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Les Délices: Enchanted Isle at Plymouth (Feb. 26)

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by Daniel Hathaway

Les Délices lucked upon a sun-drenched, nearly balmy Sunday afternoon for its February 26 “Enchanted Island” program in Herr Chapel at Plymouth Church — weather that perfectly suited the subject but no doubt affected the turnout for soprano Sherezade Panthhaki’s impressive debut with the ensemble in solo cantatas by Clérambault and Rameau.

Although the ensemble reinvented itself to some extent to weather the pandemic, Artistic Director Debra Nagy continues to return to its original, winning format: one-hour programs of French Baroque repertoire, assiduously researched, prepared, and performed by Cleveland’s finest period instrumentalists, usually featuring guest vocalists. [Read more…]

Les Délices: Rejoice! Bach Cantatas for Advent

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by Emmy Hensley

“Bach is a goldmine in terms of repertory. It’s really the golden age of the oboe and the apogee of its repertoire. But it’s so rich for everyone and anyone,” oboist Debra Nagy said about Les Délices’ upcoming program, Rejoice! Bach Cantatas for Advent.

The ensemble will perform Bach’s Schwingt freudig euch empor and Nun komm der Heiden Heiland, along with Handel’s Concerto Grosso, Op. 3 no. 4 in F on December 2 through 4 around the Cleveland area. “All of the spaces will be beautiful for this program,” Nagy said. “The one-on-a-part texture will be really gorgeous and present in these spaces.”

The productions of Rejoice perfectly coincide with the first week of Advent, which began on November 27. Nagy also hinted that these performances are special in a multitude of ways. “I’m excited about the program because Les Délices has never produced Bach Cantatas. Plus, they are rarely heard in Cleveland in general. We have a unique opportunity to present these extraordinary pieces.” Click here for more information and to purchase tickets.

[Read more…]

Les Délices: “Winds of Change” (Oct. 23)

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by Stephanie Manning

Rarely is there a program title as accurate as Les Délices’ “Winds of Change.” The program embraced the new and different in a variety of ways — referencing both specific events, like the French and Haitian revolutions, and broader ideas, like advocacy for composers of color. Originally presented as an online offering last season, on October 23 the concert proved it was certainly worth hearing live.

Sunday afternoon also featured a first-time venue for the ensemble: West Shore Unitarian Universalist Church in Rocky River. Though visually unassuming, the space delivered fantastic acoustics for small instrumentations. In the Quartet for flute and strings by Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de St. Georges, the gossamer sounds of Emi Ferguson’s flute resonated perfectly above a three-piece string accompaniment. Violinist Shelby Yamin, violist Allison Monroe, and cellist Rebecca Reed contributed a great sense of energy to the piece as they supported Ferguson.

[Read more…]

Les Délices opens season
with “The Highland Lassie” 
(Sept. 24)

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by Mike Telin

Why is it that people never seem to tire of 18th-century Scottish folk songs? The moment we hear the poems of A red, red rose, they conjure up the image of the lonely romantic, sitting alone next to a fireplace or in the corner of a village pub while a band entertains the other patrons.

On Saturday afternoon, September 24, Les Délices brought these images to life during their season opener, “The Highland Lassie.” The program mixed an entertaining set of songs steeped in romantic sentimentality, with fiddle tunes that made it impossible not to tap along. The venue — Dunham Tavern Museum — provided the perfect ambiance for the capacity crowd to sit back and enjoy the 60-plus minutes of top-notch performances that blurred the lines between folk song and art song.

[Read more…]

Les Délices to open season with “The Highland Lassie” 

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by Mike Telin 

My luve is like a red red rose
That’s newly sprung in June;
O my Luve’s like the melodie
That’s sweetly play’d in tune;

While these words are attributed to the Scottish bard Robert Burns, he was more accurately the compiler of the famous song. And in their season-opening program, Les Délices keeps the tradition of creating arrangements of songs from multiple sources alive.   

On Saturday, September 24 at 4:00 pm and 7:30 pm at Dunham Tavern Museum, Les Délices will present “The Highland Lassie.” The program combines songs, variation sets, and dances — all of which have their origins in the 18th century — performed by Debra Nagy (Baroque oboe, recorders, and voice), Elena Mullins (soprano), Julie Andrijeski (violin), Allison Monroe (violin, viola, and voice), Rebecca Reed (cello), and Mark Edwards (harpsichord). Tickets are available online. 

“Developing the program required a lot of source digging, which was pretty fun,” artistic director Debra Nagy said during a recent telephone conversation. “It’s historical from the point of view that I did some research into what an Edinburgh dance band from around 1760 consisted of, and I discovered that even an ensemble of a pair of violins and an oboe could make up a dance band.”

[Read more…]

Les Délices: The White Cat, a new Baroque opera at the Breen (Apr. 2)

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by Daniel Hathaway

Ailurophiles rejoice! There’s a new opera in town, created as many French Baroque titles were back in the day, out of bits and pieces of existing material, and the principal character is a large feline. (It’s actually a princess seeking to be rehumanized through the traditional heroic means of fulfilling a series of impossible challenges or quests.)

The creative team behind The White Cat begins with Les Délices artistic director Debra Nagy, who has had Larry Rosenwald adapt Marie-Catherine D’Aulnoy’s story La Chatte Blanche into a five-act (or five-quest) libretto that recasts the manipulative Puss in Boots, who gets ahead almost entirely through trickery, into a kinder, gentler feline. Each quest is linked with a French version of one of Aesop’s Fables coupled with a divertissement, and joined together by well-known tunes like Couperin’s Les Barricades Mysterieuses. [Read more…]

Les Délices goes live
with The White Cat

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by Mike Telin

For centuries the fairy tale of Puss in Boots, the wily cat who stops at nothing to gain power and wealth for his penniless master, has been a source of inspiration for composers and choreographers.

“For some time I’ve been thinking about how to bring attention to the women authors of fairy tales from late 17th-century France,” Debra Nagy said during a telephone conversation. “I started reading them and thinking about which stories would be appealing to a 21st-century reader, and Catherine D’Aulnoy’s The White Cat really drew my attention. It’s an interesting rewrite of Puss-in-boots from the point of view of her humility, kindness, and generosity which is in contrast to the manipulative Puss-in-boots who gets ahead almost entirely through trickery.”

On Friday, April 1st at 7:30 pm at the Akron Public Library, Les Délices will present their new 65-minute opera, The White Cat. [Read more…]

Les Délices makes a joyful return to live performance with “Of Gods & Heroes” (Feb. 25)

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by Stephanie Manning

Time and time again, Les Délices has imbued a sense of creativity into the concert experience — particularly over the past two years, when pandemic restrictions called for some out-of-the-box thinking. On February 25 in Shaker Heights, their first in-person event since 2020 proved to be no exception, blending poetry and music for an engaging evening of storytelling.

Musically, “Of Gods & Heroes” focused on the 14th century, with works by Guillame de Machaut, Matheus de Perusio, Johannes Ciconia, Jacopo da Bologna, and the ever-present Anonymous. The overarching theme divided the concert into six sections, four of them paired with a relevant poem, including tales of Pygmalion & the Statue, Jason & Medea, and Ulysses & Circe.

[Read more…]

The live return of Les Délices:
“Of Gods and Heroes”
and a sense of the meta

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by Jarrett Hoffman

The next concert from Les Délices is indeed about gods and heroes, built around 14th-century songs referencing characters such as Jason and Medea, Ulysses and Circe, and Tristan and Isolde.

But if you’re familiar with artistic director Debra Nagy, who makes a habit of crafting programs both musically and intellectually stimulating, you won’t be surprised that there’s more to these selections than just mythology.

The central idea behind the program — to be presented live February 25-27 in Shaker Heights and Akron — is something more meta. “The funny thing about these 14th-century translations is that they’re not so much about the characters, but about seeing yourself in them, or contrasting your experience with theirs,” Nagy said during a recent Zoom call. “There’s a sense of timeless relatability.”

That timelessness ties into another aspect of the program: the integration of contemporary poetry, including a new poem by former Ohio Poet Laureate Dave Lucas on commission from the ensemble. “A lot of his work draws on or is inspired by myth and storytelling,” Nagy said.

[Read more…]

“Pre-Review” — Les Délices:
The Highland Lassie

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by Daniel Hathaway

Just in time for Rabbie Burns Day (January 25), Les Délices will release its latest concert series episode, “The Highland Lassie,” for on-demand viewing on Vimeo beginning on Thursday, January 20.

Robert Burns (1759-1796), Scotland’s national bard, played a major role in the preservation of Scottish traditional music, joining a group of collectors who were mainly interested in capturing the texts of ballads passed down orally and thus subject to subconscious or intentional changes as they moved from host to host — not unlike viruses, as we now know all too well.

That process created the families of related songs most famously codified in five volumes published from 1882-1898 by Harvard professor Francis James Child. On this program, one of the best-known families provides soprano Elena Mullins with the material for a sensitive rendition of Barbara Allen. [Read more…]

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