Orchestre de l'Opéra Royal de Versailles

Friday August 1st - 9 pm / Church of Valloire

Stabat Mater by Vivaldi and by Pergolesi

by Orchestre de l'Opéra Royal de Versailles, direction Chloé de Guillebon

Vivaldi enjoyed great success in Rome. His “Roman” motet In Furore, with its virtuoso vocal part, may have been written for a castrato and differs from his more prudent Stabat Mater composed for the young girls of the Ospedale della Pietà in Venice. Such vocal caution is nonetheless intensely emotional, coupled as it is with those rhythms that made Vivaldi famous.

Pergolesi died of tuberculosis at the age of 26. His Stabat Mater, his last work, became so famous that it spread to the whole of Europe. Bach even made it his Psalm 51. As in an Italian cantata, he alternates slow and fast sequences regardless of their adequacy to the text, which somewhat disrupts the meaning of it. The end is a canto spianato, a soothing song that was a great source of inspiration for Bellini’s bel canto opera.

Orchestre de l'Opéra Royal de Versailles

The Opéra Royal du Château de Versailles hosts more than a hundred performances each year, working with the greatest international performers in turn stepping on this prestigious stage. Gathering musicians who regularly work with the greatest conductors, the Orchestre defends a broad repertoire ranging from Baroque composers to the Romantic period. However, owing to the history of the place whose name it bears, the core of its repertoire is music of the 17th and 18th centuries.

The Orchestre de l’Opéra Royal, also tours extensively, displaying its virtuosity at the finest venues in France and abroad. This season it will be performing at the Salle Gaveau, the Palau de la Música Catalana in Barcelona, the New Year Festival in Gstaad, and on tour in South Korea and Hanoi. The Orchestre also features on the bill at France’s major summer festivals: the Valloire baroque festival, the Abbaye du Thoronet, Cahors, Prades, Uzès, the Sablé Festival, La Rochelle…

Chloé de Guillebon – organ and direction

First Prize winner of the Pesaro International Competition at the age of just twenty, Chloé de Guillebon is regularly invited as a soloist throughout Europe. Much in demand as a continuist, she plays with numerous ensembles, including the Orchestre de l’Opéra Royal de Versailles with whom she recently conducted Couperin’s Leçons de Ténèbres and recorded Boismortier’s Les Quatre Saisons for the Château de Versailles Spectacles label.

Sarah Charles – soprano

Sarah Charles joined the Académie de l’Opéra Royal de Versailles in 2023. During the 2024/2025 season, she will perform the role of Belinda in Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas at Versailles; she will sing Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater in Toledo and Charpentier’s Te Deum at La Fenice, conducted by Hervé Niquet. She has appeared at concerts at N.D. de Paris in the role of Filia in Carissimi’s Jephte and in June, again at Versailles in Charpentier’s Actéon.

Ambroisine Bré – mezzo

Ambroisine Bré is one of the Révélations of the 2019 Victoires de la Musique Classique. Her career takes off under the direction of Christophe Rousset, Marc Minkowski, Laurence Equilbey, Hervé Niquet, Vincent Dumestre, Leonardo Garcia Alarcon… In 2024-2025, she will notably appear at London’s Wigmore Hall in a Jommelli programme and at the Opéra Royal de Versailles in the roles of Mercédès (Carmen, conducted by Hervé Niquet) and Aréthuse-La-Paix (Proserpine, conducted by Christophe Rousset).

Programme

Pieces by Vivaldi and Pergolèse.

Distribution

Chloé de Guillebon, organ and direction
Sarah Charles, soprano
Ambroisine Bré, mezzo
6 violins
1 viola
1 cello
1 doublebass
1 theorbo

The Royal Opera Orchestra is placed under the high patronage of Aline Foriel-Destezet.

The Royal Opera Orchestra also benefits from the support of Vietnam Airlines during its tours.