This spectacular new recording from the Purcell Choir and Orfeo Orchestra under György Vashegyi was made in Budapest’s Béla Bartók National Concert Hall and benefits from the work of musicologist Sylvie Bouissou. It comes some 10 years after the Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles initiated a comprehensive project to make historically informed and thoroughly researched recordings of French Baroque composer Jean-Philippe Rameau’s late operas.

Les Boréades was never performed during Rameau’s lifetime. Composed in 1763, it was intended to celebrate the end of the Seven Years’ War but was mysteriously censored. The opera’s libretto contained politically sensitive themes challenging royal authority and social hierarchies, including advocating individual liberty, criticising political allegiances, and denouncing the abuse of power.

As a result, the work was likely prevented from being performed due to these apparently subversive themes, which were considered dangerous in the context of 18th-century French monarchy, especially in the aftermath of an assassination attempt on King Louis XV. Happily, despite this initial suppression, Les Boréades has since been recognized as a significant work not just...