The recently concocted Samson just finished its run at the Aix-en-Provence Festival, and one of the most anticipated events in Paris later this year will be a Robert Carsen production of Les Fêtes d’Hébé performed by Les Arts Florissants at the Opéra-Comique. As a preview Chris’s Cache offers a 1981 broadcast of most of Fêtes d’Hébé led by John Eliot Gardiner, long one of the composer’s most ardent champions who last month was booted by the ensembles he founded and conducts on this 1981 broadcast.

I listened to the live broadcast of Samson and then watched the video of Claus Guth’s production: both times I was struck by how truly odd the reimagined Rameau/Voltaire piece is. No one familiar with the composer’s oeuvre could claim that it sounded like a real Rameau opera. Often lacking smooth transitions and frequently interrupted by spoken passages accompanied by electronic sounds, it proved to be a jolting mish-mash of greatest hits (with new texts) from operas composed over nearly thirty years. Many stunning individual numbers were beautifully performed, particularly the riveting choruses and solos by Lea Desandre and Jacquelyn Stucker, so perhaps Samson will at least persuade those unfamiliar with Rameau to seek out his many “real” works.

In January, following their Mozart productions at the Salzburg Festival, Teodor Currentzis and Peter Sellars will be collaborating again—at the Paris Opéra in January 2025—with Castor et Pollux. Though the Opéra website isn’t straightforward on the subject, it would appear that they will be presenting Castor in Rameau’s original five-act 1737 version with prologue. After it concludes its run, Samson then arrives in Paris at the Opéra-Comique.

For today’s Fêtes d’Hébé, Gardiner omits the prologue to focus on the work’s three entrées, short self-contained operas dedicated to the Talens Lyriques mentioned in the work’s subtitle. While both La Poésie and La Musique contain ravishing pages, it is La Danse that shines brightest. Alone, it has been recorded by both Gardiner and James Richman.

Eight years before today’s broadcast, Gardiner performed La Danse with Philip Langridge and Jill Gomez which can still be heard here.

There are many 18^th century French works each containing discrete entrées that include Les Fêtes in their titles. In addition to Les Fêtes d’Hébé, Rameau also composed Les Fêtes de Polymnie and Les Fêtes de L’Hymen et de L’Amour. Another nearly Rameau unknown work, Les Fêtes de Ramire, will be performed at Versailles in May and recorded. Ramire is an adaptation of La Princesse de Navarre, another Rameau/Voltaire work, by Jean-Jacques Rousseau who composed new recitatives for it.

The enterprising recording arm of the Château de Versailles has just released an exceedingly rare Fêtes: Colin de Blamont’s Les Fêtes Grecques et Romaines, presumably to coincide with the Paris Olympics. It’s conducted by young Valentin Tournet who also led the same label’s smashing CD of Rameau’s Les Paladins.

In June, Opera Lafayette added to the Fêtes collection by reviving Mouret’s Les Fêtes de Thalie for the first time in several centuries. It turned out to be a thoroughly delightful work that one hopes will be revived again.

In September, Erato which released the landmark premiere recording of Rameau’s final opera Les Boréades will add a new version to the composer’s discography starring Sabine Devieilhe and Reinoud van Mechelen.

Rameau: Les Fêtes d’Hébé ou Les Talens Lyriques (Prologue omitted)

La Poésie

Sapho: Alison Hargan
Une Naiade: Anne-Marie Rodde
Le Ruisseau: William Kendall
Thélème: William Kendall
Alcée: David Wilson-Johnson
Hymas: Ian Caddy
Le Fleuve: Christopher Booth-Jones

La Musique

Iphise: Jennifer Smith
Une Lacédémonienne: Anne-Marie Rodde
Lycurge: Bruce Brewer
Tirtée: Ian Caddy

La Danse

Églé: Anne-Marie Rodde
Une Bergère: Elisabeth Priday
Mercure: William Kendall

Monteverdi Choir
English Baroque Soloists
Conductor: John Eliot Gardiner
ORTF
24 January 1981
Broadcast

Les Fêtes d’Hébé can be downloaded by clicking on the icon of a cloud with an arrow pointing downward on the audio player above and the resulting mp3 file will appear in your download directory.

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Photo: Monika Rittershaus