Jules Massenet.(Jules Massenet. Le Roi de Lahore; Jean-Philippe Rameau. In convertendo)(Video recording review)

Jules Massenet. Le Roi de Lahore. DVD. Orchestra and Chorus of Teatro La Fenice di Venezia/Marcello Viotti. With Ana Maria Sanchez, Giuseppe Gipali, Vladimir Stoyanov, Riccardo Zanellato. Directed by Tiziana Mancini. Genova, Italy: Dynamic, 2006. 33487. $38.97.

Jean-Philippe Rameau. In convertendo. DVD. Les Arts Florissants/William Christie. Waldron, Heathfield, East Sussex, United Kingdom: Opus Arte, 2006. OA 0956 D. $19.98.

French composers have always loved the dance. Over the centuries, dance rhythms have found their way into music by Gallic composers for all occasions. On these two recent DVDs we can hear works written more than a century apart and for entirely different purposes, but both are infused with a balletic buoyancy that could not have come from a foreigner.

Jean-Philippe Rameau spent his early years working as a church musician in Lyon, and it is believed that his grands motels were written during this period. These are large scale works closer in length and form to the cantatas of J. S. Bach than any other works usually identified as motets. William Christie is well known as a leading interpreter of Rameau's music, and on this disc he leads a concert performance of In convertendo by his ensemble Les Arts Florissants, recorded at the church in the Hotel des Invalides in Paris without any visual gimmickry. As can be expected from these artists, the performance is first rate and both audio and video are state of the art. The DVD also contains performances of three Pieces de clavecin en concert performed by members of the ensemble, and a documentary called The Real Rameau, which follows the composer's career with numerous musical excerpts and commentary by Christie and other scholars.

Le Roi de Lahore was Jules Massenet's third opera, and his calling card for entry into the musical establishment of Paris, where it received its premiere in 1877 at the brand new Palais Garnier opera house. Ever the calculating craftsman, Massenet had a talent for writing operas sure to capitalize on current popular taste, and his score evokes the older sound of Gounod and Saint-Saens more than the swooning melodies associated with his mature, better known operas. The libretto too is a throwback to the pseudo-Orientalism of the ...