Charpentier: La Descente d'Orphee aux Enfers
The myth of Orpheus--the divine musician who went to Hades to  rescue his bride Eurydice from the dead and whose song actually persuaded Pluto  to release her--has been irresistible to operatic composers fromMonteverditoOffenbach. One of the happiest  rediscoveries of the Baroque revival is this lovely one-act chamber opera by  Marc-Antoine Charpentier, which combines the gentle lilt typical of French  Baroque music with the beautiful melodies and delicious suspensions in which  Charpentier excelled. Charpentier diverged from the myth in one important  respect: he omitted the tragic ending in which Orpheus loses Eurydice a second  time, instead allowing the couple to live happily ever after. Orpheus is sung by  Baroque tenorextraordinairePaul Agnew, whose pure, sweet, and flexible  singing would convince Pluto to release the dead from Hell if anyone's could.   Sophie Daneman, Monique Zanetti, Patricia Petibon, and Jean-François Gardeil  head a cast without a single weak link; the instrumentalists of Les Arts Florissants  are as skillful and sensitive as always. If you want to sample French Baroque opera  at its best without investing in a three- or four-disc set, you can do no better than  this.--Matthew Westphal