It is rare to see such a tour-de-force of musical talent featured together in one evening at Elizabethtown College. Featured on Monday, Oct. 14 at 7:30 p.m. in Leffler Chapel and Performance Center, the chamber orchestra “Les Violons du Roy” was conducted by internationally renowned director Bernard Labadie and featured Musical America’s 2009 vocalist of the year, Stephanie Blythe. The concert was sponsored by Gretna Music at Etown.
Les Violons du Roy is a Quebec-based chamber orchestra that is both regular to Canada and tours internationally in the U.S., Central and South America, Europe and Africa. The group is made up of 15 players, mostly strings, and specializes in pieces from the Baroque and Classical periods in addition to a repertoire in Romantic and Modern works. The group’s name is borrowed from the famous string orchestra that served French kings from 1626-1761.
In addition to touring internationally, Les Violons du Roy have performed and recorded with artists such as David Daniels, Marc-André Hamelin and Karina Gauvin. The ensemble has performed with the choir “La Chappelle de Québec” and has recorded masterworks together such as Handel’s “Messiah” and Mozart’s “Requiem”.
An expert of music in the 17th and 18th centuries, Bernard Labadie has been invited to conduct pieces with the New York and Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestras, the Philadelphia, Cleveland and Concert Orchestras, symphony orchestras of Chicago, Boston, San Francisco and Montreal and the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra. In addition, he helped to curate and lead the New York Philharmonic in the Bach Variations Festival this past spring. Labadie founded Les Violons du Roy.
Mezzo-soprano vocalist Blythe is considered to be at the pinnacle of her profession, unquestioned among the finest mezzo-sopranos of the time and praised by the New York Times: “With each performance the American mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe gives, it becomes increasingly apparent that a once-in-a-generation opera singer has arrived.”
Blythe starred as Fricka in the Metropolitan Opera’s $16 million production “Ring” cycle in 2012. Live from the Lincoln Center, she starred in the national television broadcast of “Stephanie Blythe: We’ll Meet Again – The Songs of Kate Smith” and another live theater broadcast of the Met’s “Il Trittico” and “Orfeo ed Euridice” has garnered much praise in the vocal performance community.
Les Violons du Roy opened the concert with Georg Philipp Telemann’s “Orchestral Suite in C major, TWV 55:C6.” The group featured three oboists, a bassoonist, a harpsichord, several violins and violas, a pair of cellos and a double bassist. In this eight-part movement, both the group and the conductor were full of energy and vibrancy. After Telemann, Blythe commanded the stage as Les Violons du Roy accompanied her with Franz Joseph Haydn’s “Arianna a Naxos, Hob. XXXVIb:2.” This movement depicts the tale of Arianna, King Mino’s daughter, who fell in love with Athenian prince Theseus. After she helped him to kill the Minotaur of the Labyrinth, Theseus took Arianna away on his boat, only to abandon her on the island of Naxos on the way to Athens, leaving her alone in her despair.
In the second half of the concert, Les Violons du Roy opened with Johann Sebastian Bach’s “Orchestral Suite No. 4 in D major, BWV 1069,” a five-movement, elaborate, French-influenced piece. Following, Blythe returned to the stage with George Frederic Handel’s “Excerpts from Guilio Cesare, HWV 17,” acknowledged today as one of Handel’s best operas. This piece tells the story of Ptolemy XII, ruler of Egypt and his sister Celopatra’s attempts to gain the favor of Cesare set in 48 B.C. As a result of Cleopatra’s charming of Cesare, she falls in love with him and turns against her brother. Blythe’s powerful vocals filled Leffler with her tales of woe and despair at the hands of love.
Gretna Music at Etown is sponsored by the Anne M. and Philip H. Glatfelter III Family Foundation.
