EL GRAN TEATRO DEL MUNDO

Repertoire

Transcriptions of French arias and opera fragments by LULLY, MARAIS, A. CAMPRA, M.A. CHARPENTIER

Artists

Coline Ormond, Baroque violin
Miriam Jorde Hompanera, Baroque oboe
Johanna Bartz, traverso
Bruno Hurtado Gosalvez, viola da gamba
Johannes Ötzbrugger, theorbo
Julio Caballero Pérez, harpsichord

Program

In this concert, El Gran Teatro del Mundo explores the parallels and differences between the literature of the Spanish Golden Age and the opera of the French Grand Siècle.In this concert, El Gran Teatro del Mundo explores the parallels and differences between the literature of the Spanish Golden Age and the opera of the French Grand Siècle. To this end, the programme offers us a reconstruction of a small French opera following the model of the tragédie lyrique. This new version combines music from French composers André Campra, Marc-Antoine Charpentier, Jean-Baptiste Lully and Marin Marais.
The plot of the opera is based on Segismundo’s monologue at the end of the first act of La vida es sueño, by Calderón de la Barca, comparing his discourse with French themes and the exploration of the dream element of sleep. In each act of the opera we find different meanings that the Baroque found in sleep: from the simple state of rest to the mystical metaphor of the meeting of life with death, passing through dreams and nightmares. And, as an epilogue, the demi-god Orpheus descending into hell makes the listener reflect on awakening as the end of an illusion. Or, as Segismundo says: “All life is a dream, and dreams are dreams”.