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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…]

“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…]

Les Délices to premiere Jonathan Woody’s Much Love Betray’d on Orpheus program

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by Mike Telin

No mythological character has inspired musicians more than Orpheus. Legend has it that his music was so powerful that trees and mountains bowed in his presence — his song so beautiful that he convinced the ruler of the underworld to allow him to bring his love Eurydice back from the underworld.  

The legend will be brought to life on Thursday, October 7, when Les Délices debuts “Song of Orpheus” on Marquee TV. The program features rarely-heard cantatas by Jean-Philippe Rameau and Philippe Courbois performed by Hannah De Priest, soprano, Jonathan Woody, baritone, Shelby Yamin, violin, Debra Nagy, oboe, Rebecca Reed, gamba and cello, and Mark Edwards, harpsichord. The program will also include the premiere of Woody’s cantata Much Love Betray’d. The online-only event will remain available on demand through November 6. Click here for tickets.

Woody’s performance resumé includes two national tours with Apollo’s Fire, and appearances as soloist with period groups including the Boston Early Music Festival, Tafelmusik, Trinity Wall Street, New York Polyphony, Bach Collegium San Diego, and New York Baroque Incorporated. But he is also a leader in the historical performance performer/composer movement.

During a recent telephone conversation, Woody said that his dedication to keeping the early music canon alive can be traced back to when he was a student of musicologist and historical performance pioneer Bruce Haynes. “I was lucky enough to have him as a professor at McGill University, and he definitely engendered the mentality that the canon of early music could remain alive, and that we had the power to continue to add to it and make it something that wasn’t just stuck in the past.”

[Read more…]

Women of Genius: Another winner from Les Délices

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by Mike Telin

Once again Les Délices scores a winner with the latest installment of the French Baroque ensemble’s online subscription series. Debuting on Thursday, March 18 at 7:30 pm, “Women of Genius” takes a historically thoughtful and musically fascinating look into the music of female composers who influenced French musical culture. After its debut, the video will be available on-demand through March 29. Read our preview article here. To purchase tickets and view connection details, click here.

The 70-minute program features music and poetry by Louis-Nicolas Clérambault, Mme. Duval, Julie Pinel, Élisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre, and François and Louis Couperin. [Read more…]

Les Délices “Women of Genius” — a conversation with Clara Rottsolk

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by Daniel Hathaway

Les Délices, Cleveland’s French Baroque ensemble, continues its all-online subscription series on Thursday, March 18 at 7:30 pm with “Women of Genius,” featuring soprano Clara Rottsolk in music and poetry by Louis-Nicolas Clérambault, Mme. Duval, Julie Pinel, Élisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre, and François and Louis Couperin. After its debut, the video will be available on-demand through March 29. Purchase tickets and view connection details here.

The program, curated by Les Délices’ artistic director and oboist Debra Nagy, sets out to present its female composers not as isolated phenomena, but as composers who exerted a strong influence on French musical culture.

These were the daughters, the nieces, and the cousins of musical families like the Couperins. They were poets, translators, and librettists for airs, cantatas, and operas. They were brilliant improvisers and arrangers whose celebrated performances were attested to but whose works were never published. They were singers, keyboard, and theorbo players whose intimate work impressed and delighted. They were Women of Genius.

Rottsolk, a native of Seattle now based in Philadelphia, said in a Zoom conversation that Nagy’s idea of moving from presenting live concerts to forming a production company to produce high-quality video and audio shows was a wise and creative solution to the vagaries of the pandemic. [Read more…]

Les Délices: Games & Grounds — online debut February 18

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by Daniel Hathaway

When Debra Nagy made the decision to reinvent her French Baroque ensemble Les Délices as a production company — whose interface with its subscribers would take the form of high-quality videos in the place of live concerts during the pandemic — many of us were curious to see how that would affect one of Cleveland’s cultural treasures.

Their fourth subscription concert, Games and Grounds, which premiered on February 18 and will be available through March 1, finds the members of Les Délices in top form and, if anything, more communicative with their audience than ever before, thanks to the digital magic of Erica Brenner and her audio/visual production team that includes Elaine Martone, Andrew Tripp, and Mathias Reed. [Read more…]

Christmas with Les Délices: “Noel, Noel” (debut Dec. 10)

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by Timothy Robson

Les Délices premiered another winner this weekend with the debut of their pre-recorded Christmas concert “Noel, Noel,” a highly enjoyable blend of English, French, and German carols, interspersed with Christmas-themed poetry from authors as diverse as Christina Rosetti and e.e. cummings. (The program is available until December 23. Click here for tickets.)

Earlier in the year Les Délices had put out a call to local poets to submit Christmas poems for this concert. Three were chosen: Diane Kendig’s At the Christmas Tree, Dave Lucas’ Three Kings, and Julie Warther’s one child’s candle. The styles are diverse, from Kendig’s sonnet to Wather’s six haiku miniatures. [Read more…]

“Noel, Noel” — Les Délices premieres new Christmas program Thursday

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by Mike Telin

By now it’s no secret that the phrase “home for the holidays” has taken on a whole new meaning this year. And while we won’t be able to attend in-person concerts performed by large orchestras and choruses, Les Délices has created a new seasonal program that can be enjoyed from the comfort of your home — with your favorite beverage.

On Thursday, December 10 at 7:30 pm, the Cleveland-based ensemble will present the premiere of “Noel, Noel.” The pre-recorded, streamed program features French Noels, German hymns including Michael Praetorius’ Es ist ein Ros entsprungen and In dulci jubilo, and the haunting Old English Coventry Carol and 17th-century Drive the Cold Winter Away. The playlist also includes Gustav Holst’s In the bleak midwinter and Franz Gruber’s Silent Night.

Presented in the style of Lessons and Carols, the music is interleaved with poems by Christina Rossetti, e.e. cummings, and Thomas Campion, as well as recent work by Northeast Ohio poets Dave Lucas, Diane Kendig, and Julie Warther recited by longtime local radio and TV host Dee Perry.

A pre-concert talk begins at 7:00 pm, the premiere begins at 7:30, and a Q&A with the artists follows at 8:30. Click here for ticket information. If you’re not available on Thursday, no worries, your ticket gives you streaming access through December 23. [Read more…]

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