“A panopticon of emotions” (Süddeutsche Zeitung) This one-of-a-kind production explores “the dark sides of love” with a pasticcio of Renaissance pieces centered around Claudio Monteverdi, his predecessors and contemporaries. Dreamed up by director Romeo Castelucci and conductor Raphaël Pichon, Le lacrime di Eros occupies a space between opera and performance art, marrying a mosaic of Renaissance compositions with electronic music by Scott Gibbons and presenting it in a series of scenes that are visually stunning, yet disturbing: “There is not a second of this show that is not perfectly beautiful: composition, colours, choice of costumes, lighting…” (Classique News) and Pichon “conjures the most beautiful colours from his orchestra” (Trouw). Pichon’s ensemble Pygmalion and the excellent soloists leave nothing to be desired: “Pygmalion has a sound that you must hear at least one: it bursts with lust for life” (nrw).
Raphaël Pichon conducts Handel & Bach
Bach and Handel, opera and oratorio, and extreme affects such as frenzy and deep suffering – Raphaël Pichon and his Ensemble Pygmalion at the Philharmonie de Paris. The phenomenal French coloratura soprano Sabine Devieilhe makes the colorful program shine as a vivid Baroque panorama. PROGRAM Handel: Il trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno: “Un pensiero nemico di pace”, Giulio Cesare in Egitto: “Che sento? O dio!…Se pietà”; Bach: Cantatas: Wir müssen durch viel Trübsal, BWV 146: Sinfonia, Mein Herze schwimmt im Blut, BWV 199, “Ich steh mit einem Fuß im Grabe”, BWV 156: Sinfonia, “Geist und Seele wird verwirret”, BWV 35: Concerto, “Ich habe genug”, BWV 82 (excerpts)