By Kevin Shopland [The Budapest Sun, 15 December 2005]

THE Palace of Arts has been host to two brilliant concerts recently, one by Les Arts Florissants on Dec 7, the other by the Budapest Festival Orchestra on Nov 25.

The French period-instruments orchestra and chorus Les Arts Florissants, led by American conductor William Christie (pictured), gave a semi-staged performance of Rameau's opera Les Paladins. Though the audience was comparatively small (I guess Rameau will never draw in the crowds the way Beethoven does), it ate up the perfect enactment of this wonderfully charming work, leaving off its enthusiastic cheering only when the orchestra finally walked off stage after numerous curtain calls by the soloists.