4737-1 PERSEPHONE

Emmanuelle Béart, speaker (Perséphone) *** Gilles Ragon, tenor (Eumolpe) **** Maîtrise de Paris (children’s chorus) **** Accentus (adult chorus) ***** Brussels Philharmonic **** Michel Tabachnik, conductor **** Main point of interest is the opportunity to hear Perséphone with Francophone vocalists. The star performance comes from Laurence Equilbey’s superb Accentus chorus, every word clear as a bell (as well as every one of Stravinsky’s cavalier misaccentuations of André Gide’s text), followed closely by tenor Gilles Ragon, stylish if not ideally secure in the difficult tessitura. Tabachnik and his Brussels Philharmonic deliver a muscular, dynamic reading, in closely miked sound. Unfortunately, Béart is a bit disappointing, her reading rather withdrawn and unvaried, though scrupulously intoned. Doesn’t top commercially available versions by Michael Tilson Thomas, Kent Nagano or Andrew Davis (the last my personal favorite).