Laurent Campellone's brazenly alive conducting runs through this piece with great spirit and carries away with it the musicians of the Paris chamber orchestra, obviously titillated.
Represented by
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Thomas Jolly, Stage Director
Thomas Jolly, Stage Director
Thomas Jolly, Stage Director
Fantasio at Paris Opéra Comique, Don Pasquale at Opéra de Québec, Werther at Opéra de Tours, Lakmé (in concert) at the Monte Carlo Opera and Theatre des Champs-Elysees, Offenbach´s La Périchole at Toulon and Dijon Operas, Auber´s Le Domino Noir at Lausanne Opera, Massenet´s Ariane in concert with Munich Radio Orchestra.
Werther at the Opéra de Lausanne, Romeo and Juliette Offenbach’s Fortunio, Madame Favart at Paris Opéra Comique, Les Contes d’Hoffmann at the Bolshoi Theatre and Angers-Nantes Opéra, Romeo and Juliette at the Royal Opera House Muscat, Lakmé at the Opéra d’Avignon, Orphée aux enfers and Barbe-bleue at the Opéra National de Lorraine and Angers-Nantes and Opéra de Colombia, Faust at the Opéra de Monte-Carlo and Novaya Opera Moscow, Les Pêcheurs de perles and Faust at the Madison Opera, Don Pasquale, Lucia di Lammermoor, Cleopatra, L’Etoile, Les Mamelles de Tiresias and La Voix humaine at the Opéra de Toulon, Les Troyens at the Manaus Opera, L’Enfance du Christ, La Périchole at the Opéra de Marseille, Il Barbiere di Siviglia at the Opéra National de Bordeaux, Lakmé, Don Quichotte at the National Opera of Bulgaria.
Verdi - Vespri Siciliani Overture
Verdi - Vespri Siciliani Overture
OFFENBACH Colorature with Jodie Devos & The Münchner Rundfunkorchester
OFFENBACH Colorature with Jodie Devos & The Münchner Rundfunkorchester
Berlioz, “Benvenuto Cellini”, Ouverture du Carnaval romain (extract)
Berlioz, “Benvenuto Cellini”, Ouverture du Carnaval romain (extract)
Gounod, “Roméo et Juliette”, Act IV (final scene)
Gounod, “Roméo et Juliette”, Act IV (final scene)
Delibes, “Lakmé”, Act II
Delibes, “Lakmé”, Act II
Faust - Gounod - Opéra de Monte-Carlo
Faust - Gounod - Opéra de Monte-Carlo
Ascolta, se Romeo t'ucci...
Bellini
Ascolta, se Romeo t'ucci...
Bellini
La fièvre de ce Roméo et Juliette est donnée par la baguette incandescente de Laurent Campellone. Il transmet la tension dramatique tant à l’orchestre qu’au choeur, étonnamment vivant et éloquent. Le chef, qui travaille soigneusement la palette des couleurs, est suivi par l’OSQ avec beaucoup d’attention. La subtile poésie du début de l’Acte II touche au plus profond de l’âme.
The Orchestre de l'Opéra de Rouen Normandie impresses, and if we already heard the percussion prepare clearly during the installation of the public, the power of their interventions in the battle of Act III is particularly striking, as are the blows inflicted by the tutti. In addition to always accurate brass - at a defect of the horns near at the end of Act II - and always flexible strings, it is more precisely Laurent Campellone's direction that fascinates throughout the opera, as the conductor manages to contrast the atmospheres with each scene. From an opening taken as we would enter that of Tannhaüser - created in his Parisian version six years before Gounod's book - to a duo on the balcony of a sweet reverie, the symphonic score unfolds to the battles of great violence and then a scene from the tomb of dark sadness.
Laurent Campellone imprints on the whole the momentum imposed by the action without barouf, nor touting lyricism. French music holds no secrets for the man who ran the former Festival Massenet for several years. The outpouring of the melodic line expurgated of sobs, the choice of a color chart from which the most garish hues are excluded, the desire for transparency testify to the understanding of the style. Thus the ballet, an obligatory passage which we too often regret that it suspends the narration, becomes a multicolored fresco that we enjoy contemplating. The third act is a tour de force where the vigor of the gesture never wrinkles the sonorous silk. Lakmé ends up dissolving in an orchestral crash that extends the clamor of the hall.
Unsurprisingly, the specialist in French music of the second half of the 19th century Laurent Campellone takes on the work with virtuosity. (…)
The chef likes to highlight these contrasts and to accentuate the reliefs, without any grandiloquence. The Munich Radio Orchestra is in Olympic form: past the sumptuous tone of Acts I and II, it deploys a dramatic texture for Act III before establishing an atmosphere of strangeness in the Underworld of Act IV and a more pathetic register in act V. Laurent Campellone multiplies the nods, in particular to the influences of Massenet, in this case, for this opera, Wagner, sometimes quite explicitly quoted. The references are also internal to his work: in Act IV, the leitmotif of the underworld – let us dare the word, for one of the composer's most Wagnerian operas, with Esclarmonde – inevitably recalls the air of the letters of the act III of Werther. The Bavarian radio choir delivers a chiseled performance, both in terms of power, sensitivity and diction.
Heureusement, la direction musicale de Laurent Campellone se réfère plus à l’authenticité de la partition de Massenet et au livret original. Tout en maitrisant l’ensemble, il insuffle à la musique une énergie réelle, un instinct dramatique mesuré, apportant un soin constant aux équilibres et aux détails les plus subtils. L’Orchestre Symphonique Région Centre-Val de Loire/Tours répond avec intensité à toutes ses sollicitations et exigences. Le résultat d’ensemble, auquel il convient d’ajouter la prestation de qualité des enfants de la Maîtrise ainsi que du Chœur maison, s’avère à la hauteur des attentes.
Digne héritier de Michel Plasson, Laurent Campellone tient tout dans ses mains, cravachant les musiciens d’un valeureux Orchestre Symphonique Région Centre-Val de Loire/Tours qui ne rechigne pas un instant à la besogne. Il façonne amoureusement, soigne la moindre courbe, galbe chaque phrasé, chante tous les rôles et chauffe à blanc un crescendo lyrique infini. Une grande soirée massenétienne !
But of course these qualities combined would not give the show its full dimension without conducting an orchestra up to the performances of these artists. And it is little to say that Laurent Campellone climbs there with ease. At the head of the Lausanne Chamber Orchestra, the French conductor doses the volume, ensures the balance of plans and musicians, never gives in to the temptation to swell the sound and wagnerate the subject. With finesse, he builds the dramatic arc of the performance, starting with a light, measured prelude, where already the excellent solo violin is highlighted, then the cellos. Cursive, narrative above all, it accompanies singers while energizing the action, flexible in gesture, delicate in touch, gradually stronger in impact, without ever covering the singers. Each introductory act or transitional piece is adorned with new colors (the horns and flutes of the beginning of 2), truly dancing in "j’aurais sur ma poitrine", evoking the lovers' ball, mocking with the bassoons when Brühlmann complains of being deceived. Very often the orchestra expresses the thrilling heart of the protagonists (prelude to 3), then accompanying Werther's fury with an irrepressible momentum ("Non, tu ne saurais pas, dérobé sous les voiles"). The final interlude of the Christmas night painting is of course a summit, with personal and specifically articulated phrasing, which give the impression of slow deployment of the orchestral fabric, while the tempi are not. Laurent Campellone makes his orchestra a protagonist of the drama, as rarely can be heard.
Fullness of a sound rich in bass, dark breaths suggesting the tragic, thick horns, brushy tenderness of the violins announcing Werther's entry theme, clarinets flowering a rural Germany, sensitive rallentando very stretched before the curtain rise... The Lausanne Chamber Orchestra, which is not here in a repertoire it often frequents, is constantly excellent under the very flexible direction, breathing with the singers, of Laurent Campellone, who was ten years during the linchpin of the Massenet revival, conducted at the Opéra de Saint-Etienne. The particular orchestral flavor of French opera and comic opera (Gounod, Lalo, Saint-Saëns) is, we hear from the outset, natural, this sentimental lyricism always held, and colorful.
Laurent Campellone, who is an exegete of this repertoire and knows its intimate feeling, gives a richly colored concertation and makes use of an Orchester Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo and a Chorus of the Opéra de Monte-Carlo (instructed by Stefano Visconti) of the highest level, ready to offer a narration that alternates pages of exhausted languor with moments that smell of opéra-comique, as in the paintings in which Gérald and his comrade in arms Frédéric converse with the British ladies Ellen, Rose and the housekeeper Mistress Bentson, building that fake British atmosphere that characterizes the superficial lightness of their language in contrast, immediately, with the uncontaminated environmental universe of Lakmé, made of fragrant flowers, luxuriant nature and reassuring spirituality. It is the world for which Gérald feels an irresistible attraction, remaining conquered by it, even before knowing the woman of forbidden desire, the Lakmé whose father, the Brahmin Nilakantha, does not want his daughter to love a man who belongs to the culture of enemies dominators. Yet the English officer is fascinated by her purity, by the fragility of her adolescence and falls madly in love with the beautiful and mysterious Hindu, unleashing her father's vengeful wrath.
The orchestra, conducted by Laurent Campellone, sounded precise, transparent, and the aria with Margarita's pearls, the famous love duet of the main characters, sparkled especially. The excellent cast of the soloists in the production is another accomplishment. The opera is performed in French and the orchestra seemed to complement and continue its natural musicality.
La direction vivante et bravache de Laurent Campellone trousse cette partition d’une baguette enlevée, suivie par les musiciens de l’Orchestre de chambre de Paris, visiblement émoustillés.
La lecture musicale qu’en donne Laurent Campellone, avec un orchestre superlatif, est de celles qui subjuguent sans retour !
