Gounod's Cinq Mars

[BerlinExpat]

The foundation Palazetto Bru Zane never ceases to amaze with the opera rarities they sponsor. After Joncières' Dmitri (recently appeared) and Saint-Saëns' Les Barbares (to come) I have discovered that in the 2014-2015 season of the Theater an der Wien (Vienna) they are sponsoring a concert performance of Gounod's opera Cinq-Mars. The performance is scheduled for Tuesday, 27th January 2015 at 7 p.m.

Cinq Mars
Drame lyrique in four acts (1877)
Music by Charles Gounod
Libretto by Paul Poirson & Louis Gallet after Alfred de Vigny's historical novel of the same name (1826)

Concert performance in French

With Véronique Gens, Charles Castronovo and others.
Chorus of the Bavarian Radio
Munich Radio-Symphony Orchestra
Conducted by Ulf Schirmer

A co-production with the Palazetto Bru Zane Venice

The Munich Radio-Symphony Orchestra hasn't yet announced its programme for the coming season so I don't know if there will be a corresponding performance in Munich or hopefully a radio transmission from either Munich or Vienna.

[mikehopf]

ENFIN!

[adriano]

What a pity to have Schirmer conducting this piece! Fournillier or another Frenchman would be ideal; Schirmer is certainly a professional, but often quite fade. His recording of Humperdinck's "Dornröschen" makes this piece more boring than it already is.

[Gounod21]

Great: "Mors et Vita", though an oratorio, not an opera, is one of the most successful dramatic works I know!Steve

[adriano]

"Mors et Vita": You are perfectly right, Gounod21; I too love this piece deeply!

[Gounod21]

That is fab,Hadrianus; the futuristic pentatonic or is it whole tone scales at start; then the wonderfully seraphic parts 2 and 3, with that haunting melody of salvation, prefigured in part 2 and returning a couple of times in Part 3; not to mention "Judex". I think the canonic reputation of this piece, with "Redemption " unrecorded, just shows how hegemonically and socially constructed that canon(in part) IS; Mors et Vita is one of the sublimest and,dare I say it,GREATEST choral works for its ferocity and adventurous harmonies in part 1 and its sheer melodic beauty and joy(eg final fugue) in parts 2 and 3. The "received" "academic" opinion is that it is overly saccharine; which is nonsense and just a value judgement anyway. Gounod was another link to Faure. I have some of the operas on LP: I must listen:). Nice to hear ur enthusiasm hadrianus:)Steve