With the Opéra Comique’s staging of Le Comte Ory in Paris, starring stellar soloists Philippe Talbot, Julie Fuchs and Gaëlle Arquez as well as the Orchestre des Champs-Élysées, conducted by Louis Langrée, the Rossini anniversary year starts off with “a masterpiece!” (Télérama). It is staged by a first-rate creative team: Stage director Denis Podalydès and costume designer Christian Lacroix provide stunning visuals, whilst conductor Louis Langrée leads the Orchestre des Champs-Élysées, the Choeur Les éléments and a stellar cast of soloists in this delightful fool’s game. Gaëlle Arquez shines with her “superlative technique” (Le Monde). “Pure pleasure!” (Les Échos)
Donizetti: Messa da Requiem
From the Basilique de Saint Denis, the burial place of the French Kings since centuries and at the same time one of the first gothic churches in the world, comes the first ever audiovisual recording of a long lost masterpiece of Italian sacred music, full of romance and belcanto: Gaetano Donizetti’s luminous Messa da Requiem. The highly virtuosic and lyrical score, expressing the Christian vision of the passage from death to eternal life, combines the imposing polyphony of a choir with the operatic brilliance of soloist arias. The Argentine conductor Leonardo García Alarcón conducts his Orchestre Millenium, an orchestra dedicated to bring ancient music to a new generation, with “precise gestures and rich contrast” while the Choeur de Chambre de Namur impresses with “clarity and power” (Forum Opera).
Paris: Harding conducts Berg and Mahler
It was the death of 18-year-old Manon Gropius, the daughter of Alma Mahler and Walter Gropius, which spurred Alban Berg to compose his violin concerto Dem Andenken eines Engels (To the Memory of an Angel). This concerto is played by multiple awarded German violinist Isabell Faust, who has been praised by New York Times: “Her sound has passion, grit and electricity but also a disarming warmth and sweetness that can unveil the music’s hidden strains of lyricism.” The violin concerto is followed by György Kurtág’s Doloroso. As third part of the programme, the Orchestre de Paris performs Mahler’s 4th Symphony, built around the song “Das himmlische Leben” (The Heavenly Life) from Des Knaben Wunderhorn, presenting a child’s vision of Heaven. The soprano solo is sung by Christina Landshamer.
Paris: Hommage à Pierre Boulez
Pierre Boulez, a seminal figure in the field of contemporary classical music, died on January 5th 2016. His name is closely connected to the Orchestre de Paris, which he has conducted more than a hundred times, and to the Philharmonie de Paris, whose “Grande Salle Pierre Boulez” was brought into existence due to his continuous endeavor.Two weeks after Boulez’ death, supported by young musicians from the Conservatoire de Paris, the Orchestra de Paris joined forces with the Ensemble Intercontemporain and the IRCAM – both founded by Pierre Boulez – in order to pay him tribute. The programme of this very special evening features a varied selection of the composer’s works. As a result of the concert night, “one simple word comes up, full of enthusiasm and emotion: merci…” (Bachtrack). PROGRAM: Pierre Boulez: Dialogue de l’ombre double extraits; Improvisation I; Messagesquisse; Dérive 1 pour six instruments; Improvisation II; Notations pour orchestre I, IV, III, II, VII
El Prometeo
After its premier in 1669, Antonio Draghi’s opera El Prometeo has never been performed again – until Leonardo García Alarcón used the only remaining handwritten copy of the score to revive it in Dijon. Alarcón, who is the Opéra de Dijon’s artist in residence together with his orchestra Cappella Mediterranea, has made it his speciality to bring forgotten masterpieces to light, He thus descovered a missing link in the history of opera between the Venetian opera tradition and the one to rule Vienna in the following centuries.
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)
Die Zauberflöte
Accompanied by a luxurious team of professionals,led by renowned stage director Peter Stein and conductor Ádám Fischer, a number of international young singers were given the opportunity to introduce themselves to the public of La Scala in an extremely high level setting. The result was an instant success, not only with the audience of La Scala, which is famous for its more than critical loggionisti, but also with the television audience, where the live broadcast reached record breaking viewing rates. According to Die Presse Fischer “gets the best out of the Accademia Orchestra with delicate execution and humane phrasing” while the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung praises “the high number of promising young voices”, including the “radiantly brilliant Newcomer Fatma Said as Pamina and Yasmin Özkan as a flawlessly great Queen of the Night”.