Schwetzinger SWR Festival: Pygmalion

Music by Jean-Philippe Rameau: a suite from the opera Castor et Pollux and the Acte de ballet Pygmalion conducted by Christophe Rousset. In Mozart's Don Giovanni, a man turns to stone. In Jean-Philippe Rameau's Pygmalion, a stone becomes a man. An artist falls in love with the statue he has created, and as a reward for his love and his creation, Venus breathes life into the artwork: this is the story of the Greek myth of Pygmalion, which Rameau adapted into a one-act opera. "What do I see? Where am I? And what is it that I think?" These are the questions with which art descends from its pedestal in his work. The piece contains some of the most beautiful music by the composer. In the repeated tones of the overture, we hear the sculptor's chisel, the humanization of the statue is accompanied by heavenly chords, we witness the socialization of the transformed through dance, and at the exuberant celebration at the end, Pygmalion counters his desperate aria from the beginning of the piece with a virtuosic number in praise of love. In our performance, the youthful energy of the European Union Baroque Orchestra complements the vast experience of the French harpsichordist and conductor Christophe Rousset. "Rule, Amor," the tenor Abel Zamora will sing as Pygmalion at the end, "shoot your arrows into our souls – empty your quiver!"