Richard Termine/Carnegie Hall

That is what Maestro William Christie is doing on his 80^th birthday – touring his Les Arts Florissants ensemble around the world and throwing himself a party in each city with a career retrospective program of operatic excerpts from the French Baroque masterpieces by Lully, Rameau, and Charpentier.

Les Arts Florissants (LAF) put these masterpieces back on the musical map starting back in 1979. These “Happy Birthday, Bill!” concerts (with two different ensembles – one a chamber group with young members of his vocal ensemble, “Le Jardin des Voix,” and the other with a full period orchestra, choir, and international singers) kicked off in Paris last 14 December and is currently on tour performing in Spain, Malta, England and New York City.

Christie and Les Arts Florissants performed in Manhattan this past Tuesday the 28^th at Zankel Hall Center Stage at Carnegie Hall. Zankel Hall was reconfigured in the round with the singers and musicians performing in the middle of the hall surrounded by the audience. New York got the chamber version with an ensemble of a dozen instrumentalists and six young singers hailing from France, Poland, England, the U.S. and Portugal. Mo. Christie presided at the harpsichord leading the ensemble.

The first group of excerpts spotlighted Marc-Antoine Charpentier’s Medée which LAF toured to the Brooklyn Academy of Music in 1994 showcasing the trenchant artistry of the late Lorraine Hunt Lieberson. British mezzo-soprano Rebecca Leggett as Medée confessed her suspicions to her confidant Nérine (lyric soprano Juliette Mey) and then faced off the faithless Jason (tenor Bastien Rimondi) in the first two scenes of Act I. The full scope of the sorceress’s despair is outlined in the Act III scena “Quel prix de mon amour.”

Leggett’s tone had color and body while Mey and Rimondi had more slender instruments with less vocal presence. None of these singers brought the dramatic force, vocal individuality, or authority that earlier generations of LAF singers like Lorraine Hunt, Mark Padmore, and Sandrine Piau lent to this repertoire, though all had the refined style and diction. Le Jardin des Voix is a training program that develops younger generations of performers – all showed excellent coaching.

Richard Termine/Carnegie Hall

A seminal early triumph for Christie and LAF was their 1986 production of Jean-Baptiste Lully’s Atys which toured to Brooklyn in 1989, 1992 (when I saw it), and 2011. The haunting otherworldly “Sommeil d’Atys;” the line “Dormons tous” introduced tenor Richard Pittsinger (the son of opera singers Patricia Schuman and David Pittsinger) and Franco-Polish baritone Matthieu Walendzik as the gods of sleep. The romantic triangles of the opera were introduced in scenes from Act IV where Atys (Rimondi) is accused of infidelity by his beloved Sangaride (Portuguese coloratura soprano Ana Vieira Leite). Their romantic rapprochement is interrupted by the discovery of their relationship by the jealous goddess Cybèle and Celaenus (Leggett and Walendzik) leading to an angry confrontation.

Here Vieira Leite as the suspicious Sangaride displayed vocal authority, striking stage presence, and strong dramatic temperament (as well as personal beauty) that revealed her as a young singer of promise. She confirmed this good impression, revealing comedic chops with saucy coloratura in the aria of La Folie, “Formons les plus brillants concerts” from Jean-Philippe Rameau’s Platée, complete with hair tossing, posing and snarky Real Housewife attitude.

Meanwhile, Bastien Rimondi revealed the measure of his abilities in the display aria of the title character in Rameau’s Pigmalion, “Règne’ amour”. This bravura solo begins with brilliant passagework celebrating the goddess Venus’s bringing Pygmalion’s beloved Galatea to life, there is a reflective B section highlighting legato singing, and then a return to the brilliant, up-tempo A section. Rimondi showed excellent agility and despite a narrow nasal tone, had the authority and panache to put the piece over to enthusiastic applause.

Richard Termine/Carnegie Hall

Juliette Mey, in stronger voice, limned a touching Iphise in scenes from the second entrée of Rameau’s Les fêtes d’Hébé. The Spartan princess Iphise learns she is not to marry her beloved minstrel Tyrtaeus but the conqueror of the invading Messenians – luckily her boyfriend is a warrior as well as a musician and emerges victorious in love and war. An uncommunicative Oracle, a singing river and Naiad, and lots of ballet fill out the story.

Walendzik lacked vocal weight, maturity, and gravitas for Thésée’s vengeful solo “Qu’ai-je appris” from Rameau’s Hippolyte et Aricie – he was sort of “I Was a Teenaged Mythical Greek King.” The handsome baritone otherwise has a pleasant lightweight voice and is game, versatile, and quite musical. These singers are young, well trained and coached, and still growing into themselves. Time will tell.

The evening ended with scenes from Act III of Rameau’s Les Indes Galantes where the bucolically minded Zima (Leite) and Adario (Walendzik) renounce worldly grandeur for rustic romance and the simple life in the forest. The music here is lush and sensuous and the attractive lovers pleased in sight and sound. Throughout, the vocal excerpts were interspersed with brief overtures, intermezzos, and dance instrumentals from the operas elegantly played by the chamber musicians on period instruments.

Encore time brought some surprises. I thought the instrumental and choral ensemble “Tendre amour” from Les Indes Galantes, full of sensuous longing and melodic charm, was the most attractive piece of music of the evening.

A special surprise guest with birthday greetings emerged in the welcome form of Joyce DiDonato (each city has a special surprise performer – usually a Christie veteran). DiDonato warmly remembered her collaboration with Christie in Handel’s Hercules (as Dejanira) back when she had never worked with the maestro before and was then new to Handel.

Her anxieties about working with the notorious taskmaster were allayed by his belief in her talent and exhorting of everyone to give what they have and that would be more than enough. DiDonato’s Dejanira, I still think. is her greatest role. She did not sing Dejanira’s “Where Shall I Fly?” but instead gave us alternative Handel: Irene’s “As with rosy steps the morn” from Theodora sung with quiet fervor. The soft high phrases were lovely, though some drier tones intruded in the lower tessitura.