Reines

With Reines (“Queens”), released by Alpha Classics, Véronique Gens and the ensemble Les Surprises offer a journey through the French operatic repertoire centred on a singular figure: the sovereign. From Lully to the end of the eighteenth century, these heroines command the stage through both their authority and their inner turmoil. The programme brings together arias, choruses and orchestral pieces by Rameau, Dauvergne and Pignolet de Montéclair, sketching a portrait in negative of these roles of power, poised between theatrical brilliance and dramatic tension, in a sequence conceived as a gallery of female figures.

Gathered around Louis-Noël Bestion de Camboulas, Les Surprises deploy forces combining choir and period-instrument orchestra, with particular attention to colour and contrasts of affect. Conceived in collaboration with Benoît Dratwicki of the Centre de musique baroque de Versailles, the programme draws on a wide and sometimes little-performed repertoire, from Desmarest to Royer, underpinned by precise editorial and dramaturgical work. At the height of her vocal maturity, Véronique Gens stands in the lineage of the great tragediennes of the Ancien Régime, whose colours and inflections she reclaims with flair.

This recording does not simply juxtapose excerpts: it builds an implicit dramaturgy, shaped by the tension between authority and fragility, tenderness and fury. Véronique Gens’s vocal line, both sovereign and inward, finds a precise counterpart in the orchestra, supported by a vividly characterised continuo and a keen sense of theatrical pacing. The ensemble favours direct eloquence, free of excess, where each piece is shaped as a fragment of theatre within a fully sustained expressive arc. A recording to be heard as one would follow a dramatic scene: with tension, focus and a sense of enchantment.