PASCAL ROPHÉ, conductor

Programme:

Claude Debussy (arrangement: Alain Altinoglu): Suite from the opera Pelléas and Mélisande

Richard Wagner (arrangement: Lorin Maazel): 'The Ring' Without Words, orchestral excerpts from The Ring of the Nibelung tetralogy, WWV 86

 

Is it possible to reduce The Ring of the Nibelung, the most famous opera cycle in history (written by opera giant Richard Wagner), which lasts 15 hours, to the length of one Bruckner symphony? This is a question that many musicians have asked themselves, and famous conductors Leopold Stokowski and Lorin Maazel offered congenial solutions! Maazel's attempt to 'condense' the magnificent Wagner tetralogy (The Rhinegold, The Walküre, Siegfried and Twilight of the Gods) resulted in the creation of the fascinating project 'Ring’ Without Words: without changing or adding a single note, the great conductor strung the most famous parts of all four Wagner's operas into a kind of suite, starting with the impressive first scene of The Rhinegold until the last bars of Twilight of the Gods. From Wagner's monumental, majestic and sonically powerful music, inspired by timeless Nordic and German sagas and myths, the 'Ring’ Without Words brings the "best of the best”, operatic gems, such as the energetic Ride of the Valkyires (The Walküre), the idyllic Forest Murmurs (Siegfried) or the spooky-dramatic musical representation of the downfall of Valhalla and the gods in the raging fire (Twilight of the Gods). Wagnerian opera had a great influence on Claude Debussy. His opera Pelléas et Mélisande, a masterpiece of fin de siècle music, is the first major and completely original departure from the dominant Wagnerian opera music that deeply influenced the French genius, the "father of musical impressionism". The suite from the opera designed by conductor Alain Altinoglu reflects all the features of Debussy's music: phantasmagoric, opulent and rich orchestral colours and an almost synesthetic experience of the beautiful and refined atmospheres of the opera's dreamlike settings translated into music. It will be a magnificent, ecstatic feast of orchestral sound, which can rarely be experienced live, performed by the great Croatian Radio and Television Symphony Orchestra and master conductor Pascal Rophé!