Lully: Persee.

[] Panzarella, Hailer, Felip, Simon; Agnew, Billier, Correas; Maitrise du Centre du Musique Baroque de Versailles "Les Chantres de la Chapelle" and Les Talens Lyriques, Rousset. Text and translation. Astree Naive E 8874 (Harmonia Mundi, dist.)

For his Persee (1682), Lully adapted the story, from Ovid's Metamorphoses, of the Greek hero Perseus--his slaying of the Gorgon Medusa and his subsequent marriage to Andromache--to draw parallels with the political situation of the reigning monarch, Louis XIV. The piece, billed as a tragedie lyrique, recalls its opera-ballet antecedents in obvious ways. There is the five-act structure, with its prologue set among abstract entities including Virtue and Fortune; the final deus (or dea) ex machina resolution of the plot; and the sprinkling of dances amid the action, with extended choral and dance divertissements to conclude Acts IV and V. More striking are Lully's imaginative strokes and formal innovations, all intended to further the drama: the sprinkling of duets and even trios, relying heavily on imitative effects, for the principals; the sudden and effective pivots between meters, and between arioso and recitative; the choral "interruptions" of solos in Act IV.

The present recording, based on performances in July 2001--the occasional footsteps and other clumps suggest a recording made in live performance, though the booklet does not specify--is first-class. Conductor Christophe Rousset, though a Baroque specialist, is unwilling to settle for mere "correctness": his approach to the score is full-bodied and dramatic. The orchestral playing is rhythmically sprightly and solid in tone--in the overture, the string articulations, for a change, could actually be more clipped. Even the continuo alone provides a solid foundation: Rousset's full-textured harpsichord realizations move the action along with unobtrusive stylistic acumen.

And Rousset has encouraged his singers to explore the expressive implications of the music and text. Rather than bottling up their tone in the accepted Early Musicke manner, they simply sing out freely, with vibrato--straight tones are reserved for emphasizing dissonances in the ensembles, and to ...