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19th June 2024

Video Interview, Paul Agnew on Rameau's Platée from Garsington

by Katherine Cooper

Paul Agnew in a break from rehearsals at the Wormsley EstateChances to see Rameau's operas in the UK don't come along especially often, so the Garsington Festival's new staging of his dark comedy Platée (in which a narcissistic frog is tricked into believing that the king of the gods has fallen madly in love with her) is a major cause for celebration - when Louisa Muller's reality TV-influenced staging opened at the end of last month, it was described as 'exuberantly vulgar, expertly sung' (The Telegraph), 'consistently engaging, and at times deeply moving' (The Stage), and 'zing[ing] with energy throughout' (The Times).

During the final stretch of rehearsals, we paid conductor Paul Agnew a visit at the company's new rehearsal-studios on the Wormsley Estate to find out more about what exactly makes this score such a weird and wonderful treat, how his own experience of singing the title-role informs his approach to the music, why the rural setting of the festival is the ideal location for a piece so grounded in the natural world - and his new Bach recording-project A Life In Music, which launched on Harmonia Mundi in April...

Garsington Opera's production of Platée runs until 30th June.

Rameau: Platée (Blu-ray)

Rameau: Platée (Blu-ray)

Lawrence Brownlee (Platée), Julie Fuchs (Thalie/La Folie), Jean Teitgen (Jupiter), Reinoud Van Mechelen (Mercure), Adrianna Bignani Lesca (Junon), Mathias Vidal (Thespis), Marc Mauillon (Momus); Les Musiciens du Louvre, Choeurs de l'Opera National de Paris, Marc Minkowski, Laurent Pelly

Also available on DVD.

Available Format: Blu-ray

Rameau: Platée (Blu-ray)

Rameau: Platée (Blu-ray)

Marcel Beekman (Platée), Jeanine De Bique (La Folie), Edwin Crossley-Mercer (Jupiter), Cyril Auvity (Mercure/Thespis), Marc Mauillon (Momus/Citheron), Emilie Renard (Junon); Les Arts Florissants, William Christie, Robert Carsen

Also available on DVD.

Available Format: Blu-ray

JS Bach: A Life in Music Vol. 1

JS Bach: A Life in Music Vol. 1

Benjamin Alard (organ), Les Arts Florissants, Paul Agnew

Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC

Rameau: Dardanus

Rameau: Dardanus

Paul Agnew, Paul Whelan, Kathryn McCusker, Stephen Bennet, Damian Whiteley & Penelope Mills; Orchestra of the Antipodes, Antony Walker

Available Formats: MP3, FLAC

Katherine Cooper - Head of Editorial

Katherine Cooper read English at University College, Oxford, and joined Presto in 2009. She began her musical life as a violinist, but now spends much of her time singing Rossini and Elgar (sometimes even for money). She is also an Associate Lecturer for the Open University, specialising in music and literature.

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