Rameau, J-P (1683-1764) - Zoroastre - (Condensed) - Les Talens Lyriques

Condensed Baroque Opera Playlist link: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9E364AA7FD5D64F9

Condensed clip of the opera 'Zoroastre ', composed by Jean-Philippe Rameau, in the 1749, performed by Les Talens Lyriques for the Drottningholm Festival 2005

Zoroastre - Anders J. Dahlin
Abramane - Evgueniy Alexiev
Amélite - Sine Bundgaard
Erinice - Anna Maria Panzarella
Zopire / La Vengeance - Lars Arvidson
Narbanor - Marcus Schwartz
Oromasès / Ariman - Gérard Théruel
Céphie - Ditte Andersen

Orchestra - Les Talens Lyriques - The Drottningholm Theatre Orchestra
Conductor - Christophe Rousset

Drottningholm Theatre - 2005

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Rameau, Jean-Philippe (1683-1764):

Jean-Philippe Rameau was one of the most important French composers and music theorists of the Baroque era. He replaced Jean-Baptiste Lully as the dominant composer of French opera and is also considered the leading French composer for the harpsichord of his time, alongside François Couperin.

Little is known about Rameau's early years, and it was not until the 1720s that he won fame as a major theorist of music with his Treatise on Harmony (1722). He was almost 50 before he embarked on the operatic career on which his reputation chiefly rests. His debut, Hippolyte et Aricie (1733), caused a great stir and was fiercely attacked for its revolutionary use of harmony by the supporters of Lully's style of music. Nevertheless, Rameau's pre-eminence in the field of French opera was soon acknowledged, and he was later attacked as an "establishment" composer by those who favoured Italian opera during the controversy known as the Querelle des Bouffons in the 1750s.

Rameau's music had gone out of fashion by the end of the 18th century, and it was not until the 20th that serious efforts were made to revive it. Today, he enjoys renewed appreciation with performances and recordings of his music ever more frequent.

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Zoroastre:

Zoroastre (1749) includes some important innovations: it was the first major French opera to dispense with an allegorical prologue and its subject matter is not drawn from the Classical mythology of Greece and Rome, as was usual, but from Persian religion. There was good reason for this. As Graham Sadler writes, the opera is "a thinly disguised portrayal of Freemasonry". Cahusac, the librettist, was a leading French Mason and many of his works celebrate the ideals of the Enlightenment, including Zoroastre. The historical Zoroaster was highly regarded in Masonic circles and the parallels are obvious between Rameau's opera and an even more famous Masonic allegory, Mozart's The Magic Flute (1791), with its initiation rites conducted under the auspices of the wise "Sarastro".

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