conductor
Shanghai – December 16/Paris – January 21/Leipzig – June 23
“Bach‘s final large-scale vocal composition presents itself to us as the composer‘s artistic legacy. Like no other of Bach‘s works, the B-minor Mass is a consummation of his writing for the voice……“ Christoph Wolff
I am very excited to announce the Heifetz Baroque Vocal Workshop, a new and unique creative venture. As an added feature to the Heifetz International Music Institute, this program will offer a 10-day intensive course in baroque performance practice to singers and instrumentalists.
Having worked with period instrument ensembles in Europe for the past thirty years, and as founder and director of Opera Fuoco, a Paris-based young artists program and period instrument ensemble, I am looking forward to sharing the passion and artistry of 18th-century music in the US. For the inaugural season I will be collaborating with renowned Canadian soprano Dominique Labelle and we will focus on arias from Handel’s operas and oratorios. The stunning replica of Shakespeare’s Blackfriars theater in Staunton, Virginia is a perfect acoustic for this repertoire. The singers will be accompanied by experts in baroque style and students from the Institue who are expanding their understanding of baroque string technique.
https://www.heifetzinstitute.org/baroque/
Xerxes, composed in 1738 is one of Händel’s more celebrated operas and is often performed all over the world. Händel perfects in his score all the humour and melodrama in this adaptation of an old Venetian libretto by Nicolo Minato. Händel’s Xerxes has reached the immortality with the beautiful “Ombra mai fu”.
Season 2018/19
Date: 13th June 2019
Location: Philharmonie de Paris
https://philharmoniedeparis.fr/fr/activite/
2018/19
Opera Fuoco outreach concert
Anne Nguyen, choreographer
Aux côtés des solistes d’Opera Fuoco, de danseurs et d’un trio de jazz, des collégiens restituent un travail mené pendant deux ans, célébrant Bach tout en scat et en hip-hop.
Date: 23rd June 2019
Location: Thomaskirche, Leipzig
https://www.bachfestleipzig.de/en/
Closing the BachFest, David Stern will conduct Countertenor Andreas Scholl, baritone Laurent Naouri, members of the Opera Fuoco Young Artists and the Tölzer Knabenchor in St Thomas’s Church in Leipzig.
Date: 30th June 2019
Location: Staunton, VA
http://www.heifetzbaroque.org
From June 30, 2019 To July 9, 2019
David Stern will inaugurate this new program with guest faculty Dominique Labelle. Concert on July 9th in the Staunton Blackfriar’s Playhouse
David Stern's musical leadership is spread across three continents. Whether conducting a major symphony orchestra, baroque opera, teaching vocal master classes or defending cultural activities, Stern keeps his musicians, students and audiences riveted by sharing his strong musical convictions, his flexibility of approach and his belief that music is relevant and indeed essential in today's world. He is the founder and director of the Paris-based opera studio and period-instrument ensemble Opera Fuoco, as well as artistic adviser and chief conductor of the Shanghai Baroque Festival and chief conductor of the Palm Beach Opera in Florida.
“But what keeps this work alive is the music. Led by chief conductor David Stern, the performance was full of energy and personality, with vigorous duets and trios on stage and another fine outing by the orchestra, with creamy string playing and lively winds and brass. To the company’s credit, they took a traditional approach to the famous overture, leaving the curtain down and doing nothing to distract from the orchestra’s buoyant performance of Strauss’s great concert piece.”
David Fleshler – 23/03/2019
South Florida Classical Review
David Stern’s inspires the singers with all the necessary impulses, through constant attention to breathing and balance. He keeps the tension of the drama, thanks to the vigor and honed palette he unleashes from his chamber-size orchestra…. With vocal revelations of such a high level, one has to say that Opera Fuoco has surpassed its expectations. Mehdi Mahdavi, Opera Magazine, December 2018
« This weekend’s exuberant Palm Beach Opera premiere in Kravis Center uses a version created for the New York Philharmonic in 2004…. It’s a provocative and entertaining experience. David Stern’s buoyant musical direction buttresses … an exhilarating, superbly cast and imaginatively directed spectacle. »
Palm Beach Daily News, February 2018
`New releaseOPERA FUOCO – APARTÉ
Opera Fuoco’s latest recording features three former members of the Opera Fuoco studio, Lea Desandré, Natalie Perez, Chantal Santon and the Opera Fuoco orchestra conducted by David Stern. Berenice, che fai? is a compilation of late Baroque and early Classical works based principally on Metastasio’s famous 18th-century opera scene « Ah Berenice » from his opera Antigono.
Not only was the scene set to music by such composers as Haydn and Hasse, but also by Antonio Maria Mazzoni and Marianna Martinez, a composer of Spanish descent who was widely connected to the Viennese music scene and, for a time, lived in the same noble house as Metastasio and Haydn at Grosse Michelstrasse. The young Mozart’s concert aria « Berenice » and Johann Christian Bach’s aria « Confusa, smarrita» from the composer’s lost pasticcio opera, Berenice, as well as Hasse’s Antigono overture complement the program.
Cherubini, Boisselot, Hérold
Karine Deshayes / Opera Fuoco
Johann Christian Bach
Opera Fuoco / Zig-Zag Territoires / Outhere