Philippe Sly

Prompted by Don Alfonso, a cynical old philosopher, two young idealists decide to put their lovers’ fidelity to the test. But love will teach them a bitter lesson: those who believe themselves phoenixes and goddesses will discover the desires of the flesh… In 1790, one year after the French Revolution, in what would be their final collaboration, Mozart and Da Ponte conduct a scientific investigation of love. With six singers doubled by six dancers, Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker depicts the desire which unites and separates human beings, like the interactions between atoms that, once broken, make new bonds possible

When Jephthah, a biblical parable adapted from the Book of Judges, begins, the people of Israel are under the yoke of neighbouring nations which pillage and oppress them. Jephthah, destined to become their saviour, has grown up in the desert until becoming a powerful military leader. On leaving for battle, he swears to the god Jehovah that he will sacrifice the first person he meets on his way home. Alas, as he returns victorious, it is Iphis, his only daughter, who comes to meet him… Claus Guth directs this oratorio in which grief‑stricken voices interweave as they confront an apocalyptic situation.

Considered by some to be the greatest opera ever written, Don Giovanni was the second product of an incredibly fruitful collaboration between two geniuses: the legendary W.A. Mozart and the talented Italian librettist Lorenzo da Ponte. Based on Molière's Don Juan, the two-act dramma giocoso premiered in October 1787 at Prague's state theater to rave reviews. The 2017 Festival d'Aix-en-Provence brought Mozart's fabulously devious work to the stage once more in a production by stage director Jean-François Sivadie. Starring Philippe Sly (Don Giovanni), Nahuel di Pierro (Leporello), and Eleonora Buratto (Donna Anna), the excellent performance featured the acclaimed maestro Jérémie Rhorer at the head of the period instrument ensemble Le Cercle de l'Harmonie.

Quel est ce feu qui pousse Don Giovanni à séduire, à soumettre, à conquérir les femmes une à une, avec la fièvre et la froideur du prédateur ferrant sa proie, à poursuivre à travers elles un obscur objet qui toujours se dérobe à lui ? Pour sa deuxième collaboration avec Da Ponte, Mozart devait marquer au fer rouge l’histoire de l’opéra et hanter à jamais la culture européenne. Kierkegaard nous invitait à écouter dans ce Dissolu puni « le chuchotement de la tentation, le tourbillon de la séduction, le silence de l’instant ». Le cycle Mozart-Da Ponte se poursuit avec Don Giovanni confié à Ivo Van Hove. Habitué à interroger le sens politique des œuvres, le metteur en scène réalise, après Boris Godounov, sa deuxième mise en scène pour l’Opéra de Paris.

This release from Erato consists of highlights from the live concert of April 15, 2017 in the city of Strasbourg in eastern France. A magnificent cast of singers, predominantly Francophone, assembled under the baton of John Nelson, an acknowledged master of Berlioz’s music who has conducted Les Troyens more frequently than anyone else over a period of more than 40 years; he made his name with the piece when he led performances at New York’s Metropolitan Opera in 1974 and enjoyed great acclaim for a production at the Frankfurt Opera shortly before the Strasbourg concerts.

Mozart's opera The Marriage of Figaro performed live (and streamed) on the February 4, 2021.

After last season’s The Dante Project, the Paris Opera continues to explore the music of contemporary composer Thomas Adès with the French premiere of The Exterminating Angel. Inspired by Luis Buñuel’s 1962 surrealist film, which offered a scathing critique of the bourgeoisie, the work begins with a dinner among upper-class friends in a plush mansion after an opera performance. But, gradually, a mysterious force prevents the fifteen guests from leaving the reception. In this confinement for no apparent reason, drawn out over several days, the veneer of propriety cracks, revealing the worst of human nature. Thomas Adès has written a rich and tense score, amplifying the libretto’s strange atmosphere with unusual instruments such as the ondes Martenot. The Paris Opera has entrusted the staging of this huis-clos to Calixto Bieito. The director has long been fascinated by Buñuel’s universe.

Berlioz’s whimsical and nostalgic take on Shakespeare’s great comedy Much Ado About Nothing graces the stage of Glyndebourne in Laurent Pelly’s astute 2016 production. Italian maestro Antonello Manacorda leads the London Philharmonic in Berlioz’s brilliant score.