Alexandra Coghlan

The best recordings of Ravel’s L’enfant et les sortilèges

The child at the centre of this anarchic opera speaks for us all as he rages against the restrictions of his suddenly enclosed and joyless world

The frontispiece to the original 1925 score of Ravel's L'enfant et les sortileges. Photo: Dea / G. Dagl Orti / De Agostini / Getty Images 
issue 06 June 2020

‘I don’t want to do my work. I want to go for a walk. I want to eat all the cakes… to shout at everybody!’ Which of us hasn’t felt like this at some point during the past ten weeks? The small child at the centre of Ravel’s L’enfant et les sortilèges speaks for us all as he rages against the restrictions of his suddenly enclosed and joyless world.

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