Rameau: Règne Amour
Love songs from the operas

Hyperion’s Record of the Month for May is a showcase for Carolyn Sampson, the young soprano who is fast establishing a reputation for performances of dazzling virtuosity and musicality (for Hyperion she appears on several of The King’s Consort’s recordings, including those of music by Monteverdi, Schelle, Vivaldi and Zelenka). This is her first solo recording and more than lives up to expectation. Support is effectively supplied by the choir and orchestra of Ex Cathedra.

The recital presents arias from seven of Rameau’s operas, works which so dominated the stage of the Paris Opéra in the mid-1700s that their productions were officially ‘rationed’ so as not to depress other composers. By turns tender, voluptuous, nostalgic, teasing and even outrageously satirical, these arias provide us with one long moment of ravishing beauty.

CDA67447  63 minutes 47 seconds
THE BEST OF 2004 (Goldberg Early Music Magazine)

‘This wonderful music will always need special vocal advocacy and there can be few outside France as equipped as Carolyn Sampson’ (Gramophone)
‘Carolyn Sampson's voice almost inevitably gives pleasure and her singing of this repertoire, strikingly varied in its stylistic and expressive ranges, is well nigh ideal’ (BBC Music Magazine)
‘This is a stunning CD. Never before have I heard such fantastic performances of Rameau from an English group. The undoubted star of the show is former choirboy-soundalike Carolyn Sampson, whose voi ...