By Tim Ashley – Gramophone UK.
Smut and sophistication rub shoulders in Ravel’s wonderfully sardonic sex comedy, first performed at the Opéra-Comique in 1911. It’s a tricky piece to get right, though. Overplay the bawdry, as at Glyndebourne in 2012, and you risk coarseness. Err on the side of caution and things can turn anodyne. Asher Fisch’s new recording, made during concert performances in Munich with a youngish francophone cast, is nicely sensual and engaging, if just occasionally short on irony.
Fisch aims for headiness but avoids blatancy. Rhythms pulse and throb, and the Hispanic turns of melody often have a pointed suavity that hints at innuendo. The orchestral sound, all plush strings and warm woodwind, is beguilingly opulent, but might not appeal to those who see Ravel primarily in terms of restraint and clarity. There’s a languorous feel to it all, which says much about the relationship between pace and tempo in Fisch’s conducting, since he’s by no means slower than his rivals. This is beautifully engineered, too, though the ticking metronomes at the start are placed a bit too far back.