Baroque Opera at 29th Festival de Musique Ancienne de Callas

2018 Festival de Musique Ancienne de Callas ©YesICannes.com

The Festival de Musique Ancienne de Callas will present from July 18th to 25th, 2019, superb works taking us into the world of the Baroque Opera, performed by prestigious ensembles.

For 29 years, the Festival de Musique Ancienne de Callas has been bringing together outstanding ensembles of performers exploring the vast repertoire of Baroque works, written from the Renaissance to the Classical period. For the 2019 edition, Françoise Barre, President of the Festival, takes us into the world of the Baroque opera, which favors emotion, perception, inconstancy and paradox for a festival of ancient music with old instruments, played by prestigious high quality ensembles.

Magic and wonder of baroque opera

Born in Italy at the beginning of the 17th century, the opera first drew its inspiration from Italian madrigals, but also from masquerades, court ballets, intermezzi, and other court performances mixing singing with other arts. The baroque opera often combines tragic and comical, even burlesque, aspects and involves magic and wonder, multiplies the characters and musical genres.

The program of the 2019 Festival de Musique Ancienne de Callas

Thursday July 18: Radiant Venice – Antonio Vivaldi
Callas, Church N.D. de l’Assomption at 9:00 pm
Ensemble Unisoni
A soprano and instrumental ensemble

The astonishing voice of Théo Imart, soprano and counter-tenor, a very promising young singer, accompanied by the Unisoni Ensemble, will perform opera arias for the viola, the fetish voice of the time, as well as an opening and a concerto grosso for strings and continuo, another style that Vivaldi mastered perfectly. Then, the famous Nisi Dominus, sacred work that could be a small single-voice oratorio…

Ensemble Unisoni ©DR

Sunday, July 21: The Fairy Queen by the English master Henry Purcell
Figanières – Saint-Michel Church at 6:00 pm
By the Baroque Ensemble of Monaco
10 solo singers and 9 instruments – Direction Matthieu Peyrègne

The most magical of semi-operas. Written in 1692, The Fairy Queen combines Shakespeare‘s Midsummer Night’s Dream, which has been amputated from part of the text with some masks, a name used to describe musical interludes combining music, songs, ballets and grandiose scenography. Purcell‘s musical component displays exquisite sensitiveness and inexhaustible inventiveness.

Ensemble Baroque de Monaco ©DR

Tuesday, July 23: Il Canto Alla Viola Da Gamba by Claudio Monteverdi
Claviers – Saint-Sylvestre Church at 9:00 pm
By the Comet Musicke Ensemble
A soprano and 4 musicians including 2 singers

Singer, violist and violist, Claudio Monteverdi was the father of opera. A young prodigy from Cremona, the pupil of Marco Antonio Ingegneri publishes his first collection of sacred pieces at only fifteen years old. He then traveled throughout Italy to develop his career as an instrumentalist and composer. In Florence, he hears the first opera essays that will inspire him for his famous Orfeo.

Ensemble Comet Musicke ©DR

Thursday, July 25: Eros, Heroes and Heroines – Excerpts from operas by Haendel, Cavalli, Gluck
Callas – N.-D. de l’Assomption Church at 9:00 pm
By the company Baroques Graffiti
Soprano, counter-tenor, harpsichord and baroque cello

Muriel Tomao & Alain Aubin ©DR

The Baroque era marks the return of the myths of Antiquity with their heroes vulnerable to the vicissitudes and torments of life. Loves are often frustrated, if not impossible, especially when divinities succumb to the charms of human beings or vice versa. The music echoes these forbidden desires, describing with sensuality the passions and affects.

Callas, a stopover on the Gorges du Verdon road

Perched between sea and mountain on the hills of Provence, surrounded by a terroir dedicated to the vine and olive, Callas is a first step on the way to the Gorges du Verdon. In addition to the Festival de Musique Ancienne de Callasl, the village owes its fame from the famous Hostellerie des Gorges de Pennafort and its Michelin-starred chef Philippe Da Silva, a haven of peace and gastronomy in an exceptional landscape overlooked by the Pennafort Chapel, the place of an annual pilgrimage. In addition to a quality food, gastronomy and lifestyle are well represented in the village: the Moulin de Callas is pressing a renowned virgin olive oil, Gold Medal in Paris. Gold Medal also for “à l’ancienne” Vinegar with the Cru Confidentiel of the Vinaigrerie du Clos Saint Antoine, soon presented in an restored chapel from the XIIth century. Finally, just as famous, the wines from the Bastide du Plan, also Gold Medal, are sublimating the dishes for the gastronomes in the region.