Invited for the first time to the festival, the Israeli-Brazilian conductor Debora Waldman, conducting the Orchester national de Lyon, takes us on a long journey from Rome to New York.
Les Escales by Jacques Ibert, detailed in the titles of the movements of the symphonic suite, invite you to travel the Mediterranean from Rome to Valencia in Spain, via Sicily and Tunisia. The music is picturesque and is alternately tinged with Orientalizing or Hispanic accents depending on the stages of the journey, without denying the heritage of a French aesthetic in the tradition of Saint-Saëns and Ravel.
The idea of course crossed his mind and invitations were not lacking, yet Berlioz never crossed the Atlantic, unlike Dvořák who moved there in 1892 to take up the post of director of the New York Conservatory. . The first work he composed on American soil, but also the last of his symphonies, the famous New World Symphony still enjoys the same success today as when it was first performed. Despite its subtle Indian and Irish inspirations and the temptation at the time to make it the basis of American national music, it remains deeply Slavic in essence.
Between two continents, the rich and powerful voice of the mezzo-soprano Aude Extrémo, experienced in the French repertoire, will rediscover the world of Charlotte Sohy, childhood friend of Nadia Boulanger and trained at the Schola Cantorum with Vincent d'Indy, through many of his melodies.
