Album selection: Bernard Foccroulle, Edouard Lalo, Adrian Raso & Fanfare Ciocarlia

• Bernard Foccroulle Cassandra Various soloists, choir and orchestra of La Monnaie, Kazushi Ono (conductor).

Composed by Bernard Foccroulle with a libretto by Matthew Jocelyn, Cassandra is an opera in one prologue and 13 scenes that makes a glaciologist, Sandra, a specialist in global warming, a contemporary equivalent of the Cassandra of Greek Antiquity whose prophecies no one believed. It is never easy to follow the twists and turns of a contemporary opera without the aid of the visual dimension or, as is the case here, the original text (in English) or translation. Yet, we can quite clearly see what is going on in this primarily human tragedy, set against a backdrop of ecological mobilization. Made during the opera's premiere at La Monnaie in Brussels in 2023, this recording (two CDs) bears witness to a very captivating interpretation, from the real Cassandra, whose appearances are powerfully rendered by mezzo-soprano Katarina Bradic, to her "descendant" (Sandra), whose Cornelian conflicts are magnificently translated by soprano Jessica Niles. As for Bernard Foccroulle's score, it is of a lyrical and dramatic quality that brings it close to the finest performances of the Hungarian Peter Eötvös (1944-2024) . Pierre Gervasoni

• Edouard Lalo The King of Ys With Judith van Wanroij, Kate Aldrich, Cyrille Dubois, Jérôme Boutillier, Nicolas Courjal, Christian Helmer, choirs and Hungarian National Philharmonic Orchestra, György Vashegyi (conductor).

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