PRESS FILE OPERA LA VESTALE GASPARE SPONTINI Alessandro de Marchi & Eric Lacascade 13, 15, 17, 20, 22 October 2015 20:00 25 October 2015 15:00 CIRQUE ROYAL / KONINKLIJK CIRCUS Opéra en trois actes, version française Livret de Victor-Joseph Etienne de Jouy Premiere Salle Montsansier, Paris, 15/12/1807 NEW PRODUCTION I – INTRODUCTION WITH BIOGRAPHIES THE FLAMES OF THE VESTAL ALTAR SET THE SCORE ALIGHT Since La Vestale, not a note of music has been written that wasn’t stolen from my scores!’ Gaspare Spontini was himself aware of how innovative and influential his score was. He turned opera in a new direction by conceiving the whole score on the basis of a compelling dramatic conception involving naturalistic effects, orchestration, and musical form, thereby pointing the way for such opera composers as Rossini, Wagner, Berlioz, and Meyerbeer. As a grand opera it was ahead of its time and was full of spectacular scenes showing a Vestal Virgin’s forbidden love for a Roman general; it made Spontini the most important composer of the Napoleonic period. Here directing his first opera, the French stage director Éric Lacascade focuses on a highly topical subject: ‘More than passionate love, what is at stake in this opera is the liberation of a woman who frees herself from the power of religious authority.’ COMPOSER & WORK Born in 1774 in Italy, Gaspare Spontini (1774-1851) imposed a new style to French music, mixing his Neapolitan inspiration to the genre of French lyric tragedy and thus creating what may be termed as Grand Historic Opera. The Italian composer, who became French in 1817, began a brilliant career in Rome and Venice after his studies at the Royal Conservatory of Naples. His shady and difficult character led to his departure from Italy in 1803, and to the new French empire to which he was attracted. The Empress Josephine appointed him composer to the court two years later. Written on a libretto by Etienne de Jouy, La Vestale was created in Paris in 1807. The work tries to answer the new aesthetic principles laid down by Napoleon, which were heavily inspired by ancient Rome. The creation of this “opera of the decade”, according to the Institute of France at the time, caused a sensation and was followed by more than two hundred performances. The musician's career experienced then a runaway success that did not stop at the fall of the Napoleonic Empire. He left France for Berlin in 1820, and was appointed Director General of Music by the King of Prussia. Reinstalled in Italy in 1842, he died in his hometown ten years later. La Vestale, a veritable bridge between Baroque and Romanticism, is a work that deserves to be rediscovered. If Gluck’s influence is felt from the first notes of the overture, as well as in the magnificent choirs or the grand recitatives, Spontini’s originality and refinement of orchestration carry numerous innovations that many a contemporary or successor borrowed from him. Berlioz, to name but him, will often hold Spontini’s opera up as an example, and Wagner will go on to conduct it in 1844. The story is set against the backdrop of a Roman tragedy. The young general Licinius is in love with Julia, a young priestess from the temple of Vesta. While they swear fidelity to each other, the sacred fire placed under Julia’s surveillance goes out. She is arrested, and as she refuses to denounce her lover, she is condemned to be burned alive. Julia will be saved by the power of love. A divine storm surrounds the temple and allows Licinius to pull Julia from her grave. The sacred fire is restored. Spontini’s opera was created in Brussels in 1810 and performed regularly until 1937, when it finally disappeared from La Monnaie’s stage as well as from the other European lyrical stages. In 1954, Maria Callas brought the role back into fashion, in a memorable production by one Visconti. But it will take more than fifty years to be able to listen to it at La Monnaie. ARTISTIC TEAM The Italian conductor Alessandro de Marchi whom we have not had the opportunity to hear for several seasons, will lead the La Monnaie Symphony Orchestra for this new production which will be presented at the Cirque Royal in October 2015. We will meet again the La Monnaie Chorus which will be prepared by their conductor Martino Faggiani and completed by the MM Academy prepared by Benoît Giaux. The talent of Alessandro de Marchi for baroque repertoire in particular, makes an interpreter of choice for the Spontini masterpiece. He became indeed a passionate advocate of the less known works, such as Cimarosa’s Il matrimonio segreto and Graun’s Cesare e Cleopatra that he conducted at the Berlin Staatsoper, Hasse’s Cleofide conducted at Dresden, Vivaldi’s Orlando Paladin, at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam and Pergolesi’s Olimpiade at the Naples Teatro San Carlo, at Innsbruck and at the Festival Pergolesi at Lesi. He is associated with the operas of Handel as well as Rossini and conducted La Cenerentola, L’Italiana in Algeri and Demetrio e Polibio at Hamburg, Dresden and Berlin; as well as Alcina, Teseo, Orlando and Rinaldo at Lyon, Berlin, Essen and for the Handel Festival at Halle. He is also a great Mozart interpreter that the audience at La Monnaie were able to appreciate in Cosi fan tutte and Le Nozze di Figaro. He has recently conducted Almira (Handel) at the Staatsoper in Hamburg and at the Festwochen der Alten Musik in Innsbruck, where he was artistic director; La scala di seta (Rossini) at the Teatro La Fenice and at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam; L’Elisir d’amore (Donizetti) at Hamburg; Giulio Cesare (Handel) at the Semperoper in Dresden and at the Teatro Regio in Turin; Juditha Triumphans (Vivaldi) at the Teatro La Fenice; La Stellidaura vendicante (Provenzale) with his ensemble Academia Montis Regalis, at the Theater an der Wien and for his debuts at the Wigmore Hall in London. His discography includes Bellini’s La Sonnambula with Cecilia Bartoli and Juan Diego Flórez (Decca); Vivaldi’s Olimpiade, Telemann’s La stellidaura vendicante, Flavius Bertaridus and Handel’s Carmelite Vespers plus Caldara (Sony/harmonia mundi); Handel’s Il Trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno (Hyperion); Vivaldi’s Orlando finto pazzo (Naïve) and on DVD Monteverdi L’Incoronazione di Poppea (EuroArts) and Donizetti L’Elisir d’Amore (Dynamic). The directing has been entrusted to the Frenchman Éric Lacascade and created in 2013 at the Champs- Elysées Theatre in Paris. Coming from the world of theatre, the French director Éric Lacascade takes here his first steps into opera. He offers a version as detached from any historicism as from all contemporary transposition. The scenic apparatus is simple: a naked set burnt by the sun or immersed in half-light, a few pieces of furniture. Eric Lacascade utilises a certain stylisation in the setting and the play of the singers in order to bring out the psychological traits of the characters, while following as closely as possible Spontini’s music. He sees in Spontini’s work a timeless drama and defines thus the main persona: “Julia, woman victim, woman warrior, rebellious woman, revealed to herself by passionate love. The power of this passion, the power of this inflamed woman, reaches well beyond any particular epoch. Submitted to an ancestral ritual in which the woman is at the service of God and man, she dares to choose the uniqueness of her love against the divine law, against the law of the city.” He adds that “the presence of the people, people of vestals, of priests, of warriors, of citizens, the colourful and mixed crowd always on the brink of explosion, contributes to the power of the work.” Born in Lille, Éric Lacascade, studied law, whilst training for theatre professions at the Prato, the alternative theatre of Lille. He was appointed head of Normandy National Dramatic Centre in 1997 with Guy Alloucherie, with whom he founded his company the Ballatum Théâtre and who rapidly quit the association. While working at the Drama Centre, he was invited to work at the Paris Odéon - Chekhov’s Ivanov in 1999 and Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler with Isabelle Huppert in 2004 – and has worked several times at the Avignon Festival: a Chekhov Trilogy - Ivanov, La Mouette and Cercle de Famille pour Trois sœurs – in the same place with the same actors in 2000; Platonov in La Cour d’Honneur in 2002 and re-programmed the following year; Maxime Gorki’s Barbares in 2006. His work has been the subject of important tours in France and abroad. Alongside his major theatrical forms, Eric Lacascade explored other more experimental tracks, like musicals, with actress Norah Krief or on the initiative of Daria Lippi, the project Pour Penthésilée, a solo show. He left the Caen Comédie in 2007 and continued to work as part of the Cie Lacascade. Chekhov’s Uncle Vania was presented as part of the Vilnius 2009, European Capital of Culture. In 2010, it was Maxime Gorki’s Les Estivants at the Brittany Théâtre National, and Moliere’s Tartuffe in 2011. Since 2013, he has been the associate artist at the National Theatre of Brittany and is the pedagogical head of its school – education and transmission are part and parcel of his theatre work. Martino Faggiani was born in Rome, where he studied piano, harpsichord and composition at the Santa Cecilia Conservatory. He has been assistant to Norbert Balatsch at the Accademia di Santa Cecilia since 1992, working on all the institution’s productions and on several occasions led performances of concerts.