The Palazzetto Bru Zane joins forces with the Orchestre National de France to present a special concert retracing the composer’s career through rare and little-known pieces: his cantata for the 1837 Prix de Rome (Marie Stuart), the unpublished first version of the Poison Aria from Roméo et Juliette, his opera Cinq-Mars (revived only in 2015), excerpts from his epic sacred oratorio Mors et Vita, and the big female duet from Le Tribut de Zamora, the composer’s last opera. As is appropriate for a tribute, the concert also recalls some of Gounod’s greatest successes, with the Overture to Mireille and the Ballet Music from Faust, which have constantly delighted music lovers for more than a century now. “Bravos for the soloists and orchestra!” (Operawire)
Paris Concert March 2007 – Anna Netrebko and Rolando Villazón
The tension is palpable at Paris’ Théâtre des Champs-Elysées this 28th of March 2007. Anna Netrebko is not only making her debut in France, but she is making it with Rolando Villazón. The ‘dream couple’ of the opera world is about to bring its incomparable charm and magnetism to France’s ‘mélomanes.’ And the result is nothing less than phenomenal: ‘An unforgettable evening, rich in emotions, which many spectators will look back on with nostalgia one day and say: ‘I was there!’. No matter where they appear, Netrebko and Villazón inevitably work their magic on the audience, whether it consists of hundreds or, when broadcast on TV, of millions. For their Paris concert, the duo chose a broad selection of chiefly late-romantic works – the style for which their voices seem to be tailor-made..
Monteverdi in Saint-Denis
After speaking with her for one and a half minutes, I knew that I would even sing Heavy Metal for her if she wanted me to,’ gushed Rolando Villazón after meeting French conductor and harpsichordist Emmanuelle Haïm. Devoted to cultivating the works of Monteverdi, Handel, Rameau and Purcell, the vibrant Haïm has become one of the leading lights of the Early Music scene. Trained as a pianist and harpsichordist in Paris, she assisted William Christie before founding her own ensemble ‘Le Concert d’Astrée,’ which performs on historical instruments. Rolando Villazón is better known for his performances as tormented lover and ‘dream’ partner of Anna Netrebko in ‘La Traviata’ and ‘La Bohème’ (both available from UNITEL CLASSICA) than for his accounts of early Baroque music. But in this concert of works by Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643), the powerhouse tenor proves his allround mastery of italianità. The main work is the ‘Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda,’ a descriptive piece for three voices based on a text from Torquato Tasso’s epic poem ‘Gerusalemme liberata.’
Ravel, Shéhérazade
Raphaël Pichon conducts Bach’s Mass in B Minor
Young French conductor Raphaël Pichon is the founder of Pygmalion, one of today’s most fascinating and ambitious ensembles for Early Music. Hailed by critics as “currently the best conductor for Bach” (Süddeutsche), Pichon performs an absolutely breathtaking Mass in B Minor in the beautiful Royal Chapel of Versailles.
Vespro della beata Vergine (Vespers for the Blessed Virgin)
Raphaël Pichon and his ensemble Pygmalion join forces with a brilliant group of soloists to present Monteverdi’s monumental Vespro della beata Vergine in a setting as resplendent as the music they are performing: Versailles’s Chapelle Royale. “A masterful interpreter of early music” (BR Klassik)
Daniel Harding – The Inaugural Concert: Schumann Scenes from Faust
For his inaugural concert as the new Musical Director of the Orchestre de Paris, the young British conductor Daniel Harding chose to conduct a work with which he has already enjoyed phenomenal success in Berlin, Munich and London: Robert Schumann’s rarely performed Szenen aus Goethes Faust (Scenes from Goethe’s Faust). A Magical evening in the Parisian concert hall, with an aesthetic excellence that leaves you speechless.” (Huffington Post) “For his inauguration concert Harding lands a coup.” (Le Figaro)
Paris: Harding conducts Schumann “Paradise and Peri”
Daniel Harding, the new music director of the prestigious Orchestre de Paris, pays homage to Schumann through one of his most radiant works: Das Paradies und die Peri (Paradise and the Peri), an adaptation for orchestra, choir and soloists of an oriental tale and a jewel of romanticism. Matthias Goerne, Christiane Karg, Andy Staples, Kate Royal, Gerhild Romberger and Allan Clayton join Harding and the Orchestre de Paris in a worldly Oratorio that exalts the heavenly purity of paradise in the shimmering and magical colours of Arabian Nights.
Harding conducts Elgar’s “The Dream of Gerontius”
“The Dream of Gerontius”, Edward Elgar’s striking musical meditation on life after death, showcases superb choral writing and Wagnerian inflections. Daniel Harding leads the Orchestre de Paris. Mezzo-soprano Magdalena Kožená performs as Guardian Angel alongside Andrew Staples and John Relyea in the Grand Salle Pierre Boulez. Created in 1900, this great oratorio, often called the “English Parsifal”, is considered a national gem. While it has been the subject of unconditional admiration for more than a century in England, it was rarely performed outside England’s borders. Even if George Bernard Shaw had no doubt that Elgar’s music was to be immortal, it took some time to prove that he was right. The powerful work, which keeps in tradition with greats like Beethoven, is now revered throughout the world and in this case receives a stellar staging in the beautiful Philharmonie de Paris.
Leonard Bernstein: Mass
Monumental, delirious, transgressive – Mass by Leonard Bernstein is doubtlessly one of the most abundant scores in musical history. On the occasion of the composer’s 100th birthday, Bernstein expert Wayne Marshall, the Orchestre de Paris, its Chorus and Children’s Chorus and the Ensemble Aedes take on this “extravagant, exuberant and endlessly inventive creation” (The New York Times). Oscillating between playful experimentation and musical comedy, between brass band and gospel, the Theatre Piece for Singers, Players, and Dancers creates whirlwinds of grandeur in a post-1968 atmosphere. Bernstein mixes jazz, rock and classical music, combines traditional liturgical elements with Broadway style compositions, and brings on stage electric guitars alongside three choirs and 24 soloists. Commissioned by Jacqueline Kennedy, Bernstein’s Mass premiered in September 1971 at the opening of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. Bernstein composed the exceptional score at the time of sexual revolution, of the women’s and the environmental movement and the peak of the Vietnam War. In this very tense political situation, Mass caused fierce controversy, because it contained messages of peace and fraternity which were supposed to indirectly proclaim Bernstein’s rejection of the Vietnam War and his antiestablishment attitude. “Arguably the best thing Bernstein ever wrote!” (The Washington Post)