RAMEAU: ZOROASTRE (COMPLETE)

A major achievement - John Elwes is a stylish and eloquent Zoroastre and Gregory Reinhart makes a formidable Abramane with a commanding vocal presence. Rameau's Zoroastre should afford enduring pleasure. Here once more, but in a new CD format, is Zoroastre, Rameau's penultimate tragedie-lyrique. Readers who bought the earlier CD issue when Deutsche Harmonia Mundi were distributed by EMI (1/88) will not be amused to learn that a new booklet has been prepared for the BMG release; this contains the full text of the opera, legibly printed and now with an English translation. Thanks are due to BMG for repackaging an otherwise excellent product, thus making it accessible to a wider listenership. Zoroastre was first performed in Paris in 1749 and was, by and large, well received. But the librettist, Cahusac was taken to task by some for relegating the love element in the opera to a secondary place. When it was revived in 1756 Cahusac made shifts of emphasis within the plot and it is this