On Sunday, 28 February 2006, Carnegie Hall presented Les Violons du Roy, Bernard Labadie, Music Director and Conductor, with Magdalena Kožená, Mezzo-Soprano, featuring works by Rameau and Gluck. Here are two reviews.
One of the Starrier Singers Among Us
BY JAY NORDLINGER [NY Sun, 28 February 2006]
Magdalena Kozena has been a busy Czech mezzo in New York lately. She has appeared at the Met, singing Dorabella in Mozart's "Cosi fan tutte." In Carnegie Hall, she has sung Mahler with the Berlin Philharmonic, and Mussorgsky and Lutoslawski with the Philadelphia Orchestra. And, on Sunday night, she sang Rameau and Gluck in Zankel Hall, the downstairs (and sometimes down-market) venue at Carnegie.
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Unfussy French Baroque, With Arias of Gentle Drama
By ANNE MIDGETTE [NY Times, 28 February 2006]
Now that the early-music movement is so ubiquitous as to have penetrated even Carnegie Hall, where Zankel Hall is offering a "Baroque Unlimited" series this season, there are a host of ways to approach the repertory. Les Violons du Roy, a Canadian ensemble, has opted to use the muscle of modern instruments with the style, and bowings, of Baroque ones. The result, as demonstrated at Zankel on Sunday night, is powerful, invigorating, not always completely clean, not at all fussy and very enjoyable.