Pigmalion   Jean-Paul Fouchecourt
Amour       Nancy Argenta
Cephise     Ruth Gomme
Statue      Helen Groves

Conductor   Trevor Pinnock

The English Concert, Choir of the English Concert

This was the first performance in the Lufthansa Festival of Baroque Music,
this year moved to St John's, Smith Square. (This is apparently because
many of the performances are broadcast, and the old venue, St James',
Piccadilly, is noisy and inconvenient.) This year's festival focuses on
French music, with rather more Charpentier than Rameau, alas. But this
concert presented an attractive programme of English baroque (selections
from Purcell's Fairy Queen), Italian (Handel's Concerto Grosso Op. 6 No.
6), and French, Rameau's short opera Pigmalion.

In the first part, the Purcell was precise and rather rhetorical. Nancy
Argenta doesn't quite have the bravura (or I think the breath control) that
Dame Flott brings to Hark, the echoing air, though her performance was
thoroughly enjoyable, as was the orchestra's. The Handel was, oddly
perhaps, rather more expressive with some gorgeous sounds.

Pigmalion is a very minimal opera in which Rameau gets to the point even
more precisely than usual. Pigmalion, having carved his statue, falls in
love with it and spurns Cephise, who adores him in one aria then leaves.
(She gets turned into something almost immediately to put her out of her
misery, I forget what.) Cupid brings the statue to life, and with the help
of the graces, teaches her to dance. The people admire, and Pigmalion sings
a bravura hymn to love. The dances, in dramatically contrasted styles, are
very brief and breathless, as off-kilter and memorable as anything Rameau
wrote.

I was interested to see what Jean-Paul Fouchecourt is like without his frog
flippers. It was difficult to judge his singing in the Royal Opera Platee,
just because he did so much else so well (and looked like that). His voice
is definitely light, with a touch of Charles Aznavour, and very little top
-- no incisive falsetto. But he's precise and, with a bit of precious
acting, very dramatic, carrying the piece with complete success. Nancy
Argenta was a rather down-to-earth Cupid, and Ruth Gomme was briefly
anguished but rather tough-looking as Cephise.

An interesting start to the festival, which ends with another
English/French/Italian programme on 29 June.