Opera 102
Monsigny: Le Roi et le fermier
Soloists
Opera Lafayette
Rayan Brown
Monsigny is one of the composers of the generations between Rameau and Cherubini who are transitional figtures between the baroque and the early romantic. I had heard the name but had never heard any of this music. This is a fairly short opera but one full of character. The language clearly owes much to Rameau but it is a rather smoothed out version without any of Rameau’s distinctive characteristics. There are also some traces of early classical music. This is not great music but it is highly enjoyable. I suspect that there are a huge number of these operas lying forgotten and unperformed. Opera Lafayette have done a good service by brining some of these operas to light so that we can appreciate their strengths and limitations. I will listening to some of their other recordings in this series.
