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Opéra de Lille

Opéra national du Rhin

Conductor

Conductor (+3)

Emmanuelle Haïm

Stage director

Stage director (+2)

Bruno Ravella

Set designer

Set designer (+1)

Annemarie Woods

Costume designer

Revival Stage Director

John Wilkie

Lighting designer

D M Wood

Assistant Conductor

Simon Proust

Countertenor (+4)

Kangmin Justin Kim

Soprano (+3)

Marie Lys

Galatea

Paul-Antoine Benos-Djian

Ulisse

Contralto (+5)

Delphine Galou

Calipso

Bass (+4)

José Coca Loza

Polifemo

Soprano (+2)

Florie Valiquette

Nerea

Le Concert d'Astrée

Orchestra

Choreographer

Richard Caquelin

Assistant Set Designer

Assistant Costume Designer (+2)

Becky-Dee Trevenen

Assistant Costume Designer

Chorusmaster

Pianist (+4)

Elisabeth Geiger

Chorusmaster (+4)

Benoît Hartoin

Chorusmaster (+1)

Mathieu Dupouy

Language Coach

Coach (+1)

Arabella Cortesi

Actor

Laurène Andrieu

Extras

Singer

Antoine Berthe

Pierre Cartonnet

Pacôme Coulibaly

Jordan Dewet

Bruno Roseau

We know about blind love, but it can also be one-eyed... Coveting without success the beautiful nymph Galatea, the cyclops Polyphemus, son of Poseidon, is ready to let his fury burst forth. But the boundless courage of a shepherd in love and an adventurer named Ulysses will thwart the plans of the titan...

Sometimes we measure ourselves by the yardstick of our rival. If the shepherd Acis is ready to confront the formidable Polyphemus, the composer Nicola Porpora had to stand comparison with Handel. At the beginning of the 1730s, the composer of Rinaldo still dominated a London scene passionate about opera seria . But Porpora had a match! Written for the two most famous castratos of the time, Senesino and Farinelli, his Polyphemus borrows from Homer and Ovid to better unleash passions, in the air as well as on the seas. To the couple formed by Ulysses and Calypso, he associates that of Acis and Galatea, to better tell the troubled love of nymphs for mortals… And the anger of a wounded superman.

In Bruno Ravella's staging, the monsters and pyrotechnics dear to the 18th century have become technicolor escapes. Magics like those conceived in Hollywood in the 1950s, with their saturated colors, their exoticism, their tricks that are both refined and naive. In this world of strong emotions and high contrasts, Emmanuelle Haïm, at the head of the Concert d'Astrée, returns here to her favorite period and brilliantly brings out the colors of a pearl of the baroque repertoire, still unpublished in France.

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