Castle Classics Manoury, Philippe (French B.1952)

P Manoury: 60th Parallel - Orchestre de Paris; David Robertson, conductor

Label - Naxos

Cat. No. - 8554249-50

2 CD Set

"Philipppe Manoury's 60th Parallel, about a group of passengers stranded in an airport on the 60th parallel by a storm, is a tightly woven piece with a bleak denouement and a score that melds electronical sounds and the live orchestra in his characteristically adept way. The main musical interest lies in these layered sonorities, for much of the text is declaimed rather than sung, and the effect is of a series of dislocated confrontations, played out against the background of the raging storm outside, which in many ways is the main protagonist of the work."

- BBC Music Magazine (Andrew Clements), February, 2001

"This comes on Naxos's 21st Century Classics label, and the opera may well endure as a classic of its kind: 60th Parallel is certainly one of the more significant operas of recent years. Its composer, Philippe Manoury, is a leading light of French music today. At the 1997 Châtelet premiere, he shared equal billing with the librettist Michel Deutsch and Producer Pierre Strosser, and the scenario is a collaborative one. It explores the feelings of passengers trapped by a storm in an airport on the 60th parallel, their destinies on hold as they wait for a hypothetical departure.

"It may sound like Jonathan Dove's 1998 Flight at Glyndebourne, but Manoury's music is less obviously tuneful and more atmospheric. He mixes electronics with the conventional instruments of the Orchestre de Paris (committed under David Robertson's baton) to create a compact score full of flux. Jean-Philippe Courtis is suitably grim as the war criminal who murders his pursuer (a focused Donald Maxwell)."

- The Times (John Allison) November 28, 2000
Price: £9.75 (Including VAT at 15%)

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