Premiere 2018

Campra was the most important opera composer between Lully and Rameau. The success of Europe Galante in 1697 is a tribute to this founding work of the Opera-Ballet, mixing dance and opera in the opulent divertissements. Campra takes the spectator on a voyage into the amorous nations of Europe. France moves to the rhythm of the genteel heartbeat of the shepherds and the shepherdesses, Italy refined but jealous and violent and finally the Sultan who has to soothe the criminal bitterness of the Sultana, who has been ousted by a beautiful slave… Spicy musical banter during the reign of Louis XIV, recovered by Les Nouveaux Caracteres directed by Sebastien d'Herin.

The church bells that he heard aged four, walking in the streets of Zurich with his parents, were the point of departure for the young Swiss pianist Francesco Piemontesi who still remembers this moment as a shock that violently brought home the power of music. The sonic beauty and harmonic richness in the tolling of the bells set something off in his unconscious, sparking a lifelong quest for the timbres and sonorities that he is so deft at bringing to life on his piano. At the age of five, he tried to reproduce the sound of the bells on a little toy piano; at twelve, he played Grieg's Concerto in A Minor and started to perform in public. But two years later he became aware of the limits of his technical abilities and also of the strange tensions wracking his body.