Special offer. Blow: Venus and Adonis
Amanda Forsythe (Venus), Tyler Duncan (Adonis), Mireille Lebel (Cupid), Amanda Forsythe (soprano), Jason McStoots, Zachary Wilder (tenors), Douglas Williams (bass-baritone)
Boston Early Music Festival, Paul O'Dette & Stephen Stubbs
Mireille Lebel's Cupid shines in Boston's tryst with Blow's pastoral precursor to Purcell's Dido. Playing is stylish, though Tyler Duncan's Adonis sounds unfeasibly mature.
Special offer. Blow: Venus and Adonis
Amanda Forsythe (Venus), Tyler Duncan (Adonis), Mireille Lebel (Cupid), Amanda Forsythe (soprano), Jason McStoots, Zachary Wilder (tenors), Douglas Williams (bass-baritone)
Boston Early Music Festival, Paul O'Dette & Stephen Stubbs
Purchase product
Mireille Lebel's Cupid shines in Boston's tryst with Blow's pastoral precursor to Purcell's Dido. Playing is stylish, though Tyler Duncan's Adonis sounds unfeasibly mature.
About
During recent years three CPO productions in the Boston Early Music Festival series have received Grammy nominations in the category of the Best Opera Production and two have received Gramophone Award nominations in the Baroque Vocal category.
Following Charpentier’s Actéon (cpo 7776132) late last year, The Boston Early Music Festival Chamber Ensemble and outstanding young soloists now lend new life to John Blow’s Venus and Adonis in a top-quality performance under the leadership of the lutenists Paul O’Dette and Stephen Stubbs.
The striking parallels between it and Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas suggest that the two works were composed at about the same time and are interrelated in some way. While Dido and Aeneas stands firmly in the epic tradition, Venus and Adonis is a model example of the pastoral genre.
Contents and tracklist
- Mireille Lebel
- Boston Early Music Festival Chamber Ensemble, Boston Early Music Festival Vocal Ensemble
- Stephen Stubbs, Paul O'Dette
- Amanda Forsythe, Tyler Duncan
- Boston Early Music Festival Chamber Ensemble, Boston Early Music Festival Vocal Ensemble
- Stephen Stubbs, Paul O'Dette
- Mireille Lebel, Amanda Forsythe
- Boston Early Music Festival Chamber Ensemble, Boston Early Music Festival Vocal Ensemble
- Stephen Stubbs, Paul O'Dette
- Amanda Forsythe, Tyler Duncan
- Boston Early Music Festival Chamber Ensemble, Boston Early Music Festival Vocal Ensemble
- Stephen Stubbs, Paul O'Dette
- Amanda Forsythe
- Boston Early Music Festival Chamber Ensemble
- Stephen Stubbs, Paul O'Dette
- Boston Early Music Festival Chamber Ensemble
- Stephen Stubbs, Paul O'Dette
- Jason McStoots, Zachary Wilder, Douglas Williams
- Boston Early Music Festival Chamber Ensemble
- Stephen Stubbs, Paul O'Dette
Awards and reviews
December 2011
Mireille Lebel's Cupid shines in Boston's tryst with Blow's pastoral precursor to Purcell's Dido. Playing is stylish, though Tyler Duncan's Adonis sounds unfeasibly mature.
Awards Issue 2011
Forsythe's languid singing is apt for the eroticism of Venus, whose lover Adonis is sung smoothly by baritone Tyler Duncan; Mireille Lebel is less boyish than most Cupids on disc but that does no harm to the impression of knowing innuendo and cynicism (full of in-jokes aimed at members of Charles II's court). The BEMF chorus sounds lovely in gentler passages that adopt a lyrical French style...yet another wonderful recording of a 17th-century opera.
September 2011
Amanda Forsythe is - as she must be - a warm, enticing Venus, though a perverse one, whom the libretto demands must finally drive her hesitating lover to the chase. Tyler Duncan has a fine baritone, but not quite so confident in the lower register. It's a pretty good chorus too, heard to best effect in the plangent closing number.
31st July 2011
This vivid Boston performance evokes the pastoral spirit of the piece, with Amanda Forsythe and Tyler Duncan alluring as the lovers, and Mireille Lebel as a cute Cupid.
