by Daniel Hathaway
Ailurophiles rejoice! There’s a new opera in town, created as many French Baroque titles were back in the day, out of bits and pieces of existing material, and the principal character is a large feline. (It’s actually a princess seeking to be rehumanized through the traditional heroic means of fulfilling a series of impossible challenges or quests.)
The creative team behind The White Cat begins with Les Délices artistic director Debra Nagy, who has had Larry Rosenwald adapt Marie-Catherine D’Aulnoy’s story La Chatte Blanche into a five-act (or five-quest) libretto that recasts the manipulative Puss in Boots, who gets ahead almost entirely through trickery, into a kinder, gentler feline. Each quest is linked with a French version of one of Aesop’s Fables coupled with a divertissement, and joined together by well-known tunes like Couperin’s Les Barricades Mysterieuses. [Read more…]
For centuries the fairy tale of Puss in Boots, the wily cat who stops at nothing to gain power and wealth for his penniless master, has been a source of inspiration for composers and choreographers.
Time and time again, Les Délices has imbued a sense of creativity into the concert experience — particularly over the past two years, when pandemic restrictions called for some out-of-the-box thinking. On February 25 in Shaker Heights, their first in-person event since 2020 proved to be no exception, blending poetry and music for an engaging evening of storytelling.
The next concert from Les Délices is indeed about gods and heroes, built around 14th-century songs referencing characters such as Jason and Medea, Ulysses and Circe, and Tristan and Isolde.
Just in time for Rabbie Burns Day (January 25), Les Délices will release its latest concert series episode, “
There’s something so engaging about watching Handel’s Messiah performed live — especially in the capable hands of Apollo’s Fire and Apollo’s Singers. The movement of the instrumentalists, the stage presence of the singers, and the enthusiastic response from the audience all elevate the experience of listening to this familiar music. On the evening of December 8 at Federated Church in Chagrin Falls, guest conductor Nic McGegan led the ensemble in a breathtaking performance of one of Handel’s cornerstone works.
Parallel revolutions in France and Haiti have inspired the second episode of this season’s online concert series from Les Délices. “Winds of Change,” which went live on November 18 and is available both on subscription and as a single performance, includes late 18th-century music by Joseph Bologne (Chevalier de Saint-Georges), Karl Bochsa, and Luigi Boccherini, and the premiere of a commissioned piece, Haitian-born composer Sydney Guillaume’s A Journey to Freedom.
If you’re intrigued by the idea of contemporary composers writing music for historical instruments, Les Délices says that their latest program is for you.
In Greek mythology the nine Muses were the source of knowledge and inspiration for poets, musicians, and philosophers. “They inspired everybody,” bassoonist Catalina Guevara Víquez Klein, said during a telephone interview. “That’s the reason Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz is called the 10th Muse, because she too inspired everybody.”
No mythological character has inspired musicians more than Orpheus. Legend has it that his music was so powerful that trees and mountains bowed in his presence — his song so beautiful that he convinced the ruler of the underworld to allow him to bring his love Eurydice back from the underworld.