Le Comte Ory
Gioachino Rossini
A late work by Rossini exuding comic lightness, but highlighting the elegance of the French spirit. A perfect role for Cyrille Dubois.
Cyrille Dubois | Count Ory
Sara Blanch | Countess Adèle
Ambroisine Bré | Isolier
Monica Bacelli | Ragonde
Nicola Ulivieri | Tutor
Sergio Villegas-Galvain | Raimbaud
Marielou Jacquard | Alice
Lucas Pauchet, Violette Clapeyron, Pierre Barret-Mémy | 3 Coryphées
Patrick Lange | direction
Orchestre de chambre de Paris
Chœur de Chambre de Rouen et Chœur Sorbonne Université | direction Frédéric Pineau
Premiered at the Académie royale de musique (Opéra de Paris) on 20 August 1828, Le Comte Ory, the musician’s penultimate opera, is a very atypical work. In 1828, Rossini, who had been living in Paris since 1824, was 36 years old and had already amassed an impressive catalogue of 34 operas. He was the most famous composer in Europe at that time. The work is frivolous and occasionally comic, yet musically subtle and refined. The libretto, written in part by Eugène Scribe, is inspired by an 1817 vaudeville based on an eleventh-century Picard romance recounting how the libertine Comte Ory hatched a plan to sneak into a convent and seduce the abbess while his knights turn their attentions to the nuns. But things do not go to plan. In musical terms, Rossini successfully uses recycled material (certain elements from Le Voyage à Reims) and assimilates the French style. This is an ironic but subtle Rossini, who will be ably championed by Cyrille Dubois.
Coproduction Les Grandes Voix | Théâtre des Champs-Elysées
