La Navar­raise / Didon

Against his father’s objections, Sergeant Araquil and the penniless Anita plan to marry. Civil war is raging in the Basque Country, and to raise the funds for her dowry, Anita undertakes a fateful contract killing in enemy territory. “La Navarraise” is considered Jules Massenet’s most expressive opera: a masterful score that not only tells the story of the impossible love between Araquil and Anita in a lyrical and sensitive manner, drawing on influences from Spanish folk music, but also translates the turmoil of civil war into striking soundscapes.

In Charpentier’s “Didon”, too, it is the fateful words of the father that seal the fate of a love affair. Anchises appears to his son Aeneas as a ghost and prophesies that he will found the city of Rome. Aeneas decides to follow his father’s instructions and leaves his beloved Dido, Queen of Carthage – who now wishes only to die. With delicate leitmotifs and intense orchestral harmonies, the cantata by Charpentier, a pupil of Massenet, rounds off this vocally virtuosic double concert evening.