Igor Stravinsky - Le Rossignol (François-Xavier Roth)

Information

Composer: Igor Stravinsky

• Le Rossignol (Opéra en trois actes)

Sabine Devieilhe; Cyrille Dubois; Chantal Santon Jeffery

Jean-Sébastien Bou; Laurent Naouri

Victor Sicard; Lucile Richardot

Ensemble Aedes

Les Siècles

François-Xavier Roth, conductor

Date: 2025

Label: Warner Classics

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Review

The coloratura twittering of ‘Ah, joie, emplis mon coeur’ from Stravinsky’s miniature opera Le rossignol was a highlight of Sabine Devieilhe’s 2017 album ‘Mirages’, where she was partnered by Les Siècles and François-Xavier Roth. Devieilhe was the raison d’être for Olivier Py’s staging of the opera at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in March 2023, where it was paired with Poulenc’s saucy, surreal Les mamelles de Tirésias.

Py’s concept was that Le rossignol features backstage life as performers prepare to stage Mamelles; indeed, the production photo on the CD cover here shows Devieilhe in the feathered showgirl outfit she wears as Thérèse/Tirésias. The Stravinsky was recorded by Erato, released here by itself – short measure for a full price disc at under 47 minutes.

The opera, based on Hans Christian Andersen’s story, features a Nightingale, a Fisherman, the Emperor of China, a mechanical nightingale and the contralto figure of Death. Act 1 was composed in 1908, when Stravinsky’s music was still influenced by his mentor, Rimsky-Korsakov. Acts 2 and 3 were composed in 1913 14, after the composer had scored Parisian successes with The Firebird, Petrushka and The Rite of Spring; their musical world is more sharply focused and spare. The chinoiserie features pentatonic music, albeit bitonal.

Roth and the period-instrument Les Siècles are no strangers to Stravinsky’s scores premiered by the Ballets Russes and they are alert to every precise detail here. Devieilhe’s diamantine coloratura is exquisite in Stravinsky’s high-lying vocal writing. Lucile Richardot plumbs the depths impressively as Death, and Cyrille Dubois is affecting as the Fisherman, his light lyric tenor with its distinctive flutter appealing. Jean-Sébastien Bou is firm-voiced in the brief role of the Emperor.

— Mark Pullinger

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Igor Stravinsky (June 17, 1882 – April 6, 1971) was a Russian composer. Son of an operatic bass, he studied privately with Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov from 1902 to 1908. Soon after the impresario Sergei Diaghilev commissioned Stravinsky to write three ballets for the Ballets Russes: Firebird (1910), Petrushka (1911) and The Rite of Spring (1913). The last of which, with its shifting and audacious rhythms, was a landmark in music history. Later Stravinsky also adopted Neoclassicism and serialism in his composition. His major Neoclassical works include Oedipus rex (1927) and the Symphony of Psalms (1930).

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François-Xavier Roth (born 6 November 1971) is a French conductor. He graduated from the Conservatoire de Paris, and has served as an assistant conductor to John Eliot Gardiner. In 2003, he founded Les Siècles, an orchestra which performs on instruments appropriate to the period of composition of each piece, from late Baroque and Classical to 20th century music. Roth was the last chief conductor of the SWR Sinfonieorchester Baden-Baden und Freiburg (2011–2016), and Generalmusikdirektor of the city of Cologne (2015–2024), which includes duties as Gürzenich-Kapellmeister and chief conductor of the Cologne Opera.

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