top
Home Labels Contact
Le Dernier Sorcier
Pauline Viardot

Le Dernier Sorcier

Eric Owens

Label: Bridge
Format: CD
Barcode: 0090404951527
barcode
Catalog number: BRIDG 9515
Releasedate: 04-10-19
- World premiere recording
- Woman composer
- English and French 
 
150 years after its composition, a lost opera is recovered and a vanished voice restored. A recently rediscovered treasure by one of the most compelling artists of the nineteenth century, Le dernier sorcier (The Last Sorcerer) resonates with themes of power and progress, gender and equality, and the restoration of natural order in an ever-changing world - a feminist eco-fable in operatic form. The work is a chamber opera in two acts written by Pauline Viardot on a French libretto by Ivan Turgenev. The plot centers on Krakamiche, a once-powerful sorcerer whose presence in the great woods has upset the fairies, the forest’s rightful inhabitants, and disturbed the harmony of the land. Through the combined efforts of the fairies and their queen, the sorcerer's daughter and her prince, and a hapless valet, Krakamiche ultimately learns key truths about humility, love, and living in harmony with the natural world. World premiere recording featuring Bass-Baritone Eric Owens, Mezzo-Soprano Jamie Barton, Soprano Camille Zamora, Mezzo-Soprano Adriana Zabala, Tenor Michael Slattery, Soprano Sarah Brailey, Manhattan Girls Chorus (Michelle Oesterle, Founder & Artistic Director), Pianists Myra Huang and Liana Pailodze Harron, and Narrator Trudie Styler.