Program presentation Amarillis at the Antigua Festival in Madrid
11 musicians and mezzo-soprano Stéphanie d’Oustrac
Artistic direction Héloïse Gaillard
duration 70 minutes, no intermission
Creation at the Belt, Entraigues on the Sorgue (2020)
Check-in at La Courroie, release of the disc 24 July 2020 (Harmony of the World)
Diamond - Opera Magazine
3 ❤❤❤– Opera Forum
France Music Record
Gramophone Recommends
BBC Music Choice
Supports : The belt, Adami, Harmony of the World, CRR Ambronay
Broadcast locations : Festival d’Ambronay, Grand Theater of Angers, Rennes Opera, the Belt, Zug Theater (Suisse), Metz Arsenal, Grand Avignon Opera House, Nieul Abbey on the Autise, Dominicans of Haute-Alsace, Royal Theater of La Monnaie (The Mint), Auditorium of the Louvre Museum…
Note of intent from Héloïse Gaillard
I imagined this new program to celebrate with Stéphanie d’Oustrac, our accomplice for a long time, THE 25 years of our Together.
After playing alongside Amarillis, Medea, Dido as well as Mary, in two programs and discographic releases, Stéphanie metamorphoses this time to become this iconic figure of the Baroque era : la Folie, who is embodied in the guise of a character with a thousand facets, excessive as much as extravagant, crossed by the diversity of human passions. Madness and Love are never far from each other. La Fontaine made it into a fable whose conclusion sums up well what unites them :
The public interest, that of the part,
The result finally from the supreme court
Was to condemn Madness
To serve as a guide to Love.
I wanted, in this program, make Madness heard in all its states and all its brilliance to better explore its different faces and highlight, under the aegis of baroque composers with very diverse inspirations, the characters associated with it.