The Power of Love: Orchestre Colonne at Salle Gaveau

About the Event

Marc Korovitch conducts the Orchestre Colonne in a beautiful programm of works by Wagner, Tchaikovsky, Saint‐Saens among others in the prestigious Salle Gaveau in Paris.

The force of love, in works of art, often finds the resolution of its exacerbated feelings in the eternity of death. For example, Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet's juvenile love for each other is precipitated into the grave, inspiring Tchaikovsky to write one of his most descriptive pages, bringing battle scenes and tender confessions to a climax. Tchaikovsky was particularly proud of this work.

Celtic legends also put pure Isolde to the test, as a young girl promised to King Marke, who — through the enchantment of a magic potion — falls madly in love with Tristan. Tristan, wounded to death by the knight Melot, finally expires in the arms of his beloved, who, overcome by ecstatic illumination, allows her soul to abandon her body.

The Death of Isolde, often preceded in concert by the prelude to the opera, is one of the most intense works in which the expression of love reaches an almost mystical dimension.

Thanks to Saint‐Saëns, death enters through the front door! But there's nothing tragic about this ingenious symphonic poem… The skeletons dance (the xylophone makes its first appearance in a symphonic orchestra in this work), and Death loves a party! Saint‐Saëns's two arias for soprano and orchestra plunge us into the heart of the French Romantic soul.

And then… and then… another symphonic poem based on a text by the composer Alexandre Manoukian himself rounds off the concert, illustrating once again the power of love.

And let's not forget our now‐ubiquitous 'mystery work', which will surprise you once again. This time, there will be two of them!