Vivaldi, Concerto per la Solennità di San Lorenzo in C major, RV 556 (Carinthian Summer 1979)

Recorded live at the Carinthian Summer Festival on 27 August 1979, this concert features soloists from the orchestra of Milan’s Teatro alla Scala under the direction of Claudio Abbado. One of the leading conductors of our time, Abbado was music director and artistic director of the Scala until 1986 before shifting his focus to Vienna (music director of the Vienna State Opera from 1986-1991) and, later, Berlin. Since 1969, the Carinthian Summer in Ossiach, Austria, has been presenting internationally acclaimed soloists and ensembles in splendid Alpine settings. A particularly opulent venue is the Baroque monastery church of Ossiach, where this concert was filmed.

Kalédoscope

In almost thirty years, Mourad Merzouki has blown up the bars of the cage. As a pioneer in the transition of hip-hop dance from the street to the stage, he has contributed to the evolution of this aesthetic and given it a prominent place in the contemporary choreographic landscape. From boxing to circus, passing through classical music or aerial dance, from one creation to the next, the audience is immersed in a new universe, always singular, poetic and visual. In this vast artistic blending constituting his repertoire, Mourad Merzouki appears as a creator-alchemist. On the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the Kalypso festival and the end of his term of directorship at the Centre chorégraphique national de Créteil et du Val-de-Marne, Mourad Merzouki offers a kaleidoscopic tour of his artistic career. From Käfig (1996) to Zéphyr (2021), he has taken extracts from his repertoire, echoing their universes for the first time live on stage. Placed side by side, they reveal a delightful palette of colours.

In C – A ballet by Sasha Waltz

Terry Riley’s landmark work of musical minimalism In C comes to life in this choreography by Sasha Waltz. Captured on film at the Philharmonie de Paris, no two performances of this work are ever the same. In C, consisting of 53 melodic phrases played in sequence, is translated into 53 movements with a set of rules. Within these rules, each dancer has the freedom to decide how often to repeat a certain figure. As the performers on stage execute and repeat the movement patterns, they develop a sort of “danced fugue” (NDR): “All the time, Waltz and her ensemble show us a dialogue between music and dance. What makes In C extra fascinating is that what we also have here is a conversation with space and time, the looping and overlaying movement, especially when laid over the repeating and overlapping sound, disrupting the latter in particular” (Seeing Dance).

Ravel, Alborada del Gracioso

The works presented in this concert are among Ravel’s most celebrated orchestral pieces. The “Alborada del Gracioso” or “Jester’s Morning Song” was originally part of the piano collection “Miroirs”. Ravel himself arranged the scintillating piece for orchestra in 1918. Written in 1903, the orchestral song cycle “Shéhérazade” is based on texts by the painter Tristan Klingsor. Of his Piano Concerto in G major, Ravel said that it was “written in the spirit of Mozart and Saint-Saens.” But while the influence of Mozart is clearly felt in the Adagio, it is American jazz that permeates the dazzling Presto finale. The concert rhapsody “Tzigane” was apparently inspired by the playing of violinist Jelly d’Arányi. Premiered on 12 December 1920, Ravel’s “La Valse” was originally called “Wien” (Vienna) – a title not considered appropriate in France so soon after World War I. Though conceived as a ballet, it was not performed as such until 1928, when Ida Rubinstein staged it at the Paris Opéra. Perhaps Ravel’s most well-known work is “Bolero”, which was a sensational success at its premiere at the Paris Opéra on 22 November 1928 and has remained unquenchably popular ever since. The year 1975 marked the centennial of Maurice Ravel’s birth (7 March 1875), an event celebrated with particular brilliance in France. One of the special concerts given to commemorate the great French composer was held at Paris’s Théâtre des Champs Elysées on 19 September 1975 and featured the Orchestre National de France led by Leonard Bernstein. The all Ravel concert also featured the soloists Marilyn Horne in the song cycle “Shéhérazade” and the violinist Boris Belkin in “Tzigane”. Bernstein himself played the solo part in the G major Piano Concerto. The concert was such a dazzling success that the critic of Le Figaro was stirred to proclaim about Bernstein: “He IS Ravel”.

The Fiery Angel

The young Renata hears voices. Since childhood, she has been visited by a fiery angel exuding a sublime radiance. Besotted with him, she goes looking for him when he leaves her and meets Ruprecht, a knight who, out of love for her, will try to tear her away from this carnal possession. Moving from tavern to convent, against a backdrop of spiritualism and exorcism, collective hysteria and burlesque humour, The Fiery Angel is a powerful piece that has it all, bordering the very limits of expressionism. Inspired by the symbolist novel of the same name by Valery Bryusov, this opera is Prokofiev’s most striking operatic masterpiece. Its premiere at the Festival d’Aix see it transported into the tumultuous world of director Mariusz Trelinski, while Prokofiev’s score resounds to the baton of Kazushi Ono conducting the Orchestre de Paris. “Masterful and very inspired direction by Kazushi Ono, who transmutes an Orchestre de Paris of stunning sonic beauty” (Le Monde); “The Fiery Angel at Aix-en-Provence Festival – a benchmark performance!” (Financial Times)