Les Arts Florissants
Chamber Orchestras
The vocal and instrumental ensemble Les Arts Florissants is one of the most renowned and respected early music groups in Europe and around the world. Dedicated to the performance of Baroque music on original instruments, the ensemble was founded in 1979 by the Franco-American harpsichordist and conductor William Christie, and takes its name from a short opera by Marc-Antoine Charpentier. Les Arts Florissants played a pioneering role in the resurgence of interest in the French musical world for a repertoire which had up until then been neglected (in particular unearthing many treasures from the collections of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France) but which is now widely performed and admired: not only 17th-century French repertoire but also European music of the 17th and 18th centuries more generally.
Since the 1987 production of Lully's Atys at the Opéra Comique in Paris, triumphantly revived in May 2011, it has been in the field of opera that Les Arts Florissants have enjoyed their greatest successes. Notable productions include works by Rameau (Les Indes galantes in 1990 and 1999, Hippolyte et Aricie in 1996, Les Boréades in 2003, Les Paladins in 2004), Lully and Charpentier (Médée in 1993 and 1994, Armide in 2008), Handel (Orlando in 1993, Acis and Galatea in 1996, Semele in 1996 and 2010, Alcina in 1999, Serse in 2003, Hercules in 2004 and 2006, L’Allegro, il Moderato ed il Penseroso in 2007), Purcell (King Arthur in 1995, Dido and Aeneas in 2006, The Fairy Queen in 2010), Mozart (Die Zauberflöte in 1994, Die Entführung aus dem Serail at the Opéra du Rhin in 1995) and Monteverdi, whose opera trilogy was performed at the Teatro Real de Madrid between 2008 and 2010).
The ensemble has collaborated on productions with renowned stage directors such as Jean-Marie Villégier, Robert Carsen, Alfredo Arias, Pier Luigi Pizzi, Jorge Lavelli, Adrian Noble, Andrei Serban, Luc Bondy, Graham Vick, Deborah Warner, Jérôme Deschamps and Macha Makeïeff as well as with choreographers Francine Lancelot, Béatrice Massin, Ana Yepes, Shirley Wynne, Maguy Marin, François Raffinot, Jiri Kylian, Bianca Li, Trisha Brown, Robyn Orlin, and José Montalvo and Dominique Hervieu.
Les Arts Florissants has an equally high profile in the concert hall and on disc, as illustrated by their many acclaimed concert or semi-staged performances of opera (Zoroastre and Les Fêtes d’Hébé by Rameau, Idoménée by Campra, Jephté by Montéclair, L’Orfeo by Rossi, Susanna and Giulio Cesare by Handel, The Indian Queen by Purcell) as well as secular chamber works (Actéon, Les Plaisirs de Versailles and La Descente d'Orphée aux Enfers by Charpentier), sacred music (the Grands Motets by Rameau, Mondonville and Desmarets, little motets by Lully and Charpentier and Handel oratorios such as Messiah, Israel in Egypt and Theodora).
Les Arts Florissants has also embarked upon contemporary repertoire, giving the premiere of Motets III – Hunc igitor terrorem by Betsy Jolas in 1999 to mark their twentieth anniversary.
The ensemble has an impressive discography: more than forty recordings for Harmonia Mundi, and some thirty on the Warner Classics/Erato label. As part of their collaboration with EMI/Virgin Classics (since 2003), Les Arts Florissants have released a dozen recordings, including the recent Lamentazione, the first recording to be conducted by Paul Agnew. Their DVD catalogue has recently expanded with Purcell's Dido and Aeneas Purcell (Deborah Warner's production) and Lully's Armide (staged by Robert Carsen). Atys (FRA Musica) will be released in the near future. Lastly just out are a DVD of the documentary Baroque Académie, devoted to the academy of Le Jardin des Voix (Bel Air Classiques) and L’Amour médecin / Le Sicilien by Molière and Lully, filmed at the Comédie-Française in 2006.
For twenty years, Les Arts Florissants have been artists in residence at the théâtre de Caen, and each year they present a concert season in the Basse-Normandie region. The ensemble also tours widely within France, and is a frequent ambassador for French culture abroad (it is regularly invited to the Brooklyn Academy, the Lincoln Center in New York, the Barbican Centre in London and the Vienna Festival, Madrid's Teatro Real…).
Since the Art Florissant's 30th anniversary in 2009-10, William Christie has decided to expand the artistic management of the ensemble by appointing two young associate conductors who enjoy his total confidence, Paul Agnew and Jonathan Cohen. Both now conduct Les Arts Florissants each season in both small and large-scale programmes.
Les Arts Florissants receive financial support from the Ministry of Culture and Communication, the City of Caen and the Région Basse-Normandie. They are artists in residence at the théâtre de Caen. Their Princial Sponsor is Imerys.
SAISON 2011/2012
WILLIAM CHRISTIE
William Christie, harpsichordist, conductor, musicologist and teacher, is the inspiration behind one of the most exciting musical adventures of the last thirty years. His pioneering work has led to a renewed appreciation of Baroque music in France, notably of 17th- and 18th-century French repertoire, which he has introduced to a very wide audience. Born in Buffalo (New York State), William Christie studied at Harvard and Yale Universities, and has lived in France since 1971. The turning point in his career came in 1979 when he founded Les Arts Florissants. As Director of this vocal and instrumental ensemble, Christie soon made his mark as a musician and man of the theatre, in both the concert hall and the opera house, with new interpretations of largely neglected or forgotten repertoire. Major public recognition came in 1987 with the production of Lully's Atys at the Opéra Comique in Paris, which then went on to tour internationally with much success.
William Christie’s enthusiasm for the French Baroque has never diminished. From Charpentier to Rameau, through Couperin, Mondonville, Campra or Montéclair, he is an acknowledged master of tragédie-lyrique as well as opéra-ballet, and is equally at home with the French motet as with music of the court. His affection for French music does not prevent him from exploring other European repertoire, however, and he has given many acclaimed performances of works by Italian composers such as Monteverdi, Rossi, Scarlatti and Landi, and he broaches Purcell and Handel as felicitously as Mozart and Haydn.
His extensive discography (more than 100 recordings, many of which have won awards in France and abroad) with Harmonia Mundi and Warner Classics/Erato is proof of this versatility. Since November 2002, William Christie and Les Arts Florissants have recorded for Virgin Classics, for whom the first release was a CD of Handel sonatas with Hiro Kurosaki, leader of Les Arts Florissants.
William Christie has a particularly busy operatic career and his collaborations with renowned theatre and opera directors, such as Jean-Marie Villégier, Robert Carsen, Alfredo Arias, Jorge Lavelli, Graham Vick, Adrian Noble, Andrei Serban and Luc Bondy, are always major events in the musical calendar: Hippolyte et Aricie (1996), Les Indes galantes and Alcina (1999) and Les Boréades (2003) at the Opéra de Paris; Médée (1993), Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria (2002), Les Boréades (2003), Serse and Les Paladins (2004) Il Sant’Alessio by Stefano Landi (2007) Zampa in 2009 and The Fairy Queen in 2010) at the théâtre de Caen; Die Entführung aus dem Serail (1993) at the Opéra du Rhin; and King Arthur (1995) and Les Paladins (2004) at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris; Atys (1987, 1992 and 2011), Médée (1993), Dido & Aeneas and Zampa (2008), The Fairy Queen (2010) at the Opéra Comique; Johannes Passion (1985), Le Nozze di Figaro (1997), Serse (2003), Il Sant’Alessio (2007), Armide (2008) at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées. His many engagements with Les Arts Florissants at the Aix-en-Provence Festival include Castor et Pollux (1991), The Fairy Queen (1992), Die Zauberflöte (1994), Orlando (1997), the highly successful Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria by Monteverdi (revived in 2002) Hercules (2004) and Pygmalion (2010). In 2007 Les Arts Florissants began a new collaboration with the Teatro Real de Madrid, where the ensemble performed all the Monteverdi operas between 2008 and 2010.
Greatly in demand as a guest conductor, William Christie receives regular invitations from prestigious opera festivals such as Glyndebourne, where he has conducted the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment in productions of Theodora and Rodelinda by Handel (the latter revived at the Théâtre du Châtelet in January 2002), or opera houses such as the Metropolitan Opera of New York (Così fan tutte, 2010), the Zurich Opernhaus (with Iphigénie en Tauride by Gluck, Rameau's Les Indes galantes, Handels's Radamisto, Orlando and Rinaldo and Il Re Pastore by Mozart), or the Opéra national de Lyon where, after Così fan tutte in 2005, he conducted Le Nozze di Figaro in June 2007.
Since 2002, he has appeared regularly as a guest conductor with the Berlin Philharmonic.
William Christie is equally committed to the training and professional integration of young artists, and he has brought to the limelight several generations of singers and instrumentalists over the last twenty-five years. Indeed, most of the music directors of today’s Baroque ensembles began their careers with Les Arts Florissants. Between 1982 and 1995, Christie was a Professor at the Paris Conservatoire, with responsibility for the early music class. He is often invited to give masterclasses, or to lead academies such as those at Aix-en-Provence and Ambronay.
Wishing to develop further his work as a teacher, he created an academy for young singers in Caen, called Le Jardin des Voix, whose first four sessions generated a huge amount of interest in France, Europe and the United States.
William Christie acquired French nationality in 1995. He is Commandeur dans l’Ordre de la Légion d’Honneur as well as Officier dans l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. In November 2008, William Christie was elected to the Académie des Beaux-Arts and he was officially received under the dome of the Institut de France in January 2010. He also received the 2005 Georges Pompidou Prize as well as the Liliane Bettencourt Choral Singing Prize awarded by the Académie des Beaux-Arts in 2004.
SEASON 2011/2012
