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3Alessandro Scarlatti shows a variety of expressive touches allowing the exact characterization of the characters, from Abel's serene bliss to Adam's constant worry, Cain's anger or remorse to Eve's contrition, from the magnanimity of the Voice of God to the sardonic side of that of Lucifer. The work is served by a remarkable distribution of homogeneity, where we will pinpoint the overwhelming presence of Kristina Hammarström in Cain, the almost virginal sweetness of Olivia Vermeulen in Abel, the fleshy and weeping Eve of Birgitte. Christensen, the superb Adam, steeped in worry and strangeness,Thomas Walker , the almost solar voice of God of countertenor Benno Schachtner and the devastating darkness of Robert Gleadow's Lucifer . René Jacobs had already burned the work to disc twenty years ago: a formidable version in which, while ensuring the direction of the whole, he also embodied the voice of God. In the sound context of the Palais Garnier, the Ghent conductor decided, faced with a silent autograph as to the instrumental distribution, to enlarge the workforce beyond the strings alone and doubled the lines of certain ritornellos by recorders or oboes or even (perhaps less fortunate choice) by trombones. Under his expert baton, the score takes on its full significance, also magnificently served by the Flemish collective B'Rock Orchestra, with expressive verve and invigorating and invigorating greenness. The sometimes unconvincing work of the director is thus largely redeemed by a fairly exemplary musical achievement, for an evening half fig, half grape.
Robert Gleadow is also a victim of the tessitura, missing the low resonances (and even just the low notes) of the score. He compensates with an intense voice (but in fact trembling), bristling with tonic accents and above all by an absolute investment in character. Even back down into the pit, he plays the seductive and sneaky devil as much. The countertenor Benno Schachtner finally joins the celestial treble and a fairly low, very rounded medium base. Playing God does not prevent him from shaking his head to accompany his ornaments, the body and the paces corresponding however to the august image of such a character. René Jacobs shows his knowledge of this oratorio which he had recorded more than twenty years ago, he then directed the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin and himself sang the voice of God. The conductor thus directs the instrumentalists, singers, as well as the children. His B'Rock Orchestra brings its quality chamber music and a religious contemplation to the dimension of Garnier. The measure of the room is taken by the roundness of the lowest strings. The lines are closed in the softness of the organ and the lute, but the phalanx is also capable of fiery accents as the drama approaches: the terrible percussions accompanying the mortal blows. However, as the First Homicide is the heart of the work, the first violin is the heart of the orchestra: its Italian virtuosity is the soul as much as the common thread of the instrumental execution. The stage is covered with an immense plastic veil, which Adam and Eve adults, finally going up on stage, dig to exhume their childish double while God sings "By sinning you lost the innocence". Adam and Eve find her by literally finding themselves as children The man and the boy, the woman and the girl embrace. They are placed in the foreground side by side in perfect symmetry until the song is imitated in playback (exactly as in the first part of The Magic Flute at La Monnaie de Bruxelles last September: report and video integral ). Youth is found, sin erased. The audience applauds the six pairs of performers who greet in pairs (the adult and the child found, hand in hand), René Jacobs who brings his entire orchestra up on stage. Castellucci only wipes an audible hoot and a few thumbs up .
