Rameau / Santon-Jeffery / Vashegyi Indes Galantes CD

With Les Indes galantes by Jean-Philippe Rameau, Gy?rgy Vashegyi - along with his Orfeo Orchestra and Purcell Choir - makes a further dazzling addition to their Glossa series of French dramatic masterpieces from the Baroque, and in the company of a luxurious line-up of vocal soloists. The version of this ballet hero?que - supplied with an anti-colonial, anti-clerical manifesto by librettist Louis Fuzelier - selected by Vashegyi is the 1761 revision, a mere decade or so before the irruption onto the Parisian musical scene of the likes of Gluck and Gr?try. Rameau's score had undergone frequent adjustments and improvements since it's premi?re a quarter of a century earlier, and the performing edition for this recording, prepared for the Rameau Opera omnia by Sylvie Bouissou (who also provides a booklet essay here), offers a vision of this work which is more theatrical, fluid and concise than hitherto. Just in themselves, the names of Chantal Santon- Jeffery, Katherine Watson, V?ronique Gens, Reinoud Van Mechelen, Jean-S?bastien Bou and Thomas Doli? (sharing out the dozen solo roles) augur well for a glorious exploration of the prologue and three entr?es ahead. Recently, they have also, in conjunction with the Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles, been working on questions of tempo and how to perform Rameau's sequences as the composer intended. Vashegyi brings a consummate understanding of Rameau's galante style to the proceedings, following two previous Ramellian Glossa outings (Na?s and Les F?tes de Polymnie).