Crespin as Ariadne is pure luxury. Mesplé as Zerbinetta is either your taste or not, the fast French vibrato is not to everyone's taste but brings a sparkle to her rolethat is delightfully accurate and virtuosic fireworks are in ample supply. Troyanos shows why she was the most important interpreter of the composer of her generation. Gleaming tops and all passion and delight. Jean Cox flies through the tessitura with a shine to the voice that makes up for great subtelty. Yes the conducting feels a bit ornery but it is a helluva score to bring to life successfully and it certainly never becomes a messy disaster as can happen in live performances of this work. Recording sound is good enough for a live performances and in ensembles the lines are heard clearly. Glad I bouth it.

Crespin is wonderful, Cox and Troyanos very good indeed, Mesple OK as Zerbinetta. But the conducting is lousy - limp and lacking in any sparkle or drama. The orchestra is pretty weak. The egregious absence of the opening dialogue between the Music Master and the Major Domo was probably not Sebastian's fault - it sounds like a cut in the recording, not in the performance - but the bizarre full-stop after "Es gibt ein Reich," so that the audience can applaud the "aria," is egregious and IS Sebastian's fault. This is possibly worth hearing for Crespin, but you will find much better performances of "Ariadne" elsewhere.

Following the orchestral intro, this Prologue omits the exchange between the Majordomo and Music Master, and commences with the Composer and Lackey. Still in her 20s, Troyanos is all impetuous passion and tonal opulence. Crespin creates her own time and space to lavish her sumptuous voice upon Ariadne. Mesple is first class. One imagines what young Jose Van Dam, singing Truffaldin, would have done with Harlekin. Yakar, Drakster, Debiqui sing all their notes, but they miss the enchantment of their music. Jean Cox is an unflinching Bacchus (isn’t that enough?!). Sebastien is on autopilot (un, deux, trois…). Sound is full, reverberant just short of distortion...listen from a distance.

I haven't listened to any of the recent purchases yet. I will let you now when I have though it may be some months from now. I have TONS to listen to.