by Nicholas Jones
The second of Les Délices’s offerings for this, its fourth season, gave its audience a Valentine’s Day treat (a couple of days late), replete with musical confections, kisses, sentiment, and…ah, je ne sais quoi!
Love, usually thought of in reference to a couple, became here a matter of the four players, sometimes flirting, sometimes fierce, sometimes laughing, sometimes in earnest, but clearly bound to each other in the bonds of the music. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
Our
politicians could learn a lot about working together from three of Cleveland’s musical groups. The Cleveland Classical Guitar Society is joining with BlueWater Chamber Orchestra and Les Délices to present joint concerts this month and next. On January 20, CCGS and BWCO presented guitarist Robert Gruca with the BlueWater String Quartet in Spanish, Italian and Latin music at First Unitarian in Shaker Heights. Next month, Les Délices will play two concerts with lutenist Nigel North and soprano Carrie Henneman Shaw on February 16 and 17 jointly sponsored by CCGS.
Collaborations like these can be beneficial in a number of ways: combining two distinct audiences, sharing expenses, developing unusual programs. The list goes on. Though the longterm effects of such joint projects are still to be measured, good vibes abounded at Sunday’s well-attended concert. [Read more…]
by Nicholas Jones
Opera performed by only seven musicians? Mon Dieu!
French Baroque opera, now generally seen as recherché to the extreme, was once so popular that its tunes were madly sought after. As every garage band today wants to cover Justin Bieber, so many in the mid-eighteenth century wanted a bit of Rameau, even if they couldn’t be at the court of the Sun King.
Following their lead, Les Délices, Cleveland’s inventive and efficient baroque group showed us how opera could fit in the pocket. (But…did they have pockets then? Well, never mind! [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
Thanks to 
groups like William Christie’s Les Arts Florissants and Debra Nagy’s Les Délices, who have made it their primary business to interpret French baroque music for twenty-first century ears, that special, highly stylized repertory now comes to life on a regular basis. Cleveland-based Les Délices has today issued its second CD, Myths and Allegories, with music by Jean-Féry Rebel, Thomas-Louis Bourgeois Michel Pignolet de Montéclair and Elisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre based on tales from The Odyssey credited to the Greek epic singer, Homer (probably there were many of him). The album, featuring soprano Clara Rottsolk, with Debra Nagy, baroque oboe and recorder, Julie Andrijeski, violin, Emily Walhout, viola da gamba, and Michael Sponseller, harpsichord and organ, was recorded by Peter Nothnagle in Harkness Chapel at CWRU in March of this year.
Subjects drawn from classical antiquity were important to French baroque artists and musicians, and the story of Ulysses’s torturous return to Ithaca after the Trojan War was rich with possibilities. This recording begins and ends with movements from Rebel’s Ulysse (his only attempt at opera), and incorporates cantatas by Bourgeois and de la Guerre depicting the lure of the Sirens and Ulysses’s sea battle with Neptune in retaliation for the blinding of Polyphemus. [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
Today’s
cinema and 17th and 18th century French opera have much in common, says Les Délices artistic director Debra Nagy. “Just as many of today’s blockbuster films make up for weaknesses in plot, dialogue, or acting by relying heavily on fantastic sets and expensive special effects to lure audiences to the theatre, so did 17th and 18th century French Opéra make extensive use of supernatural elements collectively known as merveilleux.”
On Saturday, November 10 beginning at 8:00 pm at William Busta Gallery and Sunday, November 11 beginning at 4:00 pm in Herr Chapel at Plymouth Church, Les Délices presents Pocket Opera, featuring works by Jean-Philipp Rameau. [Read more…]