Psyché (2cd)

Gramophone Magazine
February 2026
Editor's Choice

Hélène Guilmette (Psyché), Antoinette Dennefeld (Éros), Tassis Christoyannis (Mercure), Philippe Estèphe (Gorgias), Artavazd Sargsyan (Antinoüs), Christian Helmer (Le Roi)

Hungarian National Philharmonic Orchestra, Hungarian National Choir, György Vashegyi

Premiered at the Opéra-Comique in Paris on 26 January 1857, Ambroise Thomas’s Psyché tells the story of the ill-starred love between Eros and Psyche, who are manipulated by the cynical Mercury and envied by Daphne and Berenice, the heroine’s own sisters. The style of the work represents the nec plus ultra of mid-nineteenth-century French opéra-comique, notably in the Italianate influence of Rossini, which gives the singers of the two leading roles – one of which, Eros, is a breeches part for mezzo-soprano – a chance to glitter amid torrents of coloratura poured forth in impressive, passionate love duets. The librettists Jules Barbier and Michel Carré achieved an inspired blend of comedy and tragedy by contrasting a quartet of cruel and grotesque characters (Psyche’s sisters and their suitors) with the noble hero and heroine. Ambroise Thomas’s music does not merely foreshadow the future triumphs of Mignon and Hamlet: it is worthy to stand beside them at the pinnacle of his operatic legacy, as his obituarists declared. This recording confirms their judgment.

"Given that [Guilmette's] character spends much of the time in a state of bafflement, she is strikingly successful in expressing her various feelings...Vashegyi conducts with élan. Another triumph for Bru Zane and its French opera series, of which this is the 45th." - Gramophone Magazine, February 2026