Ancient myths and heroes

"Mythes et héroes de l'antiquité" (Ancient myths and heroes)

One immediately thinks of the Baroque era, where Lully, Rameau, Gluck, and Purcell set to music the happy or tragic destinies of Iphigenia, Hippolytus and Aricia, Orpheus and Eurydice, Dido and Aeneas... Then, in the 19th century, melodies, grand operas, and operettas coexist, in which composers mock the gods: Orpheus in the Underworld or Offenbach's La belle Hélène, Victor Massé's comic opera Galathée, or Hervé's composition Le retour d'Ulysse.

This program, conceived for the Arènes de Senlis, for two singers (soprano and baritone) and piano, is built around excerpts from operas and operettas, alternating between dramatic and humorous moments, as well as Lieder and melodies by Gounod, Fauré, Roussel, Poulenc, Chausson, Schubert, Zemlinsky, Kodaly, Vaughan Williams, based on poems by Goethe, Verlaine, or ancient Greek poems translated into French (Theocritus, Anacreon). It also includes solo piano pieces inspired by ancient gods (Brahms, Szimanovsky)...

What could be more delightful than having Jupiter, Orpheus, Eurydice, Theseus, Oedipus, Dido, Ganymede, Pygmalion, and Galatea sing in the Arènes de Senlis, where concerts and theatrical performances were already held long ago...

Armelle Humbert, soprano
Laurent Bourdeaux, baritone
Aurélie Courtot, piano