Press kit 2015-2016 - Palazzetto Bru Zane

PALAZZETTO
BRU ZANE
SEASON
2015-2016
press kit
press contact
ELEVENTENTHS PR
Claire Willis
+44 7951 600362
[email protected]
BRU-ZANE.COM
OVERVIEW
1 An editorial in four questions and answers
3 Cycle Édouard Lalo between folklore and Wagnerism
9 Cycle Benjamin Godard in the Parisian salons
15 The Season in Venice
18 Festival Palazzetto Bru Zane in Paris
20 Touring Productions
23 Bru Zane Mediabase
24 Professional Music Training − Académie Ravel
25 Books and recordings
AN EDITORIAL IN FOUR QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
Florence Alibert managing director
Alexandre Dratwicki scientific director
Baptiste Charroing development director
What is new for the forthcoming 2015-16 season?
This season we have decided to create a contrast between
two composers whose fame has followed quite distinct
paths. In the case of Édouard Lalo, a handful of his works
are still to be heard frequently in concert, so the Palazzetto
Bru Zane is focusing on introducing other aspects of this
composer, especially through his last opera, La Jacquerie.
Benjamin Godard, on the other hand, is almost virtually
unknown today, hence his output cries out for a complete
reappraisal. These composers will become the vedettes of two
festivals being organised in Venice in autumn and spring
next year. The Festival Palazzetto Bru Zane held in Paris will
be broadening its scope for its fourth edition in June 2016,
with its opening night seeing Spontini’s Olympie performed
in the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées. The festival then returns
to the Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord for six concerts, which
will present the more intimate genres of chamber music
and mélodie. Our partnerships are also being strengthened
in other countries: to follow on from Gounod’s Cinq-Mars,
the Munich Radio Orchestra and the Palazzetto Bru Zane
will be programming a modern revival of Godard’s Dante;
the Philharmonic Orchestra will be taking part in the Lalo
cycle with the uncommon Violin Concerto Op 20, featuring
James Ehnes as soloist. A significant place in our plans will
be occupied this season by the training of young musicians,
following a new three-year collaboration established with
the Académie Internationale de Musique Maurice Ravel. This
partnership will enable an in-depth study of rare French
repertory to be carried out.
There appears to be an expansion in the range of themed
programmes, such as last season’s Au pays où se fait la
guerre. What are the principal projects here and with whom
are you working?
We are delighted this season to be presenting with Les
Brigands a new production of Hervé’s Les Chevaliers de la
Table ronde, which will immerse audiences in the comical
and burlesque world of the opéra bouffe. Absurdity will
be stretched to the point of utter madness through the
imaginative world of this ‘crazy’ composer, the complicity
of Pierre-André Weitz and his staging and a company of
singer-actors and musicians all in love with this repertoire.
Following on from the première at the Opéra de Bordeaux
in November, 35 further dates across France and at the
Teatro Malibran in Venice have already been scheduled.
This is a particularly diverting way of furthering the
Palazzetto Bru Zane’s aim of bringing little known works to
a wider audience. Elsewhere, we will once more be joining
– along with Hervé Niquet and Le Concert Spirituel – our
longstanding partners in the Festival Berlioz and the Château
de Versailles Spectacles. On this occasion, through an original
programme of sacred music, there will be an opportunity to
rediscover – or become acquainted with – Requiem masses
from the time of the Bourbon Restoration in France (which
followed the fall of Napoleon Bonaparte) composed as tributes
to Marie-Antoinette and Louis XVI. The themed programmes,
Le Ventre de Paris, Au pays où se fait la guerre and Il était
une fois will be either continuing or starting out on their
tours. Nor is chamber music being forgotten here with JeanEfflam Bavouzet making the case for Magnard’s Quintet for
What are the top priorities for the coming season in the field Piano and Wind Instruments, and working with the ensemble
of your research?
of soloists, Les Vents Français (Pahud, Meyer, Leleux, Audin,
Since the foundation of the Palazzetto Bru Zane in 2009, we
Vlatkovic, Lesage), in a programme of French works for wind
have been amassing a huge amount of information and vast instruments. Performances will take place in Paris, Brussels,
quantities of documents and we think it is important to share Munich and Zug.
all this with music lovers, musicians and the wider public.
As a consequence, we have now created an online database, How are the Palazzetto Bru Zane’s book-CD collections
the Bru Zane Mediabase, which, in addition to containing an developing?
extensive array of illustrative material, includes summaries The ‘Opera français’ series, launched in 2012, is soon going to
of musical figures and compositions, plus scholarly texts
reach its tenth volume with the autumn release of the grand
arising from our various symposia. The opportunity is also
opéra by Félicien David, Herculanum (recorded in March 2014).
being taken to present the results of various cataloguing
Winner of a number of awards already, this series of operatic
and digitization projects in which the Palazzetto Bru Zane
recordings is underpinning its support role in bringing the
is involved; for example, some months ago, the family
Palazzetto Bru Zane’s discoveries to public and professionals
archives of the violinist Pierre Baillot were placed online in a alike on an international level. The policy of systematically redownloadable format. Work is continuing during the 2015cording our operatic productions will be continued during the
16 season on other documentary collections and completion 2015-16 season with Dante by Godard, Olympie by Spontini
of the cataloguing of almost 1700 staging guidebooks for
and La Jacquerie by Lalo, all destined for forthcoming release
Romantic operas kept in the Bibilothèque Historique de la
in this series. The next volume in the ‘Portraits’ series will be
Ville de Paris. A similar project is being launched this autumn given over to Marie Jaëll, and will include recordings made in
on the holdings of the Leduc/Hamelle/ Choudens/Heugel
the last three years. It is our hope that the musical quality to
publishing archives, which were lodged with the Palazzetto
be found in this book-CD will encourage concert programmers
Bru Zane a few months back. Finally, work is continuing
to schedule the more outstanding compositions by this female
on infrequently scheduled musical categories (such as the
composer – her piano and cello concertos, in particular. In its
compositions intended for the Prix de Rome competition),
own fifth volume, the ‘Prix de Rome’ series will be celebrating
together with a future strong emphasis on the opérette and its the music of Paul Dukas and should spark off much interest,
forgotten composers.
especially with the exciting, unrecorded cantata Sémélé.
1
There is a concern that
M. Lalo will remain
a modest composer,
indifferent to promotion,
absorbed in his art
and devoted to it with
no other aim.
Ernest Reyer, Journal des débats, May 13, 1888
Just as Bizet owes his glory to a single work, Carmen, the fame of Lalo
to posterity seems definitively tied to his Symphonie espagnole for
violin and orchestra (1875), the international success of which has
never waned. However, for those of a more inquiring mind, Lalo is
also the composer of the opera inspired by Breton legends, Le Roi d’Ys,
which was still enjoying a certain popularity in the 1970s. This seems
to sum up the reputation of this artist, who combined a revolutionary
temperament (which earned him exclusion from official circles)
with an overly Germanic style to comply with the rules of French
academicism. It would, however, be an injustice to the man and his
work to go no further than this simplistic overview. This season the
Palazzetto Bru Zane is committed to reviving an important part of his
music, with its diverse and often surprising style, aimed at bringing
the composer in all his diversity back into favour. The cycle of concerts
in Venice will allow his trios, sonatas, quintet and quartet, as well as
a substantial selection of the 32 mélodies (now almost unknown) to be
rediscovered. Releases of complete recordings of his concertante music
and his mélodies will be appearing alongside the revival of his last
opera, La Jacquerie, as completed by the very Wagnerian composer
Arthur Coquard.
The man in his time
Having with difficulty broken with his family’s military tradition,
Lalo was very quick to reveal his passion for music. He first enrolled in
the Lille Conservatoire in 1832, attending the classes of Müller (violin)
and Baumann (composition), before departing seven years later for
Paris to complete his training under the guidance of Habeneck (violin).
From that point on this strong-minded musician never ceased avidly
pursuing a difficult career, often on the margins of official recognition.
Towards the end of the 1840s he eked out a living by giving classes or
playing in the orchestra of the Opéra-Comique. His involvement in the
Grande Société Philharmonique in 1850 gave him the chance to meet
Berlioz. In 1856 he was one of the founders of the Quatuor Armingaud
(for which he wrote his String Quartet, Op 19, in 1859), and then
concentrated on mélodie and chamber music. Even with support
from leading figures such as Gounod, he did not achieve any relative
recognition until the 1870s, when he was involved in the founding of
the Société Nationale de Musique (1871). It was then that he composed
the greater part of his important works, whose inspiration was to
profoundly influence succeeding generations. A close contemporary,
also in spirit, of César Franck, he opened the way for the generation of
d’Indy, Duparc, Chausson and, later, Vierne.
A committed quartet player passionate
about opera, Édouard Lalo cannot be
reduced to his Symphonie espagnole, with
its heady folkloric flavours and violin
virtuosity. The focus is on a Germanophile
with a visionary style rich in contrasts.
cYCLE
EDOUARD LALO
BETWEEN FOLKLORE
AND WAGNERISM
2
Chronological landmarks
1823: Birth in Lille
1839: Moves to Paris
1856: Becomes viola player
for the Quatuor Armingaud
1865: Marries the mezzo-soprano
Julie Bernier de Maligny
1871: Member of the Société
Nationale de Musique
1892: Death in Paris
3
Germany is my true
musical country.
Édouard Lalo
The question of Wagnerism
Lalo and the opera
It is likely that Lalo discovered the modernity of German Romantic
music, and Beethoven in particular, through his contacts with the
violinist and conductor Habeneck and the virtuoso Baillot. However,
whatever the origins of his interest in the Germanic aesthetic may
have been, Lalo could not but relate to it, like all composers living in
Wagner’s time. Lalo opted for a broad assimilation of German music,
looking to Schumann and Mendelssohn for ‘pure’ music (especially
their chamber music) and to Wagner for his operas, especially Le
Roi d’Ys. However (despite himself?) Lalo remained French in many
aspects, as can be shown by the density of his orchestration, which
recalls that of César Franck, and the diversity of timbres he skilfully
scattered through his ballet Namouna. Because he broke sharply away
from Meyerbeer, Ambroise Thomas and the like, Lalo was appreciated
mainly by the champions of German music, such as his contemporary
Théodore Gouvy (also a composer of mainly instrumental music).
Apart from La Jacquerie, completed after the composer’s death,
Lalo’s connection with opera is restricted to two works that had
quite different fates, which the composer presented alone, yet both
show how important operatic success was for him. His composition
of Fiesque was intended for a competition held in 1868 by the
administrative director of the Parisian theatres. Coming third in the
competition, the opera consequently had no hope of being performed.
Nevertheless, Lalo submitted Fiesque for consideration at the same
time to the director of the Opéra and to the Theater am Dammtor in
Hamburg, but the Prussian invasion of 1870 put paid to these efforts
completely. After spending several months in Belgium, the composer
finally managed to arouse the interest of the Théâtre de La Monnaie
with a view to staging the work in Brussels, but the project was
once again unsuccessful, despite being very advanced. Lalo settled
for having some excerpts from the opera performed in a number of
concerts held in Paris between 1872 and 1877, before dismembering
the score in order to make use of large sections of it in his later
works. Le Roi d’Ys, which Lalo began work on at the same moment
that Fiesque was being set aside (1875-1878), was to have a similar
background. The libretto draws on the Breton legend of the city of Ys,
capital of the kingdom of Cornwall, supposedly swallowed up in the
sea off Douarnenez. After a pre-hearing at the Théâtre Lyrique (1878)
and then at the Opéra (1879), the work was cancelled at both, even
though excerpts performed by Lalo’s wife, the mezzo-soprano Julie de
Marigny in the role of Margared, were given a warm welcome. It was
not until 1886 that it was given its first - triumphal - performance
at the Opéra-Comique (then the Salle du Châtelet). The opera was
translated into all languages and continued to be a success until the
1920s, when it was abruptly abandoned after the First World War.
A second triumphal wave (490 Parisian performances) began in
1941. Le Roi d’Ys now continues to regularly reappear in theatre
programmes around the world.
Towards a renewal of instrumental music
Lalo’s output in a few dates
1850: Publication
of the Piano Trio No 1
1859: First version
of the String Quartet
1861: Symphony in G minor
(revised in 1887)
1875: Symphonie espagnole
1875: Initial sketches
for Le Roi d’Ys
1877: Cello Concerto
1882: Namouna performed
at the Paris Opéra
1888: Première of Le Roi d’Ys
Although some critics censured Lalo for a somewhat artificial exoticism
in his orchestral music – the Symphonie espagnole, the Concerto
russe and the Fantaisie norvégienne, furthermore performed for the
first time by the celebrated Pablo de Sarasate – all agreed that his
violin virtuosity showed perfect mastery of the instrument and at
times even visionary moments. Moreover, it is precisely the bravura
pieces that have ensured Lalo his place in posterity. Openly referring
to Berlioz, Lalo’s astringent orchestration is intended to emphasise
the violence of almost all his melodic ideas, whose real ferocity is
also found in his chamber music. The final movements of most of
his works make use of repetitive, even frenetic, rhythms, in which
strings and piano trace broad textures, from immeasurable depths to
soaring heights. Such elements intensify the image of a heroic idealist
extolling determination and struggle. Even in the smaller genre pieces
he composed, principally for violin and piano, Lalo did not hesitate to
multiply the contrasts. If a certain poetic lull emerges in his music, it
is probably in the slow movements (such as the sublime meditation in
the third Piano Trio) and in some of his 32 mélodies, all still waiting to
be rediscovered).
One must carry
the frisson of fever
into the opera house;
let every conversation
directly serve the plot,
let there be no monotony.
Letter from Édouard Lalo to Édouard Blau,
May 16, 1889
4
5
LA JACQUERIE
Opera in four acts, completed by Arthur Coquard, to a libretto by
Édouard Blau and Simone Arnaud, first performed at the Opéra
de Monte-Carlo on 9 March 1895.
Friday July 24, 2015
at 8pm
OPÉRA BERLIOZ
MONTPELLIER (FRANCE)*
Friday March 11, 2016
at 8pm
Auditorium
of Radio France
PARIS (FRANCE)**
Orchestre Philharmonique
de Radio France
Patrick Davin conductor
Blanche de Sainte-Croix
Véronique Gens
Jeanne Nora Gubisch
Robert Charles Castronovo* /
Edgaras Montvidas**
Guillaume Boris Pinkhasovich* /
Florian Sempey**
Le Comte de Sainte-Croix
Christophoros Stamboglis* /
Alexandre Duhamel**
Le Sénéchal Patrick Bolleire* /
Julien Véronèse**
Le Baron de Savigny
Enguerrand de Hys* /
Rémy Mathieu **
Co-production Palazzetto Bru Zane /
Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio
France / Festival de Radio France
et Montpellier
There is no doubt that Lalo most clearly expressed his interpretation
of Wagnerism in the field of opera. While Fiesque (1868) still showed
signs of dramatic guesswork, Le Roi d’Ys (1888) may be regarded
as a culmination of his theatrical doctrine. On the other hand, still
unreleased on disc and unperformed more than a century after its
first performance, it is La Jacquerie that now attracts the attention
of music lovers and musicologists. It has a simple but effective plot:
against the background of a bloody peasant revolt, the young Robert
falls in love with the chatelaine Blanche. Out of love for her, he puts
himself between the hate-filled people and her father, the local lord,
but does not escape with his life. Pursued by his countrymen, Robert
is beaten and dies in the arms of his beloved. Although Lalo had
mapped out the plan of his opera alone, drafting some of the themes
and working it out to the first act, including orchestration, it was
his collaborator Arthur Coquard who completed the work, after its
gestation had been brought to a halt by Lalo’s unexpected death in
April 1892. References to Romantic grand opéra are frequent in the
work, especially in its spectacular sets (the final tableau unfolds
before a ruined chapel, set in the middle of a forest, with the destroyed
feudal castle emerging in the distance). However, with its brief, almost
breathless structure (four acts of around twenty minutes apiece),
and its vocal style mixing Verdian heroism (in the baritone and
mezzo-soprano) and Wagnerian lyricism (in the tenor and soprano),
La Jacquerie reconnects to Le Roi d’Ys promoting a concise, effective
opera lacking in artifice. This is the exact opposite of the French model
imposed by Meyerbeer from the 1830s and still in vogue in the 1880s.
The work was successfully performed for the first time in Monte Carlo
on 9 March 1895 and revived at the Opéra-Comique on December 23 the
same year.
Recording by Radio France
and Palazzetto Bru Zane
for the "French Opera" series
This opera is modern
and its style a very
dramatic one, very vivid,
full of liveliness.
CONCERTS
RECORDINGS
• September 26 to November 10, 2015
Festival in Venice (Italy)
The cycle of eight concerts organized in the
Autumn of 2015 in Venice will provide the
opportunity of hearing almost the entirety
of Lalo’s chamber works (trios, string quartet,
violin and cello sonatas, Fantaisie-Quintette),
as well as many of his mélodies.
• December 10, 2015
Royal Festival Hall, London (UK)
Violin Concerto, Op 20
Philharmonia Orchestra
Jérémie Rhorer conductor
James Ehnes violin
If the success of Lalo’s Violin Concerto, Op 20
was in part the result a consequence of the work’s
celebrated dedicatee and first performer – Pablo
de Sarasate – the work also offers distinctive
formal features which distinguish it from traditional
concertos of the period: a two-movement structure
each one introduced by a slow passage. Lalo is
already declaring himself to be the great reformer
of the genre.
• From June 26 to August 15, 2015
Festival International
du Domaine Forget (Québec)
The Festival International du Domaine Forget
is dedicating a cycle of five concerts to Lalo,
which will notably provide the opportunity to
hear the Rhapsodie norvégienne, the overture
from Le Roi d’Ys, the violin and cello sonatas,
as well as a selection of mélodies.
The Complete Mélodies
Tassis Christoyannis baritone
Jeff Cohen piano
Aparté (2 CD)
Release date: October 2015
As varied in their musical colour as in
their literary material, the 32 mélodies
by Lalo continue to be largely unknown
by the public. This box set provides a
new complete recording.
The Complete Concertante works
Orchestre Philharmonique
Royal de Liège
Jean-Jacques Kantorow conductor
ALPHA classics (3 CD)
Release date: February 2016
Following on from the successive
releases of the concertante music of
Vieuxtemps and of Saint-Saëns, the
Chapelle Musicale Reine Elisabeth is
offering – in co-production with the
Palazzetto Bru Zane, the Orchestre
Philharmonique Royal de Liège and
the Alpha Classics label – a box set
containing the complete concertante
music by Édouard Lalo.
This will be the opportunity to rehear
the great successes which are the
Cello Concerto and the Symphonie
espagnole, here performed with gifted
young musicians as soloists, but also
of discovering other treasures such as
the remarkable Piano Concerto and the
Concerto russe for violin.
Le Ménestrel, March 17, 1895
6
7
He was a dreamer,
possessed of an
emotional interior.
Eugène de Solenière
Benjamin Godard was not only a prolific composer and excellent
writer of mélodies, but also a skilled and capable violinist and virtuoso
pianist. However, he has left virtually no trace in the history of music,
if not with the Berceuse, taken from his opera Jocelyn (1888), a tenor
aria that has been rearranged and transcribed so many times that its
origins have been virtually forgotten. Yet until the 1970s this piece was
as famous as the Méditation from Massenet’s Thaïs or Saint-Saëns’ Le
Cygne. If Godard is today little known, it is because he belongs to that
school of Romanticism that was neither pioneering (one thinks here of
Méhul and Cherubini around 1790) nor revolutionary (Debussy, Fauré
and Ravel from 1890 on). A composer perfectly in step with his times,
passionate about instrumental music and operas built around noble
or historical themes (Le Tasse, Dante, Les Guelfes…), Godard favoured
the heartfelt gesture over the reasoning of the mind. From that
point of view, his music is immediately accessible and attractive for
anyone now endeavouring to rediscover the elegant spirit of the Third
Republic. This style, with its tact and moderation, is precisely what
the Palazzetto Bru Zane will be highlighting in spring 2016. In Venice it
is presenting an overview of Godard’s work (mélodies, quartets, trios,
sonatas, piano music), supplemented by revivals in the orchestral field
(the Symphony No 2 in B flat major), operatic (Dante in Munich and
Paris), as well as the new complete recordings (music for violin and
piano) and anthologies (mélodies and music for solo piano).
cycle
BENJAMIN
GODARD
(1849-1895)
IN THE
PARISIAN
SALONS
Virtuoso violinist and pianist,
an elegant mélodiste, the name
of Godard today only conjures up
his celebrated Berceuse.
This is the rediscovery of a
‘composer of his time’, producer
of attractive and enticing music.
8
Teachers and models
Chronological landmarks
1849: Birth in Paris
1863: Enters the Paris
Conservatoire
1867: Second failure
with the Prix de Rome
1882: Moves to Villieres-Adam
1887: Professor of chamber music
at the Conservatoire
1889: Chevalier of the
Legion d’honneur
1895: Death in Cannes
Born in 1849, a child prodigy on the violin, Benjamin Godard was
taught by Richard Hammer and Henri Vieuxtemps before attending the
Paris Conservatoire where he studied composition with Henri Reber.
He twice failed in the competition for the Prix de Rome but, despite
that, played an active role in French musical life at the beginning of
the Third Republic. As a distinguished instrumentalist, Godard played
in a quartet and his mélodies and piano pieces were a success in the
salons. He was also a conductor, and in this role reinvigorated the
Concerts Pasdeloup and founded the Société des Concerts Modernes. He
was made a professor at the Paris Conservatoire in 1887 and placed in
charge of the instrumental ensemble class. His catalogue extending to
some 200 works encompasses every genre apart from religious music:
six operas including Jocelyn (1888) and the unfinished La Vivandière
(1895), which enjoyed considerable posthumous success; numerous
orchestral pieces, including many programmatic symphonies
(especially the Symphonie légendaire with chorus and the dramatic
symphony with soloists and chorus Le Tasse, for which he was
awarded the Prix de la Ville de Paris in 1878); a number of concertos,
chamber works and an abundance of mélodies and piano pieces.
Godard’s style, in the manner of Mendelssohn’s Romantic Classicism,
remains traditional, though drawing on highly complementary
contemporary inspirations (exoticism, regionalism, revived early
music). However, the composer openly affirmed his lack of interest in
the Wagnerian style. His career came to a premature end: fragile in
health, Godard was forced to leave Paris for Cannes, where he died in
1895 at the age of only 46.
9
Above all, he is badly known
and badly understood.
Eugène de Solenière
Two principle instruments
Rare indeed are the composers who have mastered instruments to the same level of
virtuosity as Godard did with the violin and the piano, the two principle instruments
of the Romantic century. Consequently, the concerto, the virtuosos’ showpiece, figures
significantly in Godard’s output. It was not only the work’s alluring ‘Romantique’ subtitle
that gained his Concerto Op 35 a certain renown: following the tradition of the concert
‘brillante’ of the 1830s, the orchestra is subjected to the tyranny of the soloist’s bow
that is as vibrant as it is relentless. Conversely, in the First Piano Concerto, the solo part
features a subtle orchestral dialogue; such symphonic ambition is also evident in the
division into four rather than three movements of a work that strongly merits a return
to the concert stage. Violin and piano are thus at the heart of Godard’s plentiful chamber
music production, whether wide-ranging sonatas (like the Sonate fantastique for piano),
exciting miniatures for soloists, or with other instruments in trios or quartets.
An academic from outside the institutions
A rapid overview of Godard’s style might suggest that he was a staunch defender of
‘official’ music, that he was a member of all the state music institutions and flaunted
the numerous academic medals received since his youth. This was not the case. A long
way from academic counterpoint and political obligations, Godard seems to have been
affected by secret inspirations, the product of a fully assimilated bourgeois culture. The
result was numerous thematic pieces and mélodies able to touch the private sentiments
of his audience (Rêve vécu and Solitude for piano or Les Larmes and Veux-tu? for voice
and keyboard). Godard also cultivated pictorial colour, both regional (En plein air for
violin and piano) and exotic (the Symphonie orientale which, in turn, visits Arabia,
China, Greece, Persia and Turkey). He was devoted to traditional genres, but added a
touch of poetry to them. Unlike, for example, Reber and Gounod, Godard’s symphonic
expression could be ‘gothic’ (No 3), ‘oriental’ (No 4), ‘legendary’ (without number) or
‘descriptive’ (his unpublished Fifth). The sonata also became ‘fantastique’ (the first piano
sonata), or is hidden behind the genre piece (the Trois Pièces for violin, ‘forming a fifth
sonata’). Finally, far from the scientific historicism of those revisiting Bach, such as Boëly,
Alkan and then Saint- Saëns, Godard reinterpreted past archaisms with a style accessible
to a wide audience (Nouvelles Chansons du vieux temps, the Symphonie gothique and
the Suite de danses anciennes et modernes for piano).
Godard’s instrumental music
in some dates
1866: Violin Sonata No 1
1877: Symphony No 3, ‘Gothique’
1875: Piano Concerto No 1
1883: Piano Trio No 2
1886: Symphonie légendaire
1887: Concerto romantique for violin
1887: Cello Sonata
1892: String Quartet No 3
10
Godard’s output in a few dates
1878: Le Tasse honoured
at the Ville de Paris competition
1882: Les Guelfes (premiered
posthumously in Rouen in 1902)
1884: Pedro de Zalamea
performed at the Théâtre
d’Anvers
1888: Jocelyn put on
at La Monnaie in Brussels
1890: Dante given
at the Opéra-Comique
1891: Ruy Blas (unperformed)
1895: La Vivandière performed
at the Opéra-Comique
(as completed by Paul Vidal)
Godard and opera
As a composer who delicately carved out miniatures with his many
mélodies, Godard also had a fondness for the grand effect that
could be unfurled in large scale operatic works. So the operas are an
important aspect of this composer’s personality, who here puts down
the watercolourist’s brush in order to paint sweeping frescoes of epic
subjects. Although Le Tasse was presented in 1878 (in a competition
for oratorios) as a ‘symphonie-dramatique de concert’, the public was
not to be fooled and knew to expect to hear an opera, simply shorn
of its scenery. In this work, the occasionally Wagnerian style follows
the inflections of the text so precisely that narrative and epic aspects
lose little by the absence of staging. At the age of 29, Godard was
already at his peak with Le Tasse, though Les Guelfes was at a similar
level (despite not being performed during the composer’s lifetime), as
was Pedro de Zalamea, though neither libretto seems to have been a
match for the music composed. Jocelyn remains his greatest success,
owing in particular to a lullaby added at a subsequent stage and
which became Godard’s swansong. The revolutionary subject then in
vogue pandered to the sentimentalism of the historically-based opéras
comiques. Dante recalls both Le Tasse, with its Italianising colourings,
and Les Guelfes, by its political subject. The first performance at the
Opéra-Comique was spoilt by a certain meanness in the scenery that
did not do justice to the work, which nonetheless was wide ranging.
Dante is full of arias, many of which could easily be great successes
today. Finally, La Vivandière, completed by Paul Vidal, returns to the
question of the French Revolution (this time focusing on the uprising in
the Vendée), and became a jewel in the repertorial crown of the OpéraComique before the First World War, although unfortunately Godard
did not witness its success.
He makes use
of the nostalgic vein
of an olden day France
whilst cultivating
the concerto in a
knightly fashion.
France-Yvonne Bril
11
dante
Opera in four acts, to a libretto by Édouard Blau, first
performed at the Opéra-Comique (Paris) on May 7, 1890
Sunday January 31, 2016
at 7pm
Prinzregententheater
Munich (Germany)
Tuesday February 2,
2016 at 8pm
Opéra Royal de
Versailles (France)
Munich Radio Orchestra
Bavarian Radio Chorus
Ulf Schirmer conductor
Dante Edgaras Montvidas
Béatrice Véronique Gens
Gemma Rachel Frenkel
Bardi Jean-François Lapointe
L’Ombre de Virgile
Andrew Foster-Williams
L’écolier Sarah Laulan
Production Palazzetto Bru Zane
Recording by the Palazzetto Bru Zane
for the “French Opera” series
In partnership with the
Munich Radio Orchestra
Born in Florence in 1265, Dante Alighieri was both a poet and
a significant political figure who worked actively to maintain
the independence of his city in the face of papal ambitions. But
he continues to be known mainly for his Divine Comedy, which
narrates, by way of a long poetic passage, his journey into the three
realms beyond the tomb. Godard’s opera, composed in 1890, skilfully
juxtaposes political developments – crowd scenes in Florence and
the feud between Guelphs and Ghibellines – and the expression of
medieval courtly love. In the opera Gemma, a young girl married
to the protagonist out of duty and then abandoned, becomes the
close friend of the beloved woman, Beatrice, of whom she is also the
secret rival. The most remarkable aspect of this opera, though, is
the insertion of a ‘Vision’, a kind of synthesis of the Divine Comedy
set to music. Act three thus ranges between an imaginary Hell
and Paradise, with sections bearing titles such as Apparition de
Virgile, Choeur des Damnés, Tourbillon infernal, Divine Clarté
and Apothéose de Béatrice. Godard here appears at the peak of his
melodic inspiration and his overall compositional mastery, in a
style that swings between Gounod and Massenet. The vocal quintet
called for in the opera perfectly captures all the heroic and expressive
potential of singers well-versed in Wagner and Verdi. The Palazzetto
Bru Zane is presenting Dante in the form of a concert, thereby
highlighting its division into sharply contrasted tableaux and a series
of dramatic shifts that at times resemble the oratorio form. For this
occasion, the Centre de Musique Romantique Française team has
created the first modern edition of the orchestral score, working from
Godard’s original manuscript.
CONCERTs
• From April 9 to May 15, 2016
Festival in Venice
This cycle of nine concerts being held in
spring 2016 will present a varied selection
of Godard’s works, highlighting his two
favoured instruments, the violin and
the piano, both of which he mastered to
a similar degree of virtuosity. The four
sonatas he wrote specifically for violin,
as well as the two for piano, are worthy of
attention, as they encapsulate the art of
the Parisian salons of the time: thematic or
programmatic pieces, Germanic inspiration
after Beethoven and a melodic line tinged
by voice. It is no coincidence that the
other genre portrayed so outstandingly
by Godard should be the French mélodie,
based on contemporary poems and
Renaissance sonnets.
• September 20, 2015
Studio 1 im Funkhaus,
Munich (Germany)
Symphony No 2 (excerpts)
Trois Morceaux (excerpts)
Symphonie gothique (excerpts)
Munich Radio Orchestra
David Reiland conductor
RECORDINGS
Barcarolles, Scènes italiennes
e Vingt Pièces
Alessandro Deljavan piano
PIANO CLASSICS (2014)
New
The three String Quartets
Quatuor Élysée
TIMPANI (2015)
Sonate fantastique,
Promenade en mer, Sonata n. 2…
Eliane Reyes piano
GRAND PIANO
Release date: Autumn 2015
The Complete Sonatas
for Violin and piano
Nicolas Dautricourt violin
Dana Ciocarlie piano
Aparté
Release date: March 2016
Selection of mélodies
Tassis Christoyannis baritone
Jeff Cohen piano
Aparté
Release date: March 2016
Symphony No 2, Trois Morceaux,
Symphonie gothique
Munich Radio Orchestra
David Reiland conductor
12
13
festival ÉDOUARD LALO
sEPTEMBER 26 – NOVEMBER 10 2015
Thursday September 17
at 6pm
PALAZZETTO BRU ZANE
Tuesday October 6
at 8pm
PALAZZETTO BRU ZANE
Thursday October 29
at 8pm
PALAZZETTO BRU ZANE
FESTIVAL
PRESENTATION
The art of the mélodie
Twilight of
Romanticism
Extracts from works by
édouard LALO:
Piano Trio no 2, Cello Sonata,
Fantaisie norvégienne
SEPTEMBER 26 – NOVEMBER 10 2015
Festival Édouard Lalo between folklore and wagnerism
NOVEMBER 2015 – MARCH 2016
Concerts in Venice outside the festivals
APRIL 9 – MAY 15 2016
Festival Benjamin Godard in the parisian salons
Soloists from the Chapelle
Musicale Reine Elisabeth
Vladyslva Luchenko violin
Ori Epstein cello
Nathanaël Gouin piano
Saturday September 26
at 8pm
SCUOLA GRANDE
SAN GIOVANNI
EVANGELISTA
Around the piano
Édouard LALO
Piano Trio No 3 in A minor
Cello Sonata
Guitare (for violin and piano)
Romance for violin and piano
TRIO DALI
14
Venice is the nerve centre of the Centre de Musique Romantique Française’s
activities. A genuine laboratory of art and experimentation, it is in Venice that
unpublished scores are often unearthed. Chamber music, operatic pieces with
piano accompaniment or others with unusual ensembles are all offered to
inquiring audiences. The Palazzetto Bru Zane team gauges the importance of each
work or composer and considers the best way of stimulating its rediscovery on a
broader scale. Between September and June the Centre de Musique Romantique
Française is organising some thirty concerts and meetings with the artists in
Venice. The 2015-16 season will open with a festival dedicated to Édouard Lalo and
close with a cycle of Benjamin Godard’s music. In addition to these musical events,
about a dozen conferences will allow the public to get to know the many facets of
French Romanticism: from historical and artistic contexts to the rediscovery of a
musical genre or composer, and from the history of art through to literature. The
Romantici in erba programme, aimed at Veneto primary and nursery schools,
aims to raise children’s awareness of classical music by means of teaching
workshops and concerts specifically designed for them. The Palazzetto Bru Zane
also opens its doors to families for Sunday afternoon events. Children from the
age of four, accompanied by their parents, can take part in fun workshops and
attend a concert. Finally, every Thursday afternoon, free guided visits allow the
Palazzetto Bru Zane itself to be rediscovered – a typically Venetian casino and a
small gem of late 17th-century architecture.
Sunday September 27
at 5pm
PALAZZETTO BRU ZANE
If my verses
had wings…
Mélodies for one and two voices
by LALO, FAURé, WIDOR,
BIZET, CHAUSSON…
Marion Tassou soprano
Thomas Dolié baritone
Antoine Palloc piano
Mélodies by Édouard LALO
Tassis Christoyannis baritone
Jeff Cohen piano
Tuesday October 13
at 8pm
PALAZZETTO BRU ZANE
Édouard LALO
Piano Trio No 1
Ernest CHAUSSON
Piano Trio
Lili BOULANGER
D’un soir triste
TRIO CÉRÈS
FANTAISIE-QUINTETTE
Édouard LALO
Fantaisie-Quintette
César FRANCK
Piano Quintet
Thursday November 5
at 8pm
PALAZZETTO BRU ZANE
Soloists from the Chapelle
Musicale Reine Elisabeth
Vladyslva Luchenko violin
Olga Volkov violin
Marie Chilemme viola
Ori Epstein cello
Nathanaël Gouin piano
Édouard LALO
String Quartet, Op 45
Namouna
(serenade arranged for quartet)
Gabriel FAURÉ
String Quartet
PARIS 1900
QUATUOR HERMÈS
Saturday October 17
at 5pm
PALAZZETTO BRU ZANE
The Romantic violin
Édouard LALO
Violin Sonata, Op 12
Romance-Sérénade
for violin and piano
Arlequin for violin and piano
Gabriel PIERNÉ
Violin Sonata
Tuesday November 10
at 8pm
PALAZZETTO BRU ZANE
Romantic Piano Trios
Édouard LALO
Piano Trio No 2
Cécile CHAMINADE
Piano Trio No 2
TRIO ATOS
Diana Tishchenko violin
Joachim Carr piano
Award winners from the Prix
Palazzetto Bru Zane at the
Concours International de
Musique de Chambre Lyon 2014
15
CONCERTS OUTSIDE THE FESTIVALS
NOVEMBER 2015 – MARCH 2016
APRIL 9 – MAY 15 2016
Tuesday November 24
at 8pm
PALAZZETTO BRU ZANE
Friday January 15
at 8pm
PALAZZETTO BRU ZANE
Saturday 20 February
at 5 pm
PALAZZETTO BRU ZANE
Thursday March 31
at 6pm
PALAZZETTO BRU ZANE
Tuesday April 26
at 8pm
PALAZZETTO BRU ZANE
Saturday May 7
at 5pm
PALAZZETTO BRU ZANE
Towards modernity
Homage to KOECHLIN
The Wind Quintet
Festival presentation
Théodore DUBOIS
Le Banc de mousse
La Source enchantée
(excerpts from the
Poèmes sylvestres)
Mel BONIS
Écho
Narcisse
Paul DUKAS
Sonata per pianoforte
Charles KOECHLIN
Les Heures persanes, Op 65
for solo piano (excerpts)
Chansons bretonnes, Op 115
for cello and piano (excerpts)
Paysages et Marines for solo
piano (excerpt)
Cello Sonata, Op 6
George ONSLOW
Wind Quintet
Paul TAFFANEL
Wind Quintet
Jacques IBERT
Trois Pièces brèves
Extracts from piano works
by Benjamin Godard
Scenes from Italy
and beyond
Romanticism
and modernity
Benjamin GODARD
Barcarolle, Op 80
Barcarolle, Op 105
Scènes italiennes, Op 126
Vingt Pièces, Op 58
Klarthe Quintet
Award winners of the Prix
Palazzetto Bru Zane at the
Munich ARD Competition 2014
Saturday April 9
at 8pm
SCUOLA GRANDE SAN
GIOVANNI EVANGELISTA
Benjamin GODARD
Piano Trio No 2
Aubade for violin
and cello, Op 133
Gabriel FAURÉ
Piano Trio
Lili BOULANGER
D’un matin de printemps
David Violi piano
On the occasion of the 150th
anniversary of the birth
of Paul Dukas
Thursday December 3
at 8pm
PALAZZETTO BRU ZANE
The Romantic Guitar
Fernando SOR
Fantasie élégiaque op. 59
Antoine DE LHOYER
Grande Sonate op. 12
Napoléon COSTE
Le Tournoi
(fantaisie chevaleresque
pour guitare) op. 15
François DE FOSSE
Recuerdo
Cinquième Fantaisie
Matteo CARCASSI
Aria « Au Clair de la lune »
dalle Voitures versées
varié op. 7
Luigi Attademo guitar
Silvia Chiesa cello
Maurizio Baglini piano
David Lively piano
Godard and the voice
Thursday February 4
at 8pm
SCUOLA GRANDE SAN
GIOVANNI EVANGELISTA
Once upon a time…
An operatic entertainment
created around fairytales
from the Romantic era
Arias and duos by MASSENET,
OFFENBACH, ISOUARD, SILVER,
SERPETTE, LECOCQ, VIARDOT…
Jodie Devos soprano
Isabelle Druet mezzo-soprano
QUATUOR GIARDINI
Sunday February 7
at 3.30pm,
Tuesday February 9,
Thursday 11, Friday 12
at 7pm
Saturday February 13
at 3.30pm
TEATRO MALIBRAN
LES CHEVALIERS
DE LA TABLE RONDE
HERVé
COMPAGNIA LES BRIGANDS
Christophe Grapperon
musical direction
Pierre-André Weitz stage direction
In partnership with the
Fondazione Teatro La Fenice
16
FESTIVAL BENJAMIN GODARD
Tuesday March 8
at 8pm
PALAZZETTO BRU ZANE
Homage to MARIE JAËLL
Alfred JAËLL /
Felix MENDELSSOHN
Marche nuptiale
Marie JAËLL
Les Beaux Jours (excerpts)
Camille SAINT-SAËNS
Valse nonchalante op. 110
Valse gaie op. 139
Danse macabre
(transcribed by Franz Liszt)
Marie JAËLL
Jours pluvieux
Franz LISZT
Mephisto Valse n. 3
(completed by Marie Jaëll)
Mephisto Valse n. 1
Benjamin GODARD
Mélodies, arias and duos
from the operas
Olivia Doray soprano
Cyrille Dubois tenor
Tristan Raes piano
TRIO TALWEG
Saturday April 30
at 5pm
PALAZZETTO BRU ZANE
The Romantic Cello
Benjamin GODARD
Cello Sonata
Rita STROHL
Titus et Bérénice
Gary Hoffman cello
David Selig piano
Sunday April 10
at 5pm
PALAZZETTO BRU ZANE
Forgotten
String Quartets
Benjamin GODARD
String Quartet No 2, Op 37
Charles GOUNOD
String Quartet No 2
QUATUOR MOSAÏQUES
Dana Ciocarlie piano
On the occasion of
International Women’s Day
Alessandro Deljavan piano
Thursday 14 April
at 8pm
PALAZZETTO BRU ZANE
Godard the violinist
Benjamin GODARD
Violin Sonata No 1
Violin Sonata No 2
Sonata for Solo Violin No 2
Violin Sonata No 4
Tuesday May 3
at 8pm
PALAZZETTO BRU ZANE
Godard
and the mélodie
Benjamin GODARD
Mélodies
Tassis Christoyannis baritone
Jeff Cohen piano
Thursday May 12
at 8pm
PALAZZETTO BRU ZANE
A dream experienced
Benjamin GODARD
Piano Sonata No 2
Trois Pièces, Op 16
Nocturne No 3, Op 139
Nocturne No 4, Op 150
Rêve vécu, Op 140
Eliane Reyes piano
Sunday May 15
at 5pm
PALAZZETTO BRU ZANE
POESIA
Benjamin GODARD
Violin Sonata No 3
Ernest CHAUSSON
Poème
Benjamin GODARD
Berceuse
Gabriel FAURÉ
Violin Sonata No 1
Maria Milstein violin
Nathalia Milstein piano
Nicolas Dautricourt violin
Dana Ciocarlie piano
17
festival
PALAZZETTO BRU ZANE IN PARIS
The concerts from 4 to 9 June
are a co-production with C.I.C.T.
Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord
4th EDITION / JUNE 3 – JUNE 9 2016
Co-produced with the C.I.C.T. - Théâtre des Bouffes
du Nord and the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées
For the fourth edition of its Parisian festival,
the Palazzetto Bru Zane is able to extend its
programming following a new partnership entered
into with the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées – where
Spontini’s tragédie lyrique Olympie (1819) will be
performed under the baton of Jérémie Rohrer.
The cycle of chamber music concerts and recitals
will at the same time be continuing at the Théâtre
des Bouffes du Nord, shedding a special light on
Hahn, Lekeu, Koechlin and Godard, in conjunction
with the cycle which the Palazzetto Bru Zane is
dedicating to the composer throughout the spring
of 2016. The Palazzetto Bru Zane’s new touring
production – Il était une fois… (Once upon a
time…) based around fairytales as reinterpreted by
the Romantic century – will also be given on this
occasion. As before, young talents and established
musicians will be combining with the same
enthusiasm and making the same artistic demands
of themselves and each other.
olympie
by gaspare spontini
Friday June 3 at 8pm
THÉÂTRE DES
CHAMPS-ÉLYSÉES
Tragédie lyrique in three acts, to a libretto
by Michel Dieulafoi and Charles Brifaut,
first performed at the Académie Royale
de Musique (Paris) on December 22, 1819
Olympie
On rereading Berlioz it is evident that he considered
Spontini, after Gluck, the greatest genius of French
music in the run up to the Romantic century. And
perhaps the little known Olympie, which Spontini
staged in 1819, with Rudolphe Kreutzer in person
conducting, marked more than one might imagine
the real upheaval in opera that would set France on
its way towards the modernity of the grand opéra.
This score, refined by astonishing instrumentation,
is dense from start to finish with spectacular
effects that clearly herald Berlioz’s Les Troyens.
The presence throughout of a vast choir, the vigour
called on for Antigone’s interventions, the pathos
of Statira’s role (conceived for Caroline Branchu,
then at the peak of her career): everything works to
astonish the audience, such that Berlioz himself was
brought to tears. This is assuredly one of the first
18th-century examples of the peplum genre.
Olympie by Spontini is a coproduction Palazzetto
Bru Zane / Théâtre des Champs-Élysées
Gaspare SPONTINI
Olympie (concert version)
LE CERCLE DE L’HARMONIE
Vlaams Radio Koor
Jérémie Rhorer conductor
Olympie Karina Gauvin
Statira Kate Aldrich
Cassandre Charles Castronovo
L’Hiérophante Patrick Bolleire
Antigone Josef Wagner
Co-production Palazzetto Bru Zane /
Théâtre des Champs-Élysées
Sunday June 5
at 5pm
THÉÂTRE DES
BOUFFES DU NORD
Tuesday June 7
at 8.30pm
THÉÂTRE DES
BOUFFES DU NORD
Introspection
Impassioned Cello
Charles-Valentin ALKAN
Grande Sonate
« Les Quatre Âges »
Frédéric CHOPIN
Polonaises
Benjamin GODARD
Études artistiques
Franz LISZT
Saint-François de Paule
marchant sur les eaux
Rita STROHL
Titus et Bérénice
Camille SAINT-SAËNS
Cello Sonata No 1
Claude DEBUSSY
Nocturne e Scherzo
Gabriel FAURÉ
Élégie
Pascal Amoyel piano
Saturday June 4
at 8.30pm
THÉÂTRE DES
BOUFFES DU NORD
Monday June 6
at 8.30PM
THÉÂTRE DES
BOUFFES DU NORD
Once upon a time…
Invitation
to the voyage
Operatic spectacle around
fairytales in the Romantic era
Arias and duos by MASSENET,
OFFENBACH, ISOUARD,
SILVER, SERPETTE, LECOCQ,
VIARDOT…
Jodie Devos soprano
Isabelle Druet mezzo-soprano
QUATUOR GIARDINI
Gabriel FAURÉ
Cinq Mélodies de Venise
Guillaume LEKEU
Sur une tombe
Ronde Nocturne
Reynaldo HAHN
Offrande
D’une prison
L’Heure exquise
Fêtes Galantes, libro I
Charles KOECHLIN
Menuet – La Pêche
La Lune – L’Hiver
Si tu le veux
Claude DEBUSSY
Fêtes Galantes, libro II
Henri DUPARC
L’Invitation au voyage
La Vie antérieure
Sérénade florentine
Phidylé
Marie-Nicole Lemieux contralto
Daniel Blumenthal piano
18
Gary Hoffman cello
David Selig piano
Wednesday June 8
at 8.30PM
THÉÂTRE DES
BOUFFES DU NORD
Ravel Generation
Works by LALO,
SAINT-SAËNS, FAURÉ
Henri Demarquette cello
Jean-François Heisser piano
Award winners from the
Académie Internationale
de Musique Maurice Ravel 2015
Thursday June 9
at 8.30PM
THÉÂTRE DES
BOUFFES DU NORD
Romantic Quartet
Benjamin GODARD
String Quartet No 2, Op 37
Charles GOUNOD
String Quartet No 2
Claude DEBUSSY
String Quartet
QUATUOR MOSAÏQUES
19
TOURING PRODUCTIONS
Les Chevaliers
de la Table ronde by hervé
Opéra bouffe en three acts, words by Henri Chivot and Alfred
Duru. Music by Louis-Auguste-Florimond Ronger, known
as Hervé (1825-1892). First performed on November 17, 1866
at the Théâtre des Bouffes-Parisiens. Version for 13 singers
and 12 instrumentalists.
Les Chevaliers de la Table ronde (The Knights of the Round table)
is the first of Hervé’s great operettas, with which he launched the
cycle of his four masterpieces (followed by L’OEil crevé, Chilpéric
and Le Petit Faust). Rather than narrating the well-known
adventures of Lancelot and Merlin, the opera stages an imaginary
world rich with allusions to an enchanted Middle Ages. The
lavish presence of an important number of secondary characters
(in particular four absurd knights) allowed Hervé to create an
ambitious show, capable of competing with certain productions
then being put on at the Opéra-Comique. It contains the four main
components of the musical comedy: parody (of ‘serious’ genres
or foreign music), rhythmic energy, an offbeat virtuosity and
popular tunes. The action, transferred to those chivalrous times in
a period of French history much loved by the 19th century, gives
special importance to the female characters. Mélusine, Totoche and
Angélique share the limelight by caricaturing those supposedly
typical feminine traits of love, jealousy, greed and sensuality.
Alongside them Rodomont, Roland and Merlin present a dulled and
softened image of knightly courage.
LES CHEVALIERS
DE LA TABLE RONDE D'HERVé
First performance on November 22, 2015
at the Opéra National de Bordeaux
Company Les Brigands
Musical director Christophe Grapperon
Stage director Pierre-André Weitz
Assisted by Victoria Duhamel
Costume and set design Pierre-André Weitz
Assisted by Mathieu Crescence and Pierre Lebon
Lightning Bertrand Killy
Rodomont, the duke Damien Bigourdan
Sacripant, marshal Antoine Philippot
Merlin, wizard Arnaud Marzorati
Médor, young minstrel Mathias Vidal
Totoche, the duchess Ingrid Perruche
Angélique, her stepdaughter Lara Neumann
Mélusine, sorceress Chantal Santon Jeffery
Fleur-de-Neige Clémentine Bourgoin
Roland, knight errant Rémy Mathieu
Amadis des Gaules David Ghilardi
Lancelot du Lac Théophile Alexandre
Renaud de Montauban Jérémie Delvert
Ogier le Danois Pierre Lebon
Transcription for 13 singers
and 12 instrumentalists by Thibault Perrine
Associate producer Palazzetto Bru Zane
Centre de musique romantique française
Executive producer Compagnie Les Brigands
Co-production Opéra de Reims / Le Centre des
Bords de Marne – Le Perreux / La Coursive –
Scène Nationale La Rochelle With the support of Arcadi Île-de France,
SPEDIDAM, ADAMI and DRAC Île-de France
In partnership with Angers-Nantes Opéra
Decor made by the the Opéra de Reims' workshops
35 concerts
• Sunday November 22, Monday 23,
Wednesday 25, Thursday 26
and Friday 27, 2015
Opéra National de Bordeaux
Bordeaux (France)
With the musicians of the Orchestre
National de Bordeaux
• Saturday December 5, 2015
Opéra de Massy, Massy (France)
• Wednesday December 9, 2015
Théâtre La Coupole, Saint-Louis (France)
• Friday December 11, 2015
Opéra de Reims, Reims (France)
• Sunday December 13, 2015
Centre culturel Le Figuier Blanc
Argenteuil (France)
• Thursday December 17, Friday 18, 2015
Théâtre Liberté, Toulon (France)
• Saturday January 9, Sunday 10,
Tuesday 12, Wednesday 13,
Thursday 14, 2016
Théâtre Graslin, Nantes (France)
• Saturday January 16, Sunday 17
and Tuesday 19, 2016
Grand Théâtre, Angers (Francia)
• Thursday January 21, Friday 22, 2016
Maison de La Culture, Bourges (France)
• Tuesday January 26, 2016
Palais des Beaux-Arts
Charleroi (Belgium)
• Thursday January 28, 2016
Centre des Bords De Marne
Le Perreux-sur-Marne (France)
• Saturday January 30, 2016
Théâtre, Chelles (France)
• Tuesday February 2, Wednesday 3, 2016
La Coursive, Scène Nationale
La Rochelle (France)
• Sunday February 7, Tuesday 9,
Thursday 11, Friday 12, Saturday 13, 2016
Teatro Malibran, Venice (Italy)
You consume a hideous
number of lagers and ales;
If we call you valiant knights,
it is not for nothing.
• Friday March 18, Sunday 20, Monday 21,
Tuesday 22, March, 2016
Opéra de Rennes, Rennes (France)
Merlin, Les Chevaliers de la Table ronde
20
21
TOURING PRODUCTIONS
In memoriam
Requiem commemorating
Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette
Daniel-François-Esprit AUBER
Marche funèbre composed
for the funeral of the
Emperor Napoléon
Charles-Henri PLANTADE
Messe des morts in D minor
Hector BERLIOZ
Méditation religieuse
(excerpt from Tristia)
Luigi CHERUBINI
Requiem
in C minor
Chœur et Orchestre
du Concert Spirituel
Hervé Niquet direction
Production
Palazzetto Bru Zane
3 concerts
• Saturday August 22, 2015
at 9pm
Festival Berlioz (France)
• Thursday January 21,
Friday 22, 2016 at 8pm
Chapelle Royale of the
Château de Versailles (France)
When Louis XVIII was returned to
power after the fall of Napoleon in
1815, he restored the magnificence of
the earlier monarchy and dedicated a
genuine cult to the royals who had been
victims of the Revolution. His brother
Louis XVI, guillotined in 1793, became
the first object of such devotion. Each
year one of the leading composers in
the kingdom was commissioned to
compose a Requiem intended to be sung
on the anniversary of the king’s death,
January 21. Cherubini’s composition
(1815) stands out from all the rest with
the quality of its choral writing and
the power of its orchestration. In 1822,
Louis XVIII added a further symbolic
element to this important annual
commemoration with the translation of
Marie-Antoinette’s heart to the basilica
of Saint-Denis, the age-old mausoleum
of the kings and queens of France. For
this occasion, the official composer of
the Chapelle des Tuileries, Charles-Henri
Plantade (1764-1839) wrote a Messe de
Requiem, whose key of D minor was not
chosen merely by chance: it is the same
as that of Mozart’s Requiem, which had
been such a success in France after its
discovery there around 1805. Plantade’s
score for choir and orchestra (without
soloists) has never been performed since
then and may be regarded as one of
the greatest tributes by the Bourbons to
the Ancien Régime and a model of the
Restoration in terms of religious music.
BRU ZANE MEDIABASE
A new digital resource for French Romantic music
French music
for Winds
Louise FARRENC
Sextuor
George ONSLOW
Wind Quintet
Camille SAINT-SAËNS
Caprice sur des airs danois
et russes
André CAPLET
Quintet for Piano and Wind
Francis POULENC
Sextet for Piano and Winds
LES VENTS FRANÇAIS
Emmanuel Pahud flute
Paul Meyer clarinet
François Leleux oboe
Gilbert Audin basson
Radovan Vlatkovic horn
Éric Le Sage piano
Production
Palazzetto Bru Zane
4 concerts
• Wednesday April 13, 2016
Kulturzentrum, Bosco Gauting
Munich (Germany)
• Thursday April 14, 2016
Theater Casino Zug (Switzerland)
• Friday April 15, 2016
Bozar, Bruxelles (Belgium)
• Saturday April 16, 2016
Philharmonie 2 Paris (France)
The Palazzetto Bru Zane has now set up a website
combining articles, visual images and documents in
order to circulate and share in a straightforward manner
the results of its research activities and the knowledge
accumulated from year to year. Visitors to this site now
have access to a wealth of material about the French 19thcentury musical heritage, headed by introductory texts on
people, compositions and specific topics by music scholars
and historians. In addition, more detailed, scholarly articles
on the music and artistic life of the Romantic era can be
read and downloaded, some of which stem from our own
symposia. A virtual journey into the century of Hector
Berlioz and Victor Hugo by way of illustrative material
and literary texts, drawn from digitised and catalogued
archival collections.
bruzanemediabase.com
TOPICS AND CONTENTS OF THE BASE
The people
This section presents summarised biographies of people
who played a role in 19th-century French music: composers
and musicians, either still celebrated or lost from the
collective memory. Links lead to additional files connected
with each musical figure (compositions, specific topics or
other documentary material).
More than 270 files ready to be consulted.
›
The compositions
Introductions to compositions in the form of the Palazzetto
Bru Zane concert programmes can be found here. The object
of these articles is to describe the most important stylistic
characteristics of each work within the context of when
they were composed and first performed.
More than 350 files already available.
›
Specific topics
An inter-disciplinary approach is applied here to specific
topics, from instrument manufacture to the organisation of
artistic life and the development of vocal and instrumental
genres.
More than 60 files available.
›
Scholarly publications online
Articles of a scholarly nature as well as symposia
proceedings are to be found here, the idea being to provide a
quick and international circulation of recent musicological
studies. Such articles will be periodically updated by their
authors in the light of any new research on the subject
22
concerned. Here they are presented as isolated articles or
gathered together within symposia proceedings or as digital
works. They are written in the author’s own language and
provided with comprehensive abstracts in French, English
and Italian to facilitate rapid understanding of the research
conclusions; any such contributions are linked to other
relevant notices held in the database (people, compositions,
specific topics, etc.). Full downloading of the documents in
PDF format and plain-text searches are possible.
As part of the tercentenary celebrations of the Opéra
Comique, the proceedings of 14 symposia organised since
2008 in partnership with this institution are in the process
of being placed online.
Archival collections
The outcomes of cataloguing and digitizing projects led by
the Palazzetto Bru Zane since its creation are presented in
this section. Three such collections are currently available:
• the Fonds Baillot, derived from archives belonging to
the descendants of the violinist and teacher Pierre Baillot.
Collection catalogued and digitized in 2014 by the Palazzetto
Bru Zane, which gathers together not just documents
covering Baillot’s career but also various private papers.
The real treasure of the Fonds Baillot is the remarkable
manuscript of L’Art du violon (1834) with its numerous
sections and additions combined, accompanied by a
separate volume entitled Dessins originaux faits selon
nature par Gatteaux. Many of these drawings have not
been reproduced as part of the definitive edition.
• The Fonds Villa Médicis: visual images forming part of
the music collection of the library of the Académie de France
in Rome – Villa Médicis, digitized by the Palazzetto Bru
Zane between 2010 and 2013.
• The Fonds Palazzetto Bru Zane: the documents in this
section are part of the iconographical collection assembled
at the time of the programming and scholarly research.
Documents
This section gathers contemporary visual documents
(posters, stage layouts, official portraits of composers, score
dedications, etc.), and librettos for operas, cantatas and
oratorios. A substantial cross-section of articles derived
from the 19th-century press allows for an in-depth study of
certain topics such as the Prix de Rome competition or the
reception of operas at the time of their premières.
23
Professional Music
Training − Académie Ravel
Based in Saint-Jean-de-Luz, the Académie
Internationale de Musique Maurice Ravel has for
more than 45 years been a renowned institute of
instrumental and vocal specialisation for young
musicians from all over the world. In order to
intensify the particular requirements of performing
French Romantic music, in September 2015 the
Académie Internationale de Musique Ravel and
the Palazzetto Bru Zane will launch a significant
partnership aimed at rediscovering and teaching
this now largely overlooked area of music. As well as
studies in pronunciation and the sense of theatre à la
française for singers, and the ‘stylistic school’ concept
for instrumentalists, courses, masterclasses and
conferences will also provide opportunities for young
musicians to perform before audiences. In June 2016
some of them will present the results of their work in
Venice and as part of the Festival Palazzetto Bru Zane
in Paris at the Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord.
books and recordings
• Wednesday June 8, 2016 - 8.30PM
Festival Palazzetto Bru Zane in Paris
Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord
Paris (France)
Works by Lalo, Saint-Saëns, Fauré
Henri Demarquette cello
Jean-François Heisser piano
Award winners from the
Académie Internationale
de Musique Maurice Ravel 2015
• Saturday June 18, 2016
Palazzetto Bru Zane, Venice
Art Night
Carte blanche to the Award winners
from the Académie Internationale
de Musique Maurice Ravel
The teachers for the September 2015
session are:
Singing Mireille Delunsch
Violin Régis Pasquier
Viola/Chamber music Miguel Da Silva
Cello Henri Demarquette
Piano Jean-Claude Pennetier
Chamber music Jean-François Heisser
Guest composer Thierry Escaich
Antonio Salieri
Les Danaïdes - volume 9
Les Talens Lyriques
Christophe Rousset
conductor
«French Opera» series
Release date: July 2015
Félicien David
Herculanum - volume 10
Brussels Philharmonic
Vlaams Radio Koor
Hervé Niquet conductor
«French Opera» series
Release date:
September 2015
Marie Jaëll
«Portraits» series
volume 3
Release date:
January 2016
Lachnith / Mozart
Les Mystères d’Isis
Le Concert Spirituel
Vlaams Radio Koor
Diego Fasolis conductor
With Chantal Santon
Jeffery, Renata Pokupic
and Tassis Christoyannis
Production
Palazzetto Bru Zane
GLOSSA
To be released in 2015
Paul Dukas
«Prix de Rome» series - volume 5
Brussels Philharmonic
Vlaams Radio Koor
Hervé Niquet conductor
Release date: November 2015
www.academie-ravel.com
24
25
PRACTICAL INFORMATION
TICKET PRICES
GUIDED VISITS
Palazzetto Bru Zane
One category only: 15 euro | 5 euro*
Scuola Grande San Giovanni Evangelista
One category only: 20 euro | 5 euro*
A wonderful little gem of Venetian architecture from
the end of the 17th century, the Palazzetto Bru Zane
is open to the public every Thursday afternoon with
guided visits, which are free of charge. Frescoes by
Sebastiano Ricci and stuccowork by Abbondio Stazio
can be seen in the Casino Zane.
*students and young people under the age of 28
SEASON TICKETS
Season tickets (starting with 3 concerts)
may be purchased at any time in the season;
holders benefit from a reduction of 25%.
For more information about season ticket rates,
please visit bru-zane.com or the
season’s brochure.
BOOKING
TICKET OFFICE
Palazzetto Bru Zane
Centre de musique romantique française
San Polo 2368 – 30125 Venice, Italy
Each Thursday afternoon (except for December 24
and 31, 2015).
OPENING HOURS
2.30pm: visit in Italian
3.00pm: visit in French
3.30pm: visit in English
Groups of visitors numbering more than 10 people
are asked to reserve in advance.
Information
[email protected]
+ 39 041 52 11 005
From 2.30 p.m. to 5.30 p.m., Monday to Friday.
Tickets will also be on sale at the venue
from one hour before the performance
is due to begin.
ONLINE
bru-zane.com
[email protected]
vivaticket.it
BY PHONE
Palazzetto Bru Zane : + 39 041 52 11 005
Call Center Vivaticket: from Monday to Friday
from 2.30 p.m. to 5.30 p.m and Saturday
from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. (closed on Sunday).
From Italy: 892 234
From abroad: +39 041 27 19 035
Palazzetto Bru Zane
Centre de musique
romantique française
San Polo 2368, 30125 Venice - Italy
[email protected]
26
bru-zane.com
bruzanemediabase.com
Translation:
Mark Wiggins and David Graham