I won’t attempt to disguise my admiration for this opera. Coming from a composer who relied so much on spectacle, it is astonishing how vivid-ly its drama comes to life on disc. Roland is Lully’s musical take on the power of love to persuade the knight Roland (better known operatically as Ariosto’s Orlando) to put aside his pur-suit of glory and, when thwarted in love, to drive him to a short-lived madness, from which he recovers sufficiently to return to the battlefield. To give the opera relevance to the louis-quatorzien agenda, the story is fine-tuned so that the Queen of Cathay’s great love is a follower of an African king (weeks before the première in 1685, the French navy had bombarded Algiers). There are no mythological gods within earshot, although Glory, Fame and Terror put in cameo appearances at the end. The agile chorus members of the Opéra de Lausanne adapt their tone to evoke fairies, oriental islanders, shepherds and shepherdesses and the ghosts of dead heroes.

Lully’s music, both vocal and instrumental, is redolent of emotion and wit, often ravishing, and in Christophe Rousset’s experienced hands, beautifully paced. Five acts slip by quickly, abetted by a succession of musical triumphs. The ethereal fairy chorus of sopranos, first heard in the prologue, must have enchanted the audiences at Versailles.

At the end of Act 1, the first of three divertissements celebrates the joy of love; the second, the village wedding dominating Act 4, provokes Roland’s descent into madness. In the latter, shepherds and shepherdesses sing and dance to rustic accompaniment while the bride, her father and the groom unwittingly torture Roland with details of the elopement of his beloved Angélique and her preferred suitor, Médor, underlining the sadness love can equally bring. The fairy chorus returns to enchant in the second scene of Act 5 while Roland sleeps and, with the dead heroes, takes part in the closing divertissement in which Roland regains his sense of purpose.

There are, of course, celebrated moments of extreme drama – but even Lully’s highly trained orchestra could not have performed the mad scene at the end of the act with the speed and clarity of Les Talens Lyriques (disc 3 track 8, is surely one of the fastest period performances on record!) – as well as exquisite chamber music (in particular, the madrigalian vocal trio in the first scene of Act 2). However, Lully’s trademark masterstroke is the series of monologues and dialogues over ground basses delivered by Angélique (who publicly admits that she has cruelly deceived Roland) and Médor which culminates in the great chaconne with orchestra and chorus that concludes Act 3.

The role of Roland is sung with dignity and touching vulnerability by Nicolas Testé. Angélique, who at first finds it difficult to assert her true wishes, is sympathetically characterised by Anna Maria Panzarella, as is gentle, steadfast Médor, by Olivier Dumait. As the peasant father-of-the-bride, Emiliano Gonzalez-Toro delights us with fluent ornamentation and Salomé Haller, in the role of the principal fairy Logistille, with the beauty of her tone.

This recording is destined to win accolades. I can’t recommend it too highly.