225. Baroque Women

The Concert - Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum

Works for chamber orchestra by Rebel and La Guerre performed by Les Délices on November 23, 2014.

• Jean-Fery Rebel: La Fidelle
• Elisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre: Le Sommeil d"Ulisse
• Jean-Fery Rebel: Selections from Ulysse: C'est vous, mon cher Ulysse; Chaconne; Que c'est un plaisir extreme

We begin with an instrumental piece: La Fidelle by the composer Jean-Fery Rebel. The title—meaning “faithful one”—has clear connections to the other Rebel work on the program: a vocal selection from Rebel’s opera Ulysse. We’ll hear a pair of arias sung by Penelope at the end of the opera, when she is reunited with her husband Ulysses after his journey has finally brought him safely home. Penelope sings of the extreme pleasure of seeing her long-lost love again. We’ll hear the lovely soprano Clara Rottsalk in the role of Penelope.

Between the two Rebel works, we have a piece that is not only about but written by a woman: Elisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre’s Le Sommeil d’Ulisse, a telling of another part of the same mythic story. The singer—Clara Rottsalk again—tells of a fierce storm stirred up by Neptune that tosses Ulysses’ boat violently. But, in the end, Minerva intervenes, saving him from the frothing waves and lulling him and his crew to sleep.