and Glyndebourne in 2013.

American audiences will be thrilled to know that Edwin Crossley-Mercer will appear at Carnegie Hall on June 24th (keep an eye out for an upcoming post with all the details)!