Les Indes Galantes by the French baroque composer Jean-Philippe Rameau is an opera ballet, a typically French genre in which dance is just as important as song. The music is nice enough to enjoy on a CD, but of course a DVD has a lot more to offer. With this production of Les Indes Galantes, it is as if you have entered the fairytale world of an artfully designed picture book. Surrounded by cheerful,
… bright colors you come across one funny, wonderful figure after another. When you step out of the childlike fantasy world of director Andrei Serban, it is difficult to imagine that the original librettist in 1735 intended to sketch a more real world. He even supported his descriptions of the Indies with scientific evidence. Yet the stories of Les Indes Galantes are mainly written from a desire for the exotic and the unusual. However, a certain need for self-criticism also played a role: France was decadent, the primitive native still unspoiled. (CP)more
