Olivier Simonnet
2021La Didone
Olivier Simonnet, Clément Hervieu-Léger
Anna Bonitatibus, Krešimir Špicer
Live performance by Les Arts Florissants at the Théâtre de Caen, recorded on 18 Octorber 2011. "One of the earliest operas deserving of the name, Didone is our first surviving musical version of the famous episode in Virgil's Aeneid where the Trojan Hero loves and then cruelly leaves the noble Dido." — from the DVD back cover
La Didone
La petite musique de Marie-Antoinette - Musique pour le théâtre de la Reine
Olivier Simonnet
Carole Le Page, Sophie Karthäuser
Near Trianon, the young Queen Marie-Antoinette built a small and secret theater, to act and sing herself with friends and family. The little theater is still there, newly restored. For the first time since the XVIII century, opera arias and symphonies by Gretry and Gossec, two of the queen's best composers, are played with ancient sets and instruments. A cycle of late 18th century music, programmed by the Baroque Music Center of Versailles, showcases the finest compositions of the musical repertoire played in Paris, under the influence of Marie-Antoinette, during the reign of Louis XVI. The Center joined with French-speaking musicians from different horizons, giving pride of place to the great French-Walloon composers, Andre-Modeste Gretry and Francois-Joseph Gossec. Both enjoyed major careers under Louis XVI: the first built his reputation on his comic operas, which Marie-Antoinette greatly admired; the second came to be considered the true father of the French symphony.
La Petite Musique de Marie-Antoinette: Music for the Queens Theater
Cendrillon
Olivier Simonnet, Laurent Pelly
Alice Coote, Joyce DiDonato
Massenet composed his opera about Cenerentola nearly 80 years after Rossini did his. And if you are looking for the outburst of the non-stop hilarity and the musical jokes of Rossini, you won't find it here. Also, while the Cendrillon was highly successful and popular in its time, it does not reach up to the artistic and musical levels offered by Massenet's other operas, like Manon, or Thais or Werther. Nevertheless, this is a delightful opera and it is well presented by The Royal Opera. Laurent Pelly created a ingenious setting with movable walls which are covered [in French] with the story of Cinderella, and which open and close book-like.
Cendrillon
Seiji Ozawa : retour au Japon
Olivier Simonnet
Seiji Ozawa, Nâzim Boudjenah
The 82-year-old Japanese Seiji Ozawa is one of the last remaining conductor legends of a golden era. Portrait of the ambitious maestro and educator who made the western repertoire really well known in Japan.
Seiji Ozawa — Back to Japan
Rameau Hippolyte et Aricie
Olivier Simonnet, Ivan Alexandre
Topi Lehtipuu, Anne-Catherine Gillet
Emmanuelle Haïm has established herself as one of the world’s leading performers, conductors and interpreters of Baroque repertoire, not only with Le Concert d’Astrée, the ensemble she founded in 2000, but with several of the world’s greatest orchestras. Known for her fresh and expressive approach to Baroque music, she has garnered critical acclaim and several international awards with her own ensemble, including Victoires de la Musique Classique, ECHOs, Gramophone Awards, and Grammy nominations.
Rameau Hippolyte et Aricie
Le comte Ory
Olivier Simonnet, Patrice Caurier
Javier Camarena, Cecilia Bartoli
Cecilia Bartoli stars in this ebullient Zurich Opera House production of Rossini’s first French-language comedy opera described by the international press as “pure, unadulterated fun” and reminds us of her comic gifts and her naturalness as a stage actor — as well as her total sympathy with the music of Rossini.
Le comte Ory
Beethoven Symphonies Nos. 4 & 7; Coriolan Overture
Olivier Simonnet
Vladimir Jurowski, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment
From the very first bars of the Coriolan Overture, it is apparent that this is Beethoven at his very best. Vladimir Jurowski and his absolutely brilliant Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment give us a new reading of old favorites that may well blow you out of your chair. There is plenty to discover: sounds and textures never heard before, an orchestral timbre as the composer himself may have envisaged and heard, incredible strength and cohesion and, on the other hand, sensitive nuances that often disappear under a blanket of massed strings in more traditional interpretations.
Beethoven Symphonies Nos. 4 & 7; Coriolan Overture
