This concert celebrates Opera Fuoco’s latest recoding and featuring three former members of Opera Fuoco’s Young Artists Studio and the Opera Fuoco orchestra conducted by David Stern. Berenice 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.
This innovative program takes selections from a wide variety of Bach’s cantatas to underline the composer’s affinity to nature. The wind, the rain and the snow all become apparent through orchestrations that paint the texts, offering us the Leipzig master’s version of the 4 seasons.
Fils du violoniste Isaac Stern, le plus français des chefs d’orchestre américains a une passion pour la musique et Paris. Il fête cette année les vingt ans d’Opera Fuoco, sa compagnie lyrique, pépinière de futurs virtuoses.