Roberto Alagna

Roberto Alagna

CONCERT PHILHARMONIE DE PARIS

 

Programm

 

FIRST PART

 

Giacomo Puccini
"Viene la sera"
Intermezzo - extract of Manon Lescaut
 
Amilcare Ponchielli
"Cielo e mar"
 
Giacomo Puccini
"Vissi d'arte"
 
Jules Massenet
« Thaïs !... C´est toi, mon père »
Suit of the ballet : La  Navarraise
 
 
SECOND PART
 
Giuseppe Verdi
"È dessa !"
Sinfonia - extract of Nabucco
 
Gustave Charpentier
"Depuis le jour où je me suis donnée" - extract of Louise
 
Friedrich von Flotow
"Ach, so fromm"
 
Pietro Mascagni
Intermezzo - extract of Cavalleria Rusticana
"Tu qui, Santuzza ?"

 

BIS

 

Cielito Lindo

Santa Lucia

La Spagnola

Funiculi Funicula (2fois)

Heure Exquise (a capella)

Heure exquise (taken up in improvisation by the orchestra at the end)

 

 

 

Performance

 

Philharmonie de Paris

 

Monday 14th of februar

 

 

 

Cast

 

Aleksandra Kurzak - Soprano

 

Roberto Alagna - Ténor

 

 

David - Gimenez Carreras - Conductor

 

 

Belgian National Orchestra

 

 

Press review

 

Toute la Culture - Paul Fourier - 02/14/2022

 
❝Aleksandra Kurzak and Roberto Alagna set the Philharmonie de Paris on fire. Offering an ambitious program to their audience, the couple – he masterful she fabulous - counterbalances the pieces drawn from tragedies with a joyful celebration during the encore. A particularly welcome evening. The smiles of the audience at the end of the concert were the best proof that this evening did them a world of good ❞.
 
EXCERPTS (translated from French): « For Valentine's Day, Aleksandra Kurzak and Roberto Alagna celebrate tragic and joyful love and set fire to the Philharmonie de Paris. After a long absence in Paris, the couple offered an ambitious program to their public. The choice of pieces taken from tragedies was counterbalanced by a joyful celebration with the audience during the encore. A particularly welcome evening at this time.
 
[In the first duet 'Viene la sera' from Butterfly, the complementarity of the two artists is at its best. Roberto Alagna knows his Pinkerton by heart. He has played the character so often that he masters the psychology of this man […]. Thus, in the duet, he knows how to convey a form of brutality that shows that this is not a traditional Puccinian love duet, but that this duet is also the founding point of a one-sided love story that will end badly.
 
During this evening, Roberto Alagna performed two solos. The first one is the magnificent aria "Cielo e mar" from La Gioconda and it is, this time, an aria dedicated to love ("Come, oh woman, come to the caresses of life and love; here I wait for you with a panting heart") in which the tenor puts all his soul and all the lyricism of which he is capable. [...]
Two duets of anthology - The second part starts on a fabulous piece - and an unforgettable memory. We find the two artists as Elisabetta and Don Carlo, two roles they had embodied in October 2019 on the stage of the Opéra Bastille. At this moment, although performed in a recital, the interpretation is brought to its peak. In this astonishing duet that closes the love story between Carlo and his "mother", Alagna puts all the energy of despair in this character that has stuck to him since the Chatelet-1996. Twenty-six years later, the voice, although darkened, has kept its freshness and he still seems to be this impetuous young anti-hero who defies all authorities. She, fabulous, brings the sadness of the forced Queen and the palpable contrast in her high notes that have the tone of sobs wraps this moment of the mystery of her feelings. The moment is out of time, like a dream that takes us to the Spain of Charles V.
With Louise and Martha, we find the two artists in two typical concert arias. These are not their natural roles, but both demonstrate their technique and sensitivity. Ah, those pure, floating high notes for her! Ah, the clarity of his singing and words for him!
 
Then comes a work that is equally dear to both of them, Cavalleria Rusticana, which Alagna has often performed and in which Kurzak inaugurated his Santuzza last summer at the Verona Festival. […] From the very first words, he, transfigured, literally knows how to project brittle, scornful accents, carrying a violence whose audacity, even today, surprises. He is obviously masterful there, so much this role is, with Pagliaccio, one of his standards since few years and sticks to him. She, as she did in Verona, excludes for Santuzza any expression of vixen. She is indeed a wounded woman who stands up and who finds as only exit to curse her love. Here again, the moment is powerful. Alagna and Kurzak no longer exist: they have faded behind their characters and offer us a terrible domestic dispute, a condensed version of pure drama.
But a Valentine's evening could not end on such a dark tone. It is only light encore (7!) that will come to close it. That's right! On this festive evening, the audience was determined to participate. So they had fun singing the choruses of "Funiculi, Funicula", because on Valentine's Day, gifts like to go both ways. At the end of the scores, the enchanting (and mischievous) couple will finish on the accents - in Polish and French - of a Widow as joyful as was the excited audience, to whom the couple made forget all the constraints of the pandemic. And the smiles of the spectators at the end of the concert were the best proof that this evening did them a lot of good. »

 

 

La Verdad Noticias - Joaquín Gómez Gómez - 02/14/2022

 

 

❝ An historic evening, almost legendary … The perfect duo of Alkesandra Kurzak and filled the vast hall with rose petals, creating a wonderful operatic garden, filling us with joy and hope through their lyrical interpretations ❞ 
 
EXCERPTS (translated from Spanish): « […] With the coliseum [of a 2,400 spectators’ capacity] almost full, the famous soprano Aleksandra Kurzak and her beloved husband, the great tenor Roberto Alagna, have joined their voices on 14th February 2022 to offer us a wide-ranging recital of selected opera duets and arias. They were accompanied by the magnificent Belgian National Orchestra under the vibrant direction of David Giménez Carreras.
 
If Roberto Alagna, in his magnificent recital at the Salle Gaveau before Christmas, set the Champs-Élysées ablaze with light and colour, on this occasion, as a tribute to Saint Valentine, the patron saint of lovers, the perfect duo of Aleksandra Kurzak and Roberto Alagna filled the vast hall with rose petals, creating a wonderful operatic garden, filling us with joy and hope through their lyrical interpretations.
 
They began with the great duet from Madama Butterfly, sung with all its splendor, feeling and loving passion, rising to 'C' in an exultant way. Then, after the violin solo 'Meditation' from Massenet's opera Thaïs, they sang their duet very naturally and full of religious feelings. In the second part, after Don Carlo's duet with Elisabetta at the top of its splendor, came the magical moment of the evening, a lyrical-veristic singing "de primo cartello" as they interpreted in a very extroverted and passionate way 'in crescendo' the legendary duet of Santuzza and Turiddu from Mascagni's star opera, the famous 'Cavalleria rusticana'. At the end it sparkled.
In both parts the great performers sang several arias. And so Kurzak moved us with her Vissi d'arte from Puccini's Tosca, presented as an authentic prayer, natural and pious, without shouting, and placed in a single fiato (breath), on the sharp 'B flat' „messa di voce”, as if remembering Caballé or Callas. […] For his part, the tenor maestro Roberto Alagna surprised us by singing M'appari from Flotow's 'Martha', in the original language (German), while we have always known it in Italian. We could enjoy his absolute mastery of the high notes, especially on the vowel 'i'. His final phrase, 'Si, morro', with a magnificent 'i', could be a dream of a journey to paradise with boundless emotions. Then, in his famous 'racconto' (narrative) Cielo e mar from Ponchielli's Gioconda, his exposition of the first part had the magic of the great evenings, but as Prince of Santafior in the work, he sang the second part in an aristocratic way, in accordance with the original score. In "Vieni al baccio" he rose brilliantly to a very bright B flat, but he did not follow the tradition of rising in the final "Ah vien, Ah vien" in the style of Gayarre, the creator of the role, or Bergonzi at the Liceu in Barcelona in 1971, with an encore added.
 
For the encores, Kurzak and Alagna chose light or Neapolitan songs which they sang with great enthusiasm and brilliance, above all 'Funiculi, Funicula', where the great voice of the excellent artist - tenor Alagna filled every corner of the large stage space, whose acoustics are not adapted for operatic singing.
 
[…] A very interesting concert, at which outstanding performers were kind enough to pose with me for the presentation of the book "Great Operatic Moments II". It was a historic evening, almost legendary. »
 

Gallery

 



12/01/2022