Reviews
THE GUARDIAN
Rameau 'Spectacular', Royal Albert Hall, London, 15 July 2007 (17 Jul 2007)
Four Stars
Talk about a game of two halves. Before the interval, this French baroque Prom showcased all the excellence of a John Eliot Gardiner event. But after the break, it exploded into an exuberant carnival of 18th-century music and dance, with the English Baroque Soloists and the Monteverdi Choir joined by the Buskaid Soweto String Ensemble and teams of French and South African dancers to bring a cheering Albert Hall to its feet. I don't know what he put in the oranges at half-time but Sir John ought to market it.
Campra's Messe de Requiem in the first half was not one in awe of death; the composer's theatrical reflexes and bonhomie were rarely suppressed. Yet, when Campra is in austere mood, his harmonies and plaintive scoring, as in the oboe accompaniment to the counter-tenor in the Gradual, have affecting gravity. Anders Dahlin and Nicholas Mulroy sang their solos with great beauty.
It did not take long after the interval to see why there is more life in a few bars of Rameau than in many stretches of Campra. Gardiner led his forces through a wonderfully contrasted selection of airs and orchestral pieces from the composer's stage works, with pastiche baroque dancing from the Compagnie Roussat-Lubek. Things went up a further gear when the Sowetan players and dancers took over with dances from Platée and Hippolite et Aricie, expertly played under the direction of Rosemary Nalden, and came to a rumbustious climax in an all-singing, all-dancing selection from Les Boréades.
MArtin Kettle
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