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| Who | Gaétan Jarry (FR) artistic director, organ and harpsichord Catherine Trottmann (FR) soprano Ana Vieira Leite (FR) soprano Members of the Académie de l’Opéra Royal de Versailles (FR) Marie Zaccarini soprano Camille Brault mezzo Baptiste Bonfante tenor Thierry Cartier baritone |
| Where | Church of St. James the Elder, Lednice |
| Program | François Couperin (1668–1733) Leçons de Ténèbres Gregorio Allegri (1582–1652) Miserere Dress code: Semi-Formal |
Church of St. James the Elder in Lednice hosts the choir of the Royal Opera of Versailles and its conductor Gaétan Jarry for a concert full of Baroque music and spiritual meditation. François Couperin’s Les Horloges Noires and Gregorio Allegri’s famous Miserere will be performed.
French conductor and organist Gaétan Jarry is the founder of Marguerite Louise, a Baroque choir and orchestra. He is a graduate of the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique in Paris and has also won several first prizes from conservatories in Versailles and Saint-Maur-des-Fossés.
Gaétan Jarry is also one of the principal guest conductors of the Royal Opera Orchestra in Versailles, with which he has staged many productions, including The Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni, and The Abduction from the Seraglio. His discography, comprising some fifteen recordings acclaimed by international critics, is largely devoted to French Baroque music, to which he brings the aesthetics of the Marguerite Louise ensemble – whether in repertoire for large choirs and orchestras, operas, or grandiose royal motets by composers such as Jean-Baptiste Lully, Marc-Antoine Charpentier, Michel-Richard de Lalande, Jean-Philippe Rameau, and Jean-Joseph Cassanéa de Mondonville.
As a soloist, he released the album Noëls baroques à Versailles, recorded on the grand organ of the Royal Chapel in Versailles in collaboration with Pages du Centre de musique baroque de Versailles. He followed this recording with other projects devoted to the French Baroque organ repertoire, organ concertos by George Frideric Handel, and the opera David et Jonathas by Marc-Antoine Charpentier.
Catherine Trottmann, young and renowned soprano, became a member of the Vienna State Opera ensemble, where she also made her stage debut, shortly after studying at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique in Paris. Afterwards, she attracted attention with her rich vocal timbre and remarkable acting skills, and she soon began appearing on the world’s most prestigious stages. In recent years, she has performed at Carnegie Hall in New York, Cincinnati Music Hall, Berlin Philharmonic, Edinburgh Festival, Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, Paris Opera or Teatro alla Scala in Milan.
In 2017, she was nominated in the “Opera Discovery of the Year” category at the Victoires de la Musique and also became an HSBC laureate at the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence. That same year, she won first prize at the Manhattan International Music Competition.
Due to her agility and technical skill, she is regularly invited to perform Rossini’s repertoire and is also a devoted interpreter of Mozart’s works. French music occupies an important place in her repertoire (La Damoiselle élue by C. Debussy, Les Nuits d’été by H. Berlioz, Le Roi David by A. Honegger, etc.), but she has also taken on the role of Leïla in Bizet’s The Pearl Fishers, played the role of Rose in the opera The Little Prince by composer M. Levinas, and appeared in Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea.
She has performed on concert stages in Mahler’s Fourth Symphony, Beethoven’s Mass in C major, Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and the French premiere of Leonid Desyatnikov’s Lost Illusions, among others.
Soprano Ana Vieira Leite graduated from the Haute École de Musique de Genève in 2020, where she earned a master’s degree in concert singing and received the City of Geneva Award for outstanding artistic achievements. She is the winner of the 1st prize at the Concours international de chant baroque de Froville (2020), Concurso de Canto Lírico da Fundação Rotária Portuguesa (2021) and laureate of the 10th edition (2021) of the Le Jardin des Voix project. She has gradually established herself as one of the leading young singers in the field of Baroque music, collaborating with renowned ensembles and participating in several CD recordings. Her first solo album, Amorosi Accenti, received exceptionally favorable reviews in the international press. Also, she is a co-founder and member of the ensemble La Néréide.
As a young artist, she made her debut at the Paris Opera, Teatro Real in Madrid, Opéra Comique, Royal Opera in Versailles, Paris Philharmonic, and many other world stages. She recently performed with Paul Agnew in a recital at the Cité de la Musique in Paris, dedicated to opera and concert arias by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
Ana has also collaborated with Christophe Rousset, the Monteverdi Choir, and the English Baroque Soloists in performances of Handel’s Messiah at La Scala, St. Martin-in-the-Fields in London, the Accademia di Santa Cecilia, and the Church of Saint-Roch in Paris. She also made her debut at the Opéra Bastille in Paris in the role of Iole in a new production of Antonio Bemba’s opera Ercole Amante, conducted by Leonardo García Alarcón and directed by Netia Jones.
In 2022, Royal Opera Orchestra of the Palace of Versailles was interconnected with the newly established choir, developing in unique musical identity of the Royal Opera of the Palace of Versailles. The choir recently performed in Versailles and Vienna in J.-B. Lully’s opera Alceste, conducted by Stéphane Fuget, and in Monteverdi’s Orfeo, conducted by Jordi Savall.
The choir has also participated in the Royal Opera’s own stage productions, including N. Zingarelli’s Romeo and Juliet, G. Bizet’s Carmen, G. Donizetti’s La fille du régiment, and F. Couperin’s concert piece Les heures sombres.
In the current season, the choir is performing alongside the Royal Opera Orchestra in staged productions of Rossini’s Cinderella, Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, Offenbach’s La vie parisienne, Gounod’s Faust, and Mozart’s The Abduction from the Seraglio.
The Royal Opera Choir of the Palace of Versailles also regularly appears in concert projects, including G. F. Handel’s Messiah, W. A. Mozart’s Requiem, and the Kristina Švédská project, as well as in J.-B. Lully’s opera Atys, choreographed by Angelin Preljocaj and conducted by Leonardo García-Alarcón.
The Royal Opera Choir has already made several recordings, including Gloire Immortelle, The Crown, Dis-moi Vénus…, J.-B. Lully’s Alceste conducted by Stéphane Fuget, Arias pour Velluti – le dernier castrat with Franco Fagioli, Mozart’s The Abduction from the Seraglio, and many others, including recordings of Le Grand Échiquier programmes.
