Good run in French media continues. Click Musique!, the French magazine dedicated to classical and jazz music, publishes in its September issue a review of the album “Darius Milhaud, Salade op. 83 / Le pauvre matelot op. 92” recorded by the Poznań Philharmonic Orchestra under Łukasz Borowicz at a concert of the “Unknown Operas” series which was held at the National Philharmonic Hall in Warsaw during 28th Easter Ludwig van Beethoven Festival. And just like the ensemble’s album “Grzegorz Fitelberg, Symfonia e-moll op. 16” also recorded with Łukasz Borowicz, which was given the Sélection ClicMag! recommendation in July, this release, too, has been awarded the distinction.

The renowned French music critic Jean-Charles Hoffelé writes about the recording:

“It is difficult to find in Darius Milhaud’s rarely recorded operatic oeuvre two more disparate works than the colourful, even tangy fantasy Salad, and the tragic, ornament-free opera Le pauvre matelot with Jean Cocteau’s libretto so excellent as to inspire the author of Bolivar to create a poignant drama. Milhaud held this three-act opera in such esteem that he recorded it himself. Well aware of that, Łukasz Borowicz does not try to emulate the bitterness of that historic recording.

Instead, what he offers is a somewhat detached attitude that provides Cocteau’s text with enough space to resonate with all its ambiguities; at the same time, Borowicz poetically renders the murderer’s dilemmas and the changing atmosphere at the bar. Singers very meticulously elaborated their French parts, and Krystian Krzeszowiak’s Matelot may appear even more convincing than the sharper-voiced Jean Giraudeau’s.

The Provençal-hue-spiced grotesque Salade is unrivalled: the ballet is conducted ebulliently, while “furniture music” of the entries and short instrumental interludes is contrasted with fragments spoken and sung by a commedia-dell’arte-like troupe led in a furious tempo by Mateusz Zajdel’s Pulcinella; this is what ultimately makes the album exceptional.

And if Łukasz Borowicz and his excellent troupe were to reach for Esther de Carpentras tomorrow?”

Darius Milhaud

Salade, Op. 83 – ballet chanté in 2 acts

Le pauvre matelot, Op. 92 – opera in 3 acts

Magdalena LUCJAN – soprano
Natalia RUBIŚ – soprano
Krystian Adam KRZESZOWIAK – tenor
Krzysztof LACHMAN – tenor
Mateusz ZAJDEL – tenor
Robert GIERLACH – baritone
Adrian JANUS – baritone
Wojciech GIERLACH – bass
Łukasz BOROWICZ – conductor
Poznań Philharmonic Orchestra