Libertà – Mozart Et L’Opéra by Raphaël Pichon – An Outstanding Album!

No, I haven’t Forgotten About Jazz

Some quick words to start:

Sorry for the Jazz fans subscribing to my blog, I know I’ve been pretty heavy on classical articles and not a lot of Jazz. I simply haven’t found too many good new albums, reviewing albums I don’t really like is much less fun, and I prefer writing about new releases, so my occasional reviewing of older albums also didn’t progress a lot. I hereby promise that I’ll try to restore the old balance of 50/50 between Jazz and Classical. So please subscribe if you haven’t done so yet.

Best-Of Albums

I used to hate “best of” or “highlights” albums, especially for Opera when I was younger. I thought the composer had taken the time to do the full opera, we should be appreciating the work in its entirety.

I’ve since evolved and really see the benefit of somebody else curating the music, especially when we’re talking about lesser known works, like in the album that I’m about to write about.

Furthermore, conductor Raphaël Pichon doesn’t do “best-of’s”, he does “concept” albums, that follow a story combining the different tracks, be it Stravaganza, Birth of The Opera At the Medici Court, or Enfers (Hells).

I’ve previously praised another of his concept albums, Mozart – The Weber Sisters, with the fantastic soprano Sabine Devielhe, which I’ve also listed in My Top 5 Classical Albums of 2016.

So I was very happy to see that in this new album that was released yesterday, that Devielhe is again featured.

Libertà – Mozart and the Opera – Raphaël Pichon – Pygmalion (Harmonia Mundi 2019)

On this album, Devielhe isn’t the only star, we’re actually getting several other great singers, from Siobhan Stagg via Linard Vrielink to Nahuel di Pierro.

I’m not going to comment too much about the concept, which the booklet nicely explains on several pages, including an interview with Pichon.

Let’s summarise what you’re buying: You’re getting 1h44 of mainly Mozart opera extracts. We’re mostly talking about his less known operas, like Lo Sposo Deluso, L’Oca del Cairo, or Der Schauspieldirektor.

What does that mean? Actually, Pichon did a fantastic job selecting gems among these lesser known works that definitely are worth discovering.

Pichon and his ensemble Pygmalion deliver some Mozart playing as it should be in the 21st century: Inspired, energetic, but dedicate where needed, clearly historically informed, but not overly “baroque”. And as mentioned, you get really good singers.

This album already is one of my favourite new releases of this year, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it ends up featured on my Best of 2019 list at the end of the year.

An absolute delight, worth having for any Mozart opera fan, especially in times where new opera productions are too rare.

Highly recommended.

My rating: 5 stars

You can find it here (Qobuz)

UPDATE Sep 12: Classica agrees and gives this album a “Choc”, their highest rating.