CHAUSSON : LE ROI ARTHUS

Radio New Zealand Concert Network
Sunday 15th of November 2015 at  6 - 9  pm

CHAUSSON: Le Roi Arthus, an opera in three acts
Arthus............................... Thomas Hampson
Genièvre........................... Sophie Koch
Lancelot............................ Roberto Alagna
Lyonnel............................ Stanislas de Barbeyrac
Merlin............................... Peter Sidhorn
Mordred........................... Alexandre Duhamel
Allan................................. François Lis
A Worker.......................... Cyrille Dubois
A Knight.......................... Tiago Matos
An Equerry....................... Ugo Rabec
Paris National Opera Chorus & Orch/Philippe Jordan
(recorded in the Opéra Bastille, Paris by French Radio, Paris)

INTRODUCTION
COMPOSER
REVIEW 
REVIEW
LIBRETTO (English translation)

This Paris performance is one of those productions which saves money on the hiring or buying of costumes by telling the cast to simply turn up in their own old clothes.

This is a romantic Wagnerian opera, by a French composer, who was a cyclist (all these details I admire), but the bicycle was the cause of his death at age 44. Like Wagner, Ernest Chausson (1855-1899) chose to write his own libretto. I am frustrated at not being able to find the original French version on the wwweb.
   Previous recordings of it have involved Simon O'Neill and Donald McIntyre, be it noted.