VFO / ESA-PEKKA SALONEN
Program
RICHARD WAGNER (1813-1883)
Final scene from Götterdämmerung (Twilight of the Gods)
Intermission
OLIVIER MESSIAEN (1908-1992)
Turangalîla-Symphonie
Artist(s)
- Verbier Festival Orchestra
- Esa-Pekka Salonen Conductor
- Michelle DeYoung mezzo-soprano
- Cécile Lartigau ondes Martenot
- Lucas Debargue piano
Lucas Debargue plays Gershwin: Rhapsody in Blue at the 2024
Both Messiaen and Wagner summoned plethoric orchestras and unusual instruments (Ondes Martenot for the former, Wagner tubas for the latter) to express the human soul in its every corner. The Turangalîla-Symphonie, whose title comes directly from Sanskrit and evokes ideas of love, joy, life, and death, is moreover the central part of a triptych dedicated to Tristan und Isolde. It is a way of connecting the most distant feelings and liturgies in an immense orchestral bonfire, whose musical development is driven by the presence of numerous percussion instruments, including the celesta and vibraphone, and especially the ondes Martenot, dialoguing with a virtuoso piano at the frontiers of the unknown, magnificently embodied by Lucas Debargue. Previously, Michelle DeYoung will have performed the grand finale of Götterdämmerung, in which the four elements blend like so many leitmotifs, at the confluence of all aesthetics: orchestral gigantism, operatic lyricism, and burgeoning impressionism.
A spectacular programme under the direction of Esa-Pekka Salonen, arguably the greatest conductor for 20th-century music, who was recently appointed to the highest artistic positions at the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Orchestre de Paris.
