Patrie! Duets from French Romantic Operas

Kosice Philharmonic Orchestra, Talpain, Didier

94321

In the 19th century, Paris consolidated its position as the leading city of opera. Composers from Germany (Meyerbeer, Paer and Wagner, who famously had a very unhappy time there) and Italy (Rossini, Verdi, Spontini, Cimarosa and Cherubini) worked there alongside native composers, vying for public favour in the years following the French Revolution. Opera was performed in Paris’s major theatres (the Opera, Opera-Comique, Theatre-Lyrique and Theatre-Italien) and divided into two varieties – serious works on heroic themes and lighter works based on the lives of ordinary people or events. This divide developed into two fully defined styles: opera comiques and drama lyrique.

Works:
• Gounod: Pauline ! Dieux !... Sévère !...
• Gounod: Polyeucte
• Halévy: Charles VI
• Halévy: Eh ! bien, puisque les morts au plaisir sont rebelles (from Charles VI)
• Massenet: Ah ! Comme ils déchirent mon coeur…
• Massenet: Eve
• Massenet: Homme, tu n’es plus seul !...
• Massenet: Le Mage
• Paladilhe: Ah ! Maintenant à moi !...
• Paladilhe: Patrie!
• Saint-Saëns: Henry VIII
• Saint-Saëns: Ô mon maître et seigneur…
• Thomas, Ambroise: Ciel ! Vous chantiez à l’instant fort bien…
• Thomas, Ambroise: Le caïd

CD x 1

Brilliant Classics

2019-11-13

5028421943213