„In the midst of chaos, how do you find peace?“, is one of the pressing topical questions that Joyce DiDonato asks in her powerful work In War & Piece – Harmony through Music. The Grammy Award winning mezzo-soprano fashions an intense semi-theatricalized concert production, including works by George Frideric Handel and Henry Purcell. Organizing a set of Baroque arias along thematic lines, DiDonato contemplates the interwoven worlds of external conflict and serenity, internal war and peace, and the challenges which they provide for every citizen of the world. Together with the period-instrument ensemble Il Pomo d’Oro under Maxim Emelyanychev, the singer creates a dramatic atmosphere on the stage of the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona. In the music of Handel, DiDonato achieves a “purity that enhances the composer’s signature formula” (Washington Post).
Quinte & Sens: Symphony of the Elements
This film by François-René Martin & Gordon combines breathtakingly beautiful images with the magnificent sound of the Orchestre de Paris. It creates a new Symphony representing the four Classical Elements: Fire (Stravinsky’s “Firebird”), Earth (Adoration of the Earth in Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring”), Water (Debussy’s “La Mer”), Air (Dialogue of the Wind and the Sea in “La Mer”). As a fifth element it adds Olivier Messiaen’s “L’Appel interstellaire” (Interstellar call) from “Des Canyons aux Étoiles” (From the canyons to the stars). The word Quintessence was originally the Latin expression for the fifth element (quinta essentia, literally “fifth being”). According to Aristoteles, there was aether as massless, unchangeable, eternal substance beyond the lunar sphere. This “fifth element” thus had completely different properties than the earthly ones. Filmed inside and outside the stunning Philharmonie de Paris in true Hollywood style this is a new milestone in the creative visualization of music. A fascinating feast for the eyes and ears.
Gardiner conducts Berlioz and Elgar
The Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France joins forces with conductor Sir John Eliot Gardiner and violist Antoine Tamestit for a concert featuring Italy and putting two composers in the spotlight: Hector Berlioz and Edward Elgar. With Harolde en Italie, Hector Berlioz invokes transalpine landscapes. Shaped by the period when the composer was resident at the Villa Medici, this symphony in four parts gives pride of place to the viola, played here by Antoine Tamestit – “one of the two or three greatest current performers” (Diapason). In the South (Alassio), composed between 1903 and 1904 by Edward Elgar, is still about Italy, pastoral atmosphere and Byronic colours. Brilliantly complex, this work, written in record time, is one of the peaks of romantic music. Let us travel a little deeper into Edward Elgar’s melancholy with his Sospiri. This adagio for strings composed at the dawn of the First World War is captivating in its romanticism and passion.
A Trio For Schubert: Voyage d’hiver
Schubert’s masterpiece is seen through the eyes and heard through the voice of baritone Matthias Goerne in this documentary about the making of Schubert’s song-cycle for the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, as visualized by William Kentridge.
Salonen conducts Mahler No. 2
Mahler’s Resurrection Symphony is undoubtedly the most popular of all his symphonies. The composer stages a gradual victory over his doubts and asserts his creative vocation and his newfound faith in the cosmos. The audience is immediately struck by the opening chaos orchestrating a magniicent funeral. The sublime final chorus enraptures listeners as it celebrates the Last Judgement and the divine love that is spread everywhere. Resurrection takes up in a spectacular way the question of a hypothetical renewal: the Stadium de Vitrolles near Aix has been preserved in a state of beauty ravaged by twenty-five years of abandonment and clandestine occupations. Inside this iconic building Romeo Castellucci tackles the enigma of a mysterious rebirth. “It became big, very big, beyond huge, beyond gigantic.” (Opera Today)
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.
Handel, Theodora
Handel’s own favourite amongst his English oratorios, Theodora proved a surprising failure at its 1750 London premiere, receiving only three performances and being revived just once before its composer’s death. That Theodora is now recognized as one of the most sublime and moving creations of Handel’s final years is largely due to the passionate advocacy of William Christie, who here directs his peerless period-instrument ensemble Les Arts Florissants for this new production at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées. The starry cast is led by young British soprano Katherine Watson, instilling the title-role with her “vocal bloom, emotional depth and beguiling phrasing” (New York Times), and leading French counter-tenor Philippe Jaroussky, bringing his “seraphic timbre” (Les Echos) to the role of Didymus. Directed with “luminous simplicity” (Artistik Rezo) by Stephen Langridge this powerful and uplifting production transforms its historical story into a “timeless yet terribly current” (France TV Info.com) plea for freedom of conscience and religious tolerance in contemporary society.
A Baroque Celebration
The 19th of December 2011 was an evening of colour, joy and entertainment, as 19 renowned musicians joined forces in the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, Paris. They were brought together in sound and harmony by the dervish of baroque music, Emmanuelle Haïm. This 10th anniversary of the ‘Le Concert d’Astrée’ was celebrated by Haïm and the musicians in a very special way: an exuberant party of the baroque. The 20 singers and instrumentalists joining the ensemble, having refined their musical collaboration for the past 10 years: Natalie Dessay, Sandrine Piau and Anne Sofie von Otter, as well as Philippe Jaroussky, Patricia Petibon, Rolando Villazon or the Finnish tenor Topi Lehtipuu. —— Arias, Duets, Trios und Quartets from G. F. HANDEL: Il Trionfo del Tempo, Giulio Cesare, The Messiah, Ariodante; H. PURCELL: The Fairy Queen; J. B. LULLY: Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme, C. MONTEVERDI: L’incoronazione di Poppea; J. P. RAMEAU: Dardanus