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 Music:
Pink Floyd's Roger Waters' Classical Opera "Ca Ira"
Debuts Number One
"Ca Ira," the new classical
opera from Roger Waters, entered the Billboard Traditional Classical
Chart at #1 in the first week in stores for the Sony Classical
/Columbia Records release.
The recording of Waters long-awaited "operatic history of
the French Revolution" was released on Tuesday, September
27, in a lavish first-edition Digipak that includes a complete
recording of the work on two hybrid Super Audio CDs in Dolby
Digital 5.1 Surround Sound, which are compatible with standard
CD players. The package includes a deluxe 60 page four-color
booklet including Roger Waters' lyrics based on Etienne Roda-Gil's
original French libretto, the original illustrations created
by Nadine Roda-Gil, biographies of Waters and the opera's cast,
background and production notes on the opera.
As a bonus for Roger Waters fans, "Ca Ira" includes
a special DVD documentary chronicling the "making of"
the opera. The "Ca Ira" DVD traces the history of the
project, from conception to completion, and includes revelatory
interviews with Waters and the cast of "Ca Ira" as
well as exclusive in-the-studio footage of the recording of the
opera.
"Ca Ira" will have its world premiere in a semi-staged
concert performance on November 17th and 18th in Romeat the Santa
Cecilia Hall of the Auditorium Parco Della Musica. The concert
reunites tenor Paul Groves and soprano Ying Huang with conductor
Rick Wentworth, all of whom appear on the recording, and introduces
to the work bass-baritone John Relyea. Since the November 17
concert quickly sold out, a second performance has been scheduled
for November 18 in the same venue.
Waters, who co-founded the groundbreaking rock group Pink Floyd
in 1966, fused the worlds of rock and classical music in such
pioneering major works as "The Dark Side Of The Moon"
(1973) and "The Wall" (1979) in which he incorporated
elements of operatic form - theatricality, coherent narrative,
dramatic arcs, thematic music and song cycles - in a pop context.
Waters' work on "Ca Ira," his first opera for full
orchestra and voice, began in 1989, during the Bicentennial of
the French Revolution. The well- respected and successful songwriter
Etienne Roda-Gil and his wife, Nadine, had created an original
libretto for an opera, written in French, as part of the Bicentennial.
Entitled "Ca Ira," after a revolutionary song of the
period, the Roda-Gil's original manuscript, copiously and beautifully
illustrated by Nadine, portrayed the events and the spirit of
the French Revolution through a multitude of perspectives - ranging
from Marie Antoinette to the eyes and ears of the period's revolutionaries
and common people - using a circus as a central theatrical framing
device and metaphor.
The finished version of "Ca Ira" features orchestration
and choral arrangements by Roger Waters with Rick Wentworth.
Waters and Wentworth are also the album's producers. Principal
characters in the opera are brought to life by the Welsh bass-baritone
Bryn Terfel (the Ringmaster, the Troublemaker, Louis Capet -
the King of France); internationally acclaimed soprano Ying Huang
(Marie Marianne - the Voice of Liberty, Reason and the Republic,
Marie Antoinette - the Queen of France); American tenor Paul
Groves (A Revolutionary Priest, A Military Officer); and Nigerian
"one man orchestra" Ismael Lo (a Revolutionary Slave).
Other parts are sung by Jamie Bower (Honest Bird - the young
Revolutionary Priest) and Helen Russill (Madame Antoine - the
young Marie Antoinette).
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