Organization

Boston Early Music Festival

Conductor

Debra Nagy

Singer

Oboe

Julie Andrijeski

Violin

Rebecca Reed

Viola

Mark Edwards

Harpsichord

Soprano

Hannah De Priest

Others

Les Délices

Les Délices - Woman Scorned: Circé, Phèdre, and Armide

Boston

United States

NEC Jordan Hall

Les Délices - Woman Scorned: Circé, Phèdre, and Armide: Concert

Public

Concert

Approved

Soprano Hannah De Priest is featured in this excerpt from Louis-Nicolas Clérambault’s dramatic cantata Medée from Les Délices online concert program Bewitched. The sorceress Medea defied her father and gave up everything she knew out of love for the warrior Jason. She gave him glory and he married her out of guilt. As she explains in the opening recitative of Clérambault’s Medée, “charmed by his false affection, I dared to betray my father and the gods.” In fact, Medea aided Jason repeatedly in his quest to capture the Golden Fleece so that he could fulfill his own birthright as king of Iolcos. As you’ll hear in a bluster of sixteenth notes from the ensemble, Medea calls on vengeance, “Courons à la vengence, depit mortel allumez mon couroux” (Let’s hasten to vengeance! Deadly anger, ignite my wrath).

Louis-Nicolas Clerambault: Excerpt from Medée

Woman Scorned: Circé, Phèdre, and Armide
Founded by renowned oboist Debra Nagy in 2009, Les Délices has established a reputation for unique programs that are “thematically concise, richly expressive, and featuring composers few people have heard of” (The New York Times). They make their eagerly anticipated BEMF début in a fascinating program exploring themes of desire, jealousy, shame, and revenge by giving voice to the spurned lovers of antiquity. This program exalts in the wild, passionate music portraying characters such as Circé, Phèdre, and Armide while contemplating the somewhat misogynistic portrayals of the women in these works that can be far removed from their Classical origins. The remarkable selections are by Rebel, Bourgeois, Lully, Senaillé, and Blamont.

English

Les Délices - Woman Scorned: Circé, Phèdre, and Armide by Various, From (2023/2023), Conductor Debra Nagy, NEC Jordan Hall, Boston, United States

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