Disc 1 
1.Ouverture: Presto - Largo - Presto
2.Tendres plaisirs (1. Akt)
3.Quoi? Vous me trahissés, ingrate Léonore!
4.C'est danse les premiers jeux
5.Il me parle à ces jeux - L'amour répond à ses souhaits
6.Non, l'amour ne veut pas que l'on goûte à la fois - Redoublons cependant nos soins
7.De mille amants en vain nous recevons les voeux - Prelude: Cachons-nous
8.Non, ne redoutés plus l'amour
9.D'où viennent ces concerts?
10.Que pour cithere, chacun vienne s'embarquer - Entrée - Très gai
11.Donnés nous des jours fortunés
12.Très marqué et très pointé, sans lenteur
13.Très gai
14.Au plus aimable voyage
15.Menuet 1 - Menuet 2
16.Tambourin 1 - Tambourin 2
17.L'amour nous prèsse
18.Contredanse - Très gaïement
19.Quoi! Toujoûrs de l'amour - L'ingrate!
20.Prelude - Tes pas sont incertains (2. Akt)
21.Pour braver les périls
22.C'est m'offenser que de rien craindre
23.Ciel! il me laîsse, il m'abandonne!
24.Livrons-nous au sommeil
25.J'ai su que mon amant doit se rendre en ces lieux
26.Tu peux dormir, ingrat - Régnés haine, fureur
27.Ah! Quelle est cette voix?

Disc 2 
1.Prelude - Vous, pour qui l'avenir n'a rien d'impénétrable - Vous croyés me surprendre
2.O vous, qui vivés sous mes lois! - Que tout tremble
3.Grave
4.Noir souverain des ténébreux abîmes
5.Que la guerre en cent lieux répande la terreur
6.Presto
7.Ne suis-je pas déjà dans les sombres Royaumes?
8.Avançons!
9.Quelle horreur!
10.Toi, qui m'as inspirée
11.Prestissimo
12.Quand je revois l'objet de mes amours (3. Akt)
13.Vous réviés seule en ce séjour
14.L'amour coûte trop de soûpirs
15.L'objet qui m'a charmé
16.Je vous revois enfin
17.Mon coeur brûle de mille feux - Mais si mon coeur est tendre - Ah! cachés à ses yeux les beautés
18.N'êtes-vous pas le seul - Ah! c'en est trop
19.Calmés le transport qui vous guide
20.Suivez l'amour, qui vous appelle
21.Air pour les masques - Très gai - Loin de nos jeux, importune sagesse
22.Air pour les polonais
23.Menuet 1 - Menuet 2
24.D'un infidèle enfin, j'ai rallumé la flâme
25.Forlane 1 - Forlane 2
26.Le dieu malin, qui règne dans cithere
27.Air 1 - Mouvement de chaconne
28.Amour, couronne ta victoire
29.Pantomime pour le Tirolois: Andantino
30.Contredanse

Chantal Santon, soprano (Isabelle)
Katia Vellétaz, soprano (Léonore)
Kareen Durand, soprano (Spinette)
Isabelle Cals, soprano (Isménide)
Mathias Vidal, ténor (Octave)
Alain Buet, baryton (Zerbin)

Chœur de Chambre de Namur
Les Agrémens
Guy van Waas – conductor

Antoine Dauvergne’s final operatic work follows none of the established genres of the period. Taking a libretto written during the reign of Louis XIV in 1705, he drew on the best of his talent and skill to create a synthesis of everything that was modern at that time. --- arkivmusic.com

This year is the tercentenary of Antoine Dauvergne (1713-97). From 1744 Rameau’s pupil rose through the ranks of the Académie Royale de Musique (ie the Paris Opéra) and in 1769 was appointed one of its directors. Remembered by historians for his initially reluctant negotiations to bring Gluck to Paris in the early 1770s, Dauvergne’s music was criticised by Burney as ‘very dull and heavy…in the oldest and worst French style’ but his merits are commemorated in timely fashion by two live concert recordings, both made in November 2011 in association with the Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles.

The libretto of the tragédie lyrique Hercule mourant (1761) by Jean-François Marmontel is influenced by Sophocles’s tale of the jealous Deianira’s inadvertent murder of her husband Hercules. Contemporaries praised the decor of the terrible scene in which Hercules burns on a funeral pyre but sharp division arose over the music: one critic joked that ‘the whole opera ought to be thrown on the pyre in the fifth act’, whereas Dauvergne’s supporters protested it was ‘ingenious, light and stimulating’. Christophe Rousset’s theatrical pacing is spot-on; Les Talens Lyriques are on fine form in the lithe Ouverture; and dances are played with a keen sense of balletic movement. Véronique Gens’s authoritative recitatives convey the swinging emotional fortunes of the anxious Déjanire; her vitriolic reaction to news of Hercule’s secret plan to marry his beautiful captive Ïole brings Act 2 to a strong climax. Ïole’s idyllic pastoral ‘Quelle voix suspend mes alarmes?’ is sung sweetly by Julie Fuchs. Hercules’s bitter shame at his unworthy deceit of his wife at the start of Act 3 is sung commandingly by Andrew Foster-Williams, accompanied by a dark orchestration dominated by bassoons.

Dauvergne’s ill-fated comédie lyrique La vénitienne (1768) was condemned by one cynical eyewitness as ‘a tedious piece of drollery’ but Benoît Dratwicki’s essay claims that it bridges ‘the gap between Rameau and Pergolesi’. The elegant playing of Les Agrémens conveys the opera’s charms; the convivial Ouverture has a beguiling Largo featuring rolling woodwinds and pizzicato strings, whereas the outer quick movements offer shades of Haydn. The light-hearted plot of Venetian lovers reconciled after bizarre escapades warranted a frothy score packed with short tuneful arias (it is hard to spot them in Hercule mourant) and amusing orchestral interludes. The lovely opening scene in which Léonore wistfully wishes that she had sooner known the delights of falling in love (‘Tendres plaisirs’) sets the scene of St Mark’s Square rather less than a pastoral scene straight out of a painting by Fragonard. A chorus of boatmen tenderly implore the Zephyrs who rule the waves to grant days of happiness, thus introducing a divertissement of attractive dances (including a delightful barcarolle). The first scenes of Act 2 contain orchestral passages of mock-serious storminess as the amorous Venetian nobleman Octave and his long-suffering valet Zerbin switch clothes in order to seek counsel from the sorceress Isménide; the fearful Zerbin drinks himself to sleep in an astonishingly gorgeous soft aria (‘Livrons-nous au sommeil’). It is incredible that these dissimilar operas were written by the same composer but each repays investigation. --- David Vickers

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Les Troqueurs, Intermède ["Opera Bouffon"], Paris, 1753
1 	Ouverture: Presto - Andante - Presto 	
2 	Scène 1 	
3 	Scène 2 	
4 	Scène 2 	
5 	Scène 2 	
6 	Scène 3 	
7 	Scène 3 	
8 	Scène 4 	
9 	Scène 5 	
10 	Scène 6 	
11 	Scène 7 	
12 	Scène 8 	
13 	Ballet: Marche 	
14 	Ballet: Andantino 	
15 	Ballet: Largo 	
16 	Ballet: Allegro 	
17 	Ballet: Tambourin I 	
18 	Ballet: Tambourin II 	
19 	Ballet: Menuets I, II, III 	
20 	Ballet: Contre-danse

Concert De Simphonies A IV Parties, Op. 3 N°2 En FA Majeur
21 	Ouverture. Grave - Presto - (Adagio) 	
22 	Minuetto Gratioso 	
23 	Minuetto Secondo 	
24 	Andante 	
25 	Andantino 	
26 	Allegro I & II 	
27 	Vivace I & II 	
28 	Chaconne

Jean-Marc Salzmann - Lucas (bass)
Sophie Marin-Degor - Fanchon (soprano)
Nicolas Rivenq - Lubin (baritone)
Mary Saint-Palais - Margot (soprano)

Cappella Coloniensis
William Christie - conductor

This delightful trifle offers a fascinating glimpse of French opera in the declining years of the Baroque. It is not so much a homage to Italian taste as a near complete capitulation to it. The result is melodious, pacey and, with a nod to the French manner, distinctively orchestrated. This is an elegant performance, though not without blemish; the singing is well characterised and, on the whole, consistently pleasing. An enticing issue. -- Jan Smaczny, BBC Music Magazine

The opera-bouffon "Les Troqueurs" consists of the opera itself in one-act, followed by a "ballet" -- a suite of several dance movements. The liner notes discuss the opera at length, and give some insight into the historical context of the "war" between the Italian and French opera buffa styles of this period. There isn't any commentary on the ballet music, nor on the Concert de simphonies, Op. 3 No. 2, that makes up the last part of the disc.

The booklet contains the full libretto in the original French, with English and German translations. This is a delightful recording, with plenty of humor in the vocal performances. Another reviewer comments on the lack of a tenor in the cast (the two men are bass and baritone, not two basses as suggested) but this may be a device the composer chose to underscore the psychological and emotional divisions between the males and females that is at the heart of the opera. In any case, I didn't miss the middle voice. Dauvergne's melodic inventiveness is charming and well-suited to the themes. I thoroughly enjoyed this disc, and all the more since I had never listened to Dauvergne before. Try it, you'll like it! ---C. E. Hall, amazon.com

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