パーセル: 歌劇「妖精の女王」(全曲)

パーセルの最高傑作、クリスティの決定的名盤

イギリス・バロック最大の作曲家パーセル。その豊かな楽才が本領を見せる珠玉の舞台作品の中でも、最も精緻な作風を見せる傑作が、この『妖精の女王』といえるでしょう。『ディドーとエネアス』、『アーサー王』の成功の後に書かれたこの作品は、シェイクスピアの真夏の夜の夢に基づいた物語。印象的な愛の場面や超自然的現象の場面、音楽の機智に満ちた傑作です。。16名の語り手、音楽の場面にも多数の歌手とダンサーを要する大規模にして才気迸る闊達な音楽を、クリスティが、めくるめく鮮やかなコントラストと機智で描きます。コンサートマスターは寺神戸亮、通奏低音のチェンバロおよびオルガンにはクリストフ・ルセも参加、という充実の布陣です。
キングインターナショナル

Henry Purcells The Fairy Queen, based on Shakespeares A Midsummer Nights Dream, is sometimes called an opera; English audiences of Purcells day would have used the term semi-opera, indicating a mixture of music and speech. It might also be called incidental music, intended for insertion into Shakespeares drama. Whatever it is, it is a) absolutely packed with Purcells very best tunes and b) something of a mess, with dialogue and many short pieces that might or might not be used. This 1989 recording by William Christie and his group Les Arts Florissants shows the work at its best, filled with zippy melodies and enhanced by a large, flexible continuo group that keeps the foot-tapping rhythms coming. Christie was, and is, best known for French music, but there was a lot of the French Baroque in Purcells little chunks of dance music, and he made this work come alive with humor and color. It is also true that by 1989, audiences were realizing that Christie was offering something quite new in Baroque music, and this production attracted top-notch singers, including Sandrine Piau and Veronique Gens; perhaps their English was not uniformly successful, but they were a big stride ahead of the ones in Christies recording of Dido and Aeneas just a few years before. The bottom line is that this recording, reissued several times with the late 80s sound cleaned up, has really never been superseded. ~ James Manheim