Review of Valentin's Opera

[Francisco Vila]

Hello all,

You all know that the language of the concert reviews is sometimes a
bit 'special' and you'll understand my difficulties in the task of
translating this one from a Spanish magazine, Ópera Actual. I beg your
pardon for the numerous grammar inaccuracies.

At the same time, you all know what's the relation between the article
and LilyPond: although not mentioned in the text, the first opera by
Valentin Villenave is licensed as free software, and it has been fully
typeset using Lily. It has been a remarkable absolute première and the
article gives a very good value to the work and the performance.

I take this opportunity to say Kudos! to all the great lilyponders who
are using, developing and promoting this great piece of software.

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

*Montpellier. Opéra Comédie

Villenave: Affaire Étrangère; absolute premiere.

N. Courjal, M. Di Sapia, C. Hunold, V. Cortez, D. Noble,
Y. Saelens, C. Amoit. Conductor: S. Jean. Stage manager: R. Mitou.

February 5, 2009

A foreigner arrived to an imaginary country, aboard a spacecraft. The
king, who knew little about how to reign, influenced by the chief
guard, decided to kill him as neither God nor the queen wanted to
intervene in the decision. After some anything but trivial back and
forth, it was the foreigner who ended up by sending all to the space
and stayed as the new king. The story, antireligious without
irreverence and anarchying without violence, was treated as a comic
--Lewis Trondheim, author of the libretto, is a great specialist-- and
garnered cheers and applauses at the curtain down. Valentin Villenave,
in this his opera prima, illustrated the profuse text from his
twenty-and-a-few years with inspired themes and varied and original
orchestral combinations, very well interpreted from the pit by Samuel
Jean, along with singing lines supported on the French prosody. Also
the Richard Mitou's regia, simple and effective in a stylized
framework by Pierre Heydorff contributed to the success of this
premiere. While every voice defended his character with verve, were
the contrasts of color, pitch ranges and rhythms who created the
wealth of this vocal performance. This did not avoided us to applaud
safety and virile emission of Marco Di Sapia (the foreigner), the
elegant phrasing of Nicolas Courjal (the king), the subtlety and
richness of timbre of Catherine Hunold (the queen), the power and
clear elocution of Yves Saelens (chief guard), the excellent French
diction of the Romanian singer Delia Noble (the doctor) and the
presence of Viorica Cortez in the modest role of God.

%%%%%%%%%%%%%

You have a pretty-printable version behind of this link:

http://www.paconet.org/opera-actual-v-villenave-montpellier.zip

The opera has its own site: http://valentin.villenave.info/opera
-- 
Francisco Vila. Badajoz (Spain)