Philippe Jaroussky

Philippe Jaroussky – The Handel Album (2017)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:11:56 minutes | 1,34 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Warner Classics

For this performance, Philippe Jaroussky has picked a bouquet of pieces from lesser-known operas. Siroe, Riccardo primo, Flavio, Tolomeo and many others, written for the London stage between 1715 and 1740. With his Artaserse ensemble, which Jaroussky considers to have been the place where he has been able to fully mature, over several years of playing concerts all over the world,  the counter-tenor also presents a reflection on the repertoire of the castrato. Because, since this little procedure was discontinued, the singers tackling these roles have been performing airs which were not written for us, and have to be adapted to us. Bearing in mind that when Haendel put on an opera with a different troupe, he didn’t hesitate to re-work entire roles to adapt them to new singers; Jaroussky has taken it upon himself to do the same for some of these airs, which he knows are not suited to his type of voice, and for which original versions with the correct tones are not always available. Regardless, this is an excellent exploration of Haendel’s rarities, with some virtuoso turns, and material running from the introverted to the narrative, the lyrical to the explosive. Note that Artaserse are playing without a conductor, Jaroussky leading from the front, with his voice.
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Philippe Jaroussky – Ombra mai fu – Francesco Cavalli Opera Arias (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:05:13 minutes | 1,16 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Warner Classics

Although Francesco Cavalli’s twenty-seven operas that still exist today have increasingly become part of the world’s opera repertoire, there was a time when the works of this flamboyant composer had completely fell into obscurity. As they were not published like those of his master Monteverdi, Cavalli’s works remained as (often incomplete) manuscripts and were painstakingly reconstituted for a modern edition. By the end of the 1960s, Raymond Leppard and musicologist Alan Curtis set out to resuscitate this forgotten music through memorable stage performances at Glyndebourne Festival, featuring a brilliant casting of some of the greatest voices of the time: Janet Baker, Ileana Cotrubas, James Bowman and Hugues Cuenod. The staging and sound restitution were particularly extravagant, and audiences discovered − in both an album and a filmed performance − an incredibly varied music characterised by constant gender swapping and triumphant eroticism, in often uproarious situations! This extraordinary sensory exaltation, from tragedy to parody, is expertly expressed by Philippe Jaroussky – a countertenor very familiar with Cavalli’s work − on this album made up of around twenty extracts that perfectly encapsulate the Venetian public’s expectations. Around him, the voices of soprano Emöke Baráth and contralto Marie-Nicole Lemieux give rise to a few delightful duos.  – François Hudry
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Philippe Jaroussky – La storia di Orfeo (2017)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:04:08 minutes | 1,26 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Erato – Warner Classics

With Philippe Jaroussky’s new album, Storia di Orfeo, the French countertenor realises a long-held dream: to portray the mythic Orpheus – divine musician who ventures into the underworld to retrieve his beloved wife Eurydice from the clutches of death – in his many guises, an inspiration for the very first opera and beyond.
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Philippe Jaroussky – Il Boemo (Motion Picture Soundtrack) (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 01:42:52 minutes | 1,01 GB | Genre: Classical, Soundtrack
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Warner Classics

Countertenor Philippe Jaroussky, soprano Emöke Baráth, and a cast of other top-notch singers perform works by Josef Mysliveček on the album Il Boemo. Award-winning Czech director Petr Václav gathered the artists for his 2022 feature film Il Boemo (The Bohemian), which revolves around the life of the once-famous, now almost forgotten Bohemian composer. The album releases the soundtrack to the film.

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Philippe Jaroussky – Vivaldi: Pietà (2014)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:18:29 minutes | 1,33 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Erato – Warner Classics

Philippe Jaroussky turns once again to the poignant meditation on grief that is the Stabat Mater — this time in Vivaldi’s searingly beautiful 1712 setting — along with a selection of the Red Priest’s solo motets and sacred works. But it’s not all solemn fare: Clarae stellae scintillate is an uplifting, light-filled motet in praise of Mary, and the sweet-toned ‘Domine Deus’ from the Gloria RV589 has an almost pastoral lilt. There are, of course, the vocal pyrotechnics characteristic in which Jaroussky excels, as in the blazing Alleluia of Longe mala, umbrae, terrores RV629.

“After several recordings dedicated to lesser-known repertoire from composers such as J.C. Bach, Caldara and Porpora, I felt not only a musical need but also a physical yearning to return to Vivaldi,” says Jaroussky. “His famous Stabat Mater is one of the great masterpieces of the Baroque, but I also wanted to record the motet Longe mala, umbrae, terrores, a work I find utterly fascinating.”

For Pietà Jaroussky reunites with Ensemble Artaserse, the chamber orchestra he founded in 2005, and almost a decade later he has come full circle, completing an important triptych of Vivaldi recital albums.

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Philippe Jaroussky – Gluck: Orfeo Ed Euridice (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:17:35 minutes | 1,49 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Warner Classics

This is the first-ever recording of this particular version of Orfeo ed Euridice by Gluck: the one he wrote for the Royal Theatre of Naples, for the 1774 Carnival. That said, it is based in part on the first, Viennese, version, dated 1762 (in which Orpheus was sung by an alto castrato), but also on the 1769 revision for Parma, where the role of Orpheus was given to a male soprano. The notes, the tonalities, the instrumentation, the tempos and the number of dynamics underwent substantial modifications in the version for the Neapolitan Carnival: the work is at once perfectly recognisable, and yet different from its normal form; and some completely new numbers are added, of which the first is quite possibly the work of dilettante aristocrat Diego Naselli, and maybe the second, too. The orchestration has also undergone many modifications, surely to do with local constraints and availabilities. The Neapolitan success of 1774 was such that in November of the same year, the famous Teatro San Carlo took on the work – again in a new version, with not three but eight characters and several apocryphal numbers from Johann Christian Bach and other contemporary stars, which stretched the work out to three acts, whereas the present version only has one, split into six scenes. Orpheus is sung by Philippe Jaroussky, Eurydice by Amanda Forsythe, Amore by Emöke Baráth, while Diego Fasolis gives a spirited lead to the ensemble I Barocchisti and the Coro della Radio Svizzera (The Swiss Radio Choir). Lovers of Gluck will be delighted to discover yet another of the many possible facets of a work which has seen countless revisions and wanderings.

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