A DAY IN PARIS: 1743 PREMIERES NOV. 21 | 8 PM DOWNTOWN SERIES PROGRAM PROGRAM À Notre-Dame Paris Au Concert Spirituel At Notre-Dame Paris At the Concert Hall FRANÇOIS COUPERIN (1668-1733) JEAN-MARIE LECLAIR (1697-1764) Leçons de Ténèbres — Première Leçon Concerto for Violin in A minor, Op. 7 No. 5 I. Vivace Chez monsieur de La Poplinière II. Largo At the Home of Mr. La Poplinière III. Allegro assai JEAN-PHILIPPE RAMEAU (1683-1764) Troisième Concert from Pièces de Au Théâtre de l’Opéra clavecin en Concerts At the Opera House I. La Lapoplinière RAMEAU II. La Timide Ritournelle from Hippolyte et Aricieie III. Premier Tambourin, Deuxième Tambourin en Rondeau Air de la Folie from Platée À la cour du Roi Louis XV At the Court of King Louis XV This concert is made possible in part by the Houston RAMEAU Endowment, The Brown Foundation, The Cullen Trust for the Cantate Orphée Performing Arts, and the City of Houston through Houston Arts Alliance. I. Récitatif: Par le charme vainqueur d’un chant harmonieux Thank you to The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston for allowing use of Jean Baptiste Camille Corot’s Orpheus Leading Eurydice II. Air: Que du bruit de tes hauts exploits from the Underworld (purchase was funded by the Agnes Cullen III. Récitatif: Mais son âme, sensible à la seule Eurydice Arnold Endowment Fund, 87.190). IV. Air: J’ai pour témoin de ma Victoire Thank you to the City of Houston, Houston First, V. Récitatif: À se penser flatteur, il s’émeut, il se trouble and the Wortham Center for helping to make this concert possible. VI. Air: En vain, par de nouveaux accords VII. Récitatif: inutiles regrets! à sa douleur mortelle Live streaming of this performance is produced by Bend Productions, Inc. VIII. Air: En amour, il est un moment MERCURY SEASON 20/21 MERCURY SEASON 20/21 | 2 MERCURY MUSICIANS ARTIST PROFILES Antoine Plante, Conductor ELENA VILLALÓN, SOPRANO Elena Villalón, Soprano Jonathan Godfrey, Violin Soprano Elena Villalón is a studio artist at Houston Grand Opera and was named a Grand Finals winner of the 2019 VIOLIN I Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions. Career highlights include Inès in Kevin Newbery’s new production Jonathan Godfrey, Concertmaster of La Favorite, and La Mujer in the world premiere of Sponsored by Randy & Cathy Crath Javier Martinez’ El Milagro de Recuerdo. Ms. Villalón was a Anabel Detrick Gerdine Young Artist with Opera Theater of St. Louis in the Kana Kimura 2018/2019 season, where she debuted as Barbarina in The Andrés González Marriage of Figaro and performed scenes as Lucia from Lucia di Lammermoor. She sang Marzelline in Fidelio with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, where she VIOLIN II earned the company’s Barbara and Stanley Richman Award. She now appears Oleg Sulyga, Principal in recital with Houston Grand Opera and the Cincinnati Song Initiative, and has also performed in a variety of digital concerts. The soprano was engaged to Sponsored by Mrs. Andrew Wilkomirski portray Sophie in Werther, Clorinda in La Cenerentola, and to cover the role of Maria Lin Bess in HGO’s Breaking the Waves before these productions were cancelled due Joanna Becker to the pandemic. During the 2020/2021 season, she will perform in HGO online Hannah Watson productions of Vinkensport, The Snowy Day, and Hansel and Gretel. VIOLA JONATHAN GODFREY, VIOLIN Kathleen Carrington, Principal Matthew Carrington A founding member of Mercury, violinist Jonathan Godfrey has served as Concertmaster and violin soloist since the CELLO orchestra’s inception. A graduate of Rice University, Mr. Courtenay Vandiver Pereira, Principal Godfrey is also currently Assistant Concertmaster of the Sonya Matoussova Houston Grand Opera Orchestra. He has performed with many ensembles including the Houston Symphony, the Houston Bach Society, the IRIS Chamber Orchestra, and the VIOLONE River Oaks Chamber Orchestra. Deborah Dunham, Principal He has also served as Concertmaster of the Sinfonietta Cracovia, The Houston THEORBO Grand Opera Orchestra, The American Radio Chamber Orchestra, Orchestra Paul Morton X, and the Pacific Music Festival Orchestra. He has concertized in the US and abroad, performing solo and chamber music recitals in Boston, Chicago, HARPSICHORD/ORGAN Cleveland, Houston, Interlochen, and Kansas City, as well as Guanajuato, León, Mario Aschauer Monterrey, and Santiago, Mexico; Yokohama, Kyoto, Matsumoto, Sapporo, Date, and Tokyo, Japan; and Quito and Ambato, Ecuador. A music educator as well, Mr. Godfrey has taught for twenty five years, including positions on the violin faculty of both the Interlochen Arts Camp and the Rocky Mountain Summer Conservatory. Mr. Godfrey is also the co-director of Prelude Music Classes for Children, a school of music for young children and their families LYNN WYATT CHAIR that teaches the research-based music and movement program Music Together® and a co-founder of the Prelude Music Foundation. MERCURY SEASON 20/21 MERCURY SEASON 20/21 | 3 ARTIST PROFILES PROGRAM NOTES ANTOINE PLANTE, ARTISTIC DIRECTOR The pieces on this program quickness of the recitative style LYNN WYATT CHAIR represent an illuminating of, say, Handel or Mozart is the assortment of both French musical most familiar to us. The style Praised by audiences and musicians alike for his genres and Parisian sites of musical here instead preserves an earlier, conducting verve and innovative programming, patronage during the first half of seventeenth-century approach Antoine Plante has garnered praise for bringing the eighteenth century. Opera, to recitative that spreads the text music to life.“Plante led his orchestra, the choir cantata, concerto, instrumental trio, out for rhetorical effect. Also and the soloists in an impressive account of the and Tenebrae music represent not distinctive is the French style: Requiem: authoritative, vigorous, emotionally only the theater, court, and church appoggiaturas (a form of accented intense, at times utterly gripping,’’writes Charles genres, but also private and public embellishment) and similar sliding Ward of the Houston Chronicle. venues of musical performance that vocal ornaments create piquant illustrate the depth and vitality of dissonances that further enhance Plante is a founder of Mercury Chamber Orchestra, a Houston, Texas- Parisian musical culture at this time. the expressive power of Couperin’s based orchestra that has experienced remarkable audience growth over Paris had been a center of musical setting. The larger structure of its twenty-year history. In that capacity, Plante has become known for innovation since the emergence the Leçons introduces each of the his deftness in balancing a great works repertoire with lesser-known of the Notre Dame School in the verses, by a letter from the Hebrew and unknown pieces. His exciting musicality has made him an audience late 12th century, so that we can alphabet, Aleph through He, as in favorite, as evidenced by Mercury’s fast-growing audience. well imagine François Couperin’s the Bible. Couperin sets each letter Leçons de Ténèbres reverberating in a long vocalise-like melisma that He is also a passionate supporter of classical music education and has in the same space as had then leads to the recitative verse led Mercury’s educational outreach program, a significant effort that medieval polyphony. Numerous that follows. includes classroom music education in underserved schools, master French composers of Couperin’s classes for school orchestras, and performances for school children. era – Charpentier, Delalande, Jean-Philippe Rameau’s Pièces Plante is extremely versatile. At ease with the great romantic and Clérambault, Corrette – set the de Clavecin en Concert alters modern composers, he also loves to perform Classical and Baroque Lamentations of the Prophet the venue from public to private music with period instrument orchestras. Experienced in directing Jeremiah during Holy Week to and the music from sacred to mourn the crucifixion of Jesus. secular, while also introducing the orchestral pieces as well as staged works, he has conducted several Couperin followed the pattern of composer’s unique contribution to operas and ballets. He collaborated with noted French director Pascal setting three readings for each of the Baroque trio. Between the mid- Rambert to produce a modern staged version of Lully’s Armide, which Holy Wednesday, Holy Thursday, seventeenth and mid-eighteenth was performed to critical acclaim in Paris and Houston. He worked with and Holy Friday, but only those for centuries, the trio ensemble of two Dominic Walsh Dance Theater to create a score for Dominic Walsh’s Holy Wednesday survive. The first treble-range instruments over a ballet Romeo and Juliet. An innovative artist, he has premiered new of these is presented here. basso continuo dominated chamber works such as The Crimson Prince with Director Denis Plante, and music repertory. The trio sonatas Loving Clara Schumann with Director Tara Faircloth. Leçons de Ténèbre originated as of Arcangelo Corelli, in particular, Under his leadership, Mercury has grown to be an important arts readings, and Couperin’s settings inspired an international fever for organization in Houston, offering over 50 concerts per season in of Jeremiah’s verses reflect this trios, and in France, Couperin was many different venues, making great music accessible to the whole in their recitative style. Although an early and ardent promoter, using predominantly syllabic and the trio medium to merge both community. through-composed, Couperin’s French and Italian characteristics. Plante has been