FULL ODYSSEUS (Max Bruch) Paris 2022 Matthieu Lécroart, Anne-Victoria Ahumada, Estelle Béréau

Information on the Performance

• Work Title: Odysseus  
• Composer: Bruch Max   
• Libretto: Wilhelm Paul Graff based on Homer  
• Venue & Opera Company: Grand Amphithéâtre de la Sorbonne, Paris, France  
• Recorded: June 30, 2022
• Type: Concert Live
• Singers: Matthieu Lécroart, Anne-Victoria Ahumada, Estelle Béréau, Olivier Déjean, Tsanta Ratianarinaivo
• Conductor: Guilhem Terrail  
• Orchestra:
• Chorus: Chœur de Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, Ensemble féminin Neska  
• Chorus Master: Guilhem Terrail, Estelle Béréau  
• Stage Director:   
• Costume Designer:   

Information about the Recording

• Published by: Choeur de Paris 1  
• Date Published: 2023  
• Format: Streaming
• Quality Video: 4 Audio:4
• Subtitles: yessubs, frsubs  
• Video Recording from: YouTube     FULL VIDEO
•  

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ON THIS PERFORMANCE

Odysseus: Szenen aus der Odyssee für Chor, Solostimmen und Orchester (Odysseus: Scenes from the Odyssey for Choir, Solo Voices and Orchestra) is a secular oratorio (Op. 41) composed by Max Bruch and first performed in 1873. It was Bruch’s most successful work in his own lifetime. German unification created a wave of patriotic euphoria across the country, and French war reparations created an economic windfall. The time was right for a new work with a theme of the love of homeland. It was popular in Germany and internationally and brought Bruch to Liverpool.

The work is divided into twelve episodes:
0:00:00 Entrée
0:00:28 Ouverture
0:07:30 I. Ulysse sur l’île de Calypso
0:17:23 II. Ulysse dans les Champs Elysées
0:31:48 III. Ulysse et les Syrènes
0:39:58 IV. La tempête
0:53:25 V. L’affliction de Pénélope
1:00:43 VI. Nausicaa
1:12:18 VII. Le festin chez Alcinoüs
1:27:49 VIII. Pénélope tissant le voile
1:33:50 IX. Le retour
1:48:12 X. Fête à Ithaque
1:55:37 Chœur final

Bruch was careful to ensure that his work remained a dramatic piece of choral music and did not venture into the realm of the operatic. For this reason Penelope’s suitors are not portrayed, and the scene where Odysseus kills them is omitted. A traditional religious oratorio had contrasting episodes of recitative and arias but Bruch created a single flowing narrative that did not adhere to this clear distinction. One reason for its eventual decline into obscurity may be that for such a heroic and moving subject, the work seems undramatic, sometimes laboured in its setting of the text, and disjointed in its episodes; there is no narrator to link the 12 self-contained sections.