Established in 1801 at the Opéra de Paris, Les Mystères d'Isis - a French adaptation of Mozart's The Magic Flute - immediately enjoyed a triumphant success in the capital (nearly 130 performances). The score is a rather exceptional (and indeed unique) acclimatisation of the singspiel to the French opera (without spoken texts, therefore, but with recitatives in Gluck's style).
Diego Fasolis, conductor
Chantal Santon-Jeffery, Pamina
Marie Lenormand, Mona
Renata Pokupic, Myrrene
Sebastien Droy, Isménor
Tassis Christoyannis, Bochoris
Jean Teitgen, Zarastro
Camille Poul, First Lady
Jennifer Borghi, 2nd Lady
Elodie Méchain, 3rd Lady
Mathias Vidal, 1st Priest / Prime Minister
Marc Labonnette, The Guardian / 2nd Priest / 2nd Minister
Flemish Radio Choir
Le Concert Spirituel's Choir and Orchestra
Recorded in 2013 at Salle Pleyel
"After many years of rediscovery thanks to the Palazzetto Bru Zane, we decided to leave the register of the "comfortable" and "historically correct" to look at the great polemical works of the history of the French music. I reread Berlioz a lot. And he was known to demolish works or composers on principle (and sometimes even out of jealousy).
The story of Les Mystères d'Isis is emblematic: while Berlioz will also "recompose" Weber's Freischütz using the pretext that this is the necessary condition for his staging in Paris, he stand against Morel and Lachnith who nevertheless felt before the others that Mozart was a pure genius. These two authors did not have all the voices required to sing The Magic Flute; they had to to introduce ballets and to minimize the comic part and draw the work towards the splendor of the great opera ... They managed it. They did it. And well done! For the pleasure of Mozart's music is there. And if we must renounce to certain part of the Magic Flute, Morel and Lachnith gave us Don Giovanni, Les Noces de Figaro or la Clémence de Titus. To replace Mozart by Mozart was to show an extraordinarily visionary knowledge of the work of this composer.
In short, this resurrection is an event of the first order. An event that seems to counterfeit contemporary patchwork, to the delight of those who love modernity and "rereading". "
Hervé Niquet
