Mathias Vidal, Zachary Wilder (tenor), Marie Lys (soprano) et al; La Chapelle Harmonique/Valentin Tournet VersaillesCVS153 137:47mins(2CD)
Imagine a Monty Python sendup of tragédie lyrique – that’s Rameau’s Platée (1745). Even if the butts of its jokes sometimes go unrecognised today, the work’s originality, zaniness, and seething anger reveal the comic genius behind it. Though now a stage favourite, Platée is not much recorded; this production, from the 2024 season at Versailles, is the best so far.
Platée mocks operatic conceits and courtliness itself. To show his wife that her jealousy is foolish, Jupiter pretends to woo the frog-like nymph Platée (tenor Mathias Vidal), who believes her charms to be irresistible. Vocalists and dancers glorify Jupiter’s parody love in pseudo-solemn grand numbers, while
Folly (soprano Marie Lys) gloats in head-spinning ariettes. Platée goes from ludicrous pining for the god, to preening at her conquest of him, to the humiliating realisation that she’s been duped and is despised by all.
The satire which director Valentin Tournet draws from his artists feeds off their virtuosity. Vidal relishes Platée’s self-delusion with added trills, bouncy runs and moaning slides that showcase his technical and dramatic command. He enlists our sympathy for Platée despite her vanity, stupidity and signature quacking noise.
Lys is incandescent as Folly, first extending and then transcending Rameau’s score; in ‘Aux langueurs d’Apollon’, her pirouettes around the original pitches spring nonchalantly up to a high D. The six other solo vocalists’ performances are also on point. Under Tournet’s direction the chorus closes off scenes with dense, forceful homophony and the band reprises vocal gestures by exaggerating them comically. A coup de théâtre. Berta Joncus
