Anne Sofie von Otter's recital with Les Arts Florissants under William Christie was the outcome of what the Swedish mezzo-soprano calls her "new love affair" with French baroqueness music. Operatic scenes by Charpentier and Rameau formed the rachis of her programme, each half of which approached one of their corking tragic heroines - Charpentier's M�d�e, Ph�dre in Rameau's Hippolyte et Aricie - via songs, instrumental suites and dances. Von Otter is verbally the most subtle of artists. Given that both composers' styles are stock-still as much in textual declamation as in song, it is surprising that she has taken so long to tackle them.
Charpentier, with his sharp, rapid insights into the human psyche, is better suited to concert excerpts than Rameau, whose examination of the head is slower and more probing. You don't get the full measure of his Ph�dre if you isolate her from the context of the opera, in which her emotional turbulence is measured by constant comparing with everyone else's mental stability. Von Otter's portrayal - sorry, grieving and, at the close, nobly resigned - remained of necessity, and frustratingly, incomplete.
Her M�d�e, however, was a thing of wonder. Keeping us the right face of empathy, Von Otter dragged us with her into mouth monstrosity, unleashing hell with the to the highest degree exquisite of pianissimos and suggesting vortices of emotion beneath the calm, controlled surface.
Christie's examination of the insidious instrumental differences between each composer was immaculate. Flutes indicate compassion in Hippolyte et Aricie, but deceit in M�d�e. Charpentier, obstinate to presuppositions, was shown as having the greater harmonic mountain chain. Enthralling.
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