Ravel: Daphnis & Chloé, La Valse

This new recording of Daphnis et Chloé, Ravel’s most sumptuous score, grew from performances of the Classically-inspired ballet at Paris’ Opéra Bastille in Spring 2014: Philippe Jordan, Music Director of the Paris Opéra was conducting a complete ballet for the first time and the choreographer, Benjamin Millepied – known to a wide audience for his work on the Oscar-winning film Black Swan, starring his wife, Natalie Portman – was undertaking his first major project for the Opéra before assuming his new role as its Director of Dance in Autumn 2014. The complete ballet score – which, lasting nearly an hour, is Ravel’s longest work – is less frequently heard. Its lavish forces, which include an exotic selection of percussion (with the wind machine notably prominent) and a wordless offstage chorus, perhaps constitute a reason for the relative rarity of its appearance in the world’s ballet theatres.

"Jordan doesn’t go for easy, fleeting effects, yet succeeds in making the orchestra sound iridescent, evoking the music’s sense of shifting, glittering light. The closing dance is fast and wonderfully taut." (The Guardian)