Over the past decade, the Centre de Musique Romantique Française has promoted the rediscovery of more than twenty neglected French romantic operas. Serving as entrepreneur, the Centre funds research, publications and performances through a variety of media, including performances at its Venice home, the Palazetto Bru Zane, via a dedicated radio station, and the publication of CDs with accompanying hardback books. The Centre's copious output is made possible with funding from the Swiss Foundation Bru, and through a policy of outsourcing to established ensembles around Europe. The purview is the long nineteenth century, and releases range from 1779, with J. C. Bach's Amadis, to Massenet's Thérèse of 1906. The few eighteenth-century offerings, like the rest of the recordings, are performed by an international line-up of soloists: in the case of Phèdre, with a choir and an orchestra based in Hungary.

The rediscovery of the origins of French romantic opera and particularly the works of Lemoyne provides an opportunity to re-examine the influence of Gluck on the French tragédie lyrique. Lemoyne arrived at the Paris Opéra in 1782, when Gluck's status was in question, and if the Austrian master was reluctant to recognize him as a disciple, it may have had more to do with his own precarious status than any differences he perceived in the younger Frenchman's approach. In Lemoyne's Phèdre recitatives slide effortlessly into airs, expression is achieved with an economy of harmonic means, and vivid tableaux that involve both protagonists and onlookers are worthy of Gluck's most arresting moments. The revival of operas of this era teaches us that opera reform was not an instant recipe for success. Gluck's restructuring of the tragédie lyrique underscores the crucial role of the performer in dramatic communication.

The Bru Zane set comprises an individually numbered deluxe hardback book and two CDs. But rather than serving as paratext to the recording, here the book is the centrepiece, and the CD the supplement. Informative essays in French by Alexandre and Benoît Dratwicki, expertly translated by Charles Johnston, are included, as well as a synopsis, complete libretto in French and English, and an extract from Lacépede's Poétique de la Musique (1785). The well-chosen illustrations, including facsimiles of the sources, original set and costume designs, and portraits of librettist François-Benoît Hoffman and of Mme Saint-Huberty, who created the title role, are scattered through the French and English portions of the book.

While the Dratwickis provide historical context for the work's creation, the book offers very little information on the recording aside from a listing of the names of the performers and photographs of the soloists. Conductor György Vashegyi is president of the Hungarian Academy of Arts and brings a steady hand to the score, propelling a dramatic trajectory that is more even than emotionally charged. Highlights such as Thésée's prayer to Neptune in Act 2 miss some of the pacing and intensity of colouration that would imbue them with dramatic force.

The cast, led by the Dutch soprano Judith van Wanroij as Phèdre, is made up of the younger generation of singers found on the rosters of major opera houses around the world. All are clearly capable of delivering reliable performances according to twenty-first-century mainstream expectations. But rather than a distinctive approach that might have placed this interpretation above the stock-in-trade, they too often fall back on the well-rehearsed practices of the modern operatic coaching studio. Eighteenth-century French opera depended on the clarity with which composer and singer transmitted the poetic text. For the most part the diction of the Bru Zane cast is good, but consistently greater emphasis is placed on ‘musical’ sonority than on text delivery. Being trained to fill the cavernous spaces of La Scala or the Met, the singers prioritize volume over quality of sound, and their incessant vibrato and back-larynx position learned from verismo technique obscure their diction. Vocal production is uniformly intense with little release or colouring. The compulsion to create uniformity of tone results in weighty pickups and misplaced emphasis on unimportant syllables and metrically weak beats. While this approach can be compelling in a live performance (as evidenced in the excerpts from the same cast on YouTube), it makes for a monochrome audio recording. There are exceptions. Jérôme Boutilier's delivery in the role of Un Grand de l’État is well poised, and he is by far the most comprehensible of all the singers.

The cast is not only tiring to listen to, but undercuts the interactive energy of the recitative, and there is an equally disappointing lack of distinctive vocal personality. As sung by van Wanroij and Melody Louledian, Phèdre and her confidante Œnone are almost indistinguishable. Even the Act 3 altercation between haute-contre Hippolyte and basse-taille Thésée (sung by French tenor Julien Behr and Greek baritone Tassis Christoyannis) sounds as if it were being sung by one person.

While I concede that there is value in hearing a newly revived work through the same interpretative lens as standard repertory, the limitations of the current culture of what can only be called ‘industrial’ operatic production are shown in sharp relief when applied to a work such as Lemoyne's Phèdre. Much of the difficulty lies in finding singers who are both willing and able to take risks. This applies more than anywhere to the lead role, created for the colourful and volatile Anne-Antoinette-Cécile Clavel (1756–1812), better known by her stage name Mme Saint-Huberty. Employed at the Paris Opéra from 1777 to 1789, Saint-Huberty did not fit the norms of the period, and she was most comfortable in her lower register. Alexandre Dratwicki argues that her career was cut short owing to a faulty vocal technique. But her retirement in 1790 coincided with a period of intense social disruption when the Opéra was in a ruinous financial state and unable to pay her astronomical fee. Known to resort to singing with an almost speaking quality, a practice that attracted some critical censure, Saint-Huberty achieved enormous fame, and in the space of ten years sang some thirty roles, many of which were created for her unique stagecraft. Phèdre owed its success (with sixty performances in its first year) to being tailored to Saint-Huberty's abilities. Lemoyne exploited her extended range of over two octaves: where Phèdre's thoughts wander ‘dans l'horreur de la nuit’ (into the horror of night) and she resists divulging the nature of her desires (‘Ne me dis plus ce nom qui me glace d'effoi!’ (utter no more that name which chills me to the bone), Act 1 Scene 4), he took particular advantage of her downwards extension to low A. Here one can imagine Saint-Huberty opening into her chest register, and heightening the dramatic impact of her heinous secret in what would later be called Sprechstimme. Her unique performance style must surely be considered in modern interpretations of the work by finding a singer brave enough to stretch the bel-canto envelope. Judith van Wanroij, the one singer in the company with extensive experience in early music (having trained with William Christie's Jardin des Voix), has opted to sing alternative lower versions of some of Phèdre's part as given in the surviving sources; but even with assistance from the Tonmeister, her low register is weak, and she rarely strays towards anything resembling speech.

The orchestra shines in the dances and produces a well-balanced, richly varied palette in symphonic writing of poetic poignancy. It is not apparent from the book that the Orfeo Orchestra is playing on historical instruments – something that might come as a surprise given the style of singing. (Why is it that instrumentalists should choose equipment and technique appropriate to the repertory, but when it comes to singing we are expected to accept that one size fits all?) From the internet (https://www.bach-cantatas.com/Bio/Orfeo-Orchestra.htm) we learn that the Orfeo Orchestra ‘is the most authentic exponent of classical music in Hungary and has given many first performances on period instruments under the baton of György Vashegyi’ (15 August 2020). The personnel is predominantly Hungarian, and many have undertaken specialized study in historical performance in the former Western Europe, but the book is silent on the instruments used and the pitch (A430): neither are straightforward issues for music straddling the classical and romantic. The Purcell Choir gives a reliable performance, with clear diction and cohesive ensemble.

It is remarkable that, just twenty years after the last revival of Hippolyte et Aricie, the debate on the operatic reworking of Racine's Phèdre was reopened – but with no apparent awareness that the topic had already been addressed. Lemoyne and Hoffman either chose to ignore or were oblivious to the transformations that Rameau and Pellegrin had brought to Racine's plotline. Even if Lemoyne's musical style was directed more towards German and Austrian than French influences, it is hard to believe that he was completely unaware of the ‘Trio des Parques’, or Phèdre's and Thésée's great monologues in Rameau's first opera. It would have been of interest to read more on the place of Lemoyne's work in the French eighteenth-century tradition, but, with their vision set on the future direction of the tragédie lyrique, the Bru Zane team provide little more than an immediate historical context. While history may ignore its own past, few of those who will take the trouble to hear Lemoyne's Phèdre will be able to silence the spectre of Hippolyte et Aricie as point de repère.