"That Gluck's magnificent 1777 Armide, a seemingly flawless masterpiece, continues to be a rarity is inexplicable. ... Mr. Brown conducted a stylish and flowing performance, with an admirable cast headed by the lustrous soprano Dominique Labelle in the title role. ...
Gluck's music ebbs and flows with uncanny naturalness. Orchestra-accompanied recitative merges into lyrical arioso and opens up into arias and ensembles that never come across as set pieces. ... One ingeniously subtle scene comes in Act III, when the smitten Armide sings of Renaud, then talks things over with her confidantes, Phénice and Sidonie (two fine young sopranos, Nathalie Paulin and Judith van Wanroij). Singing with tender longing one moment and steely determination the next, Ms. Labelle conveyed Armide's aching conflicts. ...
The tenor William Burden brought a virile voice and subtle expressivity to Renaud. Robert Getchell, a fine lyric tenor, was excellent as Artémidore, Renaud's fellow crusader (and later as a Danish knight). The mezzo-soprano Stephanie Houtzeel stopped the show as La Haine (Hatred), who responds to Armide's call for help in conquering her yearning for Renaud.
Rose Hall was filled for this performance. The time has come for Gluck's Armide."
-Anthony Tommasini, The New York Times, February 5, 2010 |
"The company's founder and conductor, Ryan Brown, realized the composer's goal of dramatic immediacy of expression without trying to translate that into some sort of contemporary equivalent, or updating, for his audience. There was a grace and ease to his phrasing, and a vividness to the playing of his small ensemble, that freed the opera from the ponderous stasis that so often attends even the most well-meaning revivals of 18th-century opera. ...
this semi-concert presentation, studded with dance interlays from the New York Baroque Dance Company (a frequent Opera Lafayette collaborator, resplendent in period costume) was excellent at conveying the spirit of the opera and showing the work's dramatic continuity. ...
The company fielded not one but two good tenors, neither with the nasal cast that so often afflicts singers in French... William Burden... sounded downright heroic among the rest, singing with the light strength of aluminum, as Renaud, and Robert Getchell offered the watercolor tones of good French singing in the smaller roles of Artémidore and one of Renaud's henchmen."
-Anne Midgette, The Washington Post, February 3, 2010 |
