Cleopatra sensuale
Cléopâtre
Opera in four acts by Jules Massenet (1842–1912)
In concerto form in French
JULES MASSENET • Cléopâtre
Opera in four acts
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Vladimir Fedoseyev,
ConductorSophie Koch,
CléopâtreLudovic Tézier,
Marc-AntoineBenjamin Bernheim,
SpakosSandrine Piau,
OctavieMariangela Sicilia,
CharmionOmar Montanari,
EnniusJean-Luc Ballestra,
AmnhèsGezim Myshketa,
SévérusBiagio Pizzuti,
L'esclave de la porte / Un esclave Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg Salzburger Bachchor
Alois Glaßner,
Choral preparation
Cleopatra sensuale
Jules Massenet’s Cléopâtre breathes the sensual inebriation of the fin de siècle, paying homage to the erotic seductresses of the Orient – male fantasies come to life – and at the same time giving a cold shoulder to the audience’s own, well-behaved bourgeois wives. In his last opera, premiered in 1914 in Monte Carlo, Massenet continued his series of Middle-Eastern femmes fatales in the style of Hérodiade or Thaïs, but in its tonal language, the French composer’s little-performed work went a grand step further towards impressionism and early modernism. The fatal network of relationships unfolds between Cléopâtre and Marc-Antoine as a pair of lovers defying convention and Marc-Antoine’s courageous wife Octavie, who feels more beholden to marriage as an institution than to sensuality, as well as Spakos, who wastes away in hopeless love for Cléopâtre. Apart from colorfully voluptuous numbers for the chorus and ballet, it is the languorous solo scenes of Cléopâtre, and especially her death, which curdles not only her own blood, but also that of the listeners.