Mozart’s legendary Requiem is certainly one of the composer’s most famous and frequently performed works. Raphaël Pichon and the ensemble “Pygmalion” – one of the leading music ensembles (a choir and orchestra) following historical criteria and playing on period instruments, now present the work in a unique version: divided into four blocks, it is interspersed with various vocal works, specially chosen to provide an overarching theme and sweeping vision within the context of the genius’ musical oeuvre. Performed in the Palau de la Música Catalana, UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of the most beautiful concert halls in the world, the performance becomes “an aesthetic experience full of sensitivity, a performance close to the sublime and a refreshing reading of one of the most performed and programmed works of the sacred repertoire” (Platea Magazine).
Le lacrime di Eros
“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).
Salzburg Festival 2023: Le nozze di Figaro
Le nozze di Figaro is Lorenzo Da Ponte’s and Mozart‘s first of their three jointly created operas about attempts at interpersonal relationships: a turbulent comedy with erotic entanglements, which was not a harmless comedy even in Mozart’s day. Director Martin Kušej moves the drama of love and jealousy to a mafia-like urban milieu where conflicts are fought out with pistols. Young French conductor Raphaël Pichon, “original sound expert” (Der Tagesspiegel) and for the first time on the podium of the Wiener Philharmoniker, leads a young ensemble of singers around clan boss Almaviva (“vocally flawlessly brilliant: Andrè Schuen”, Hamburger Abendblatt). “Kušej’s staging is musical, Pichon’s conducting theatrical; the two work together to a degree that is far more rare than it should be. Every detail has been carefully thought through, and the symbiosis is breathtaking.” (Financial Times)