Ensemble Contraste

Albane Carrère, mezzo-soprano
Irina de Baghy, mezzo-soprano
Arnaud Thorette, viola and artistic director
Antoine Pierlot, cello
Johan Farjot, piano, arrangements, and musical director

“Ah! What a dinner I’ve just had!” La Périchole has had one too many drinks—she admits it in song—and Paris has been laughing along with her since 1868.

The operetta is made for evenings like this: the dinner that goes on and on, the ball that refuses to end, the champagne that loosens tongues and makes crowns wobble.

Albane Carrère and Irina de Baghy play the roles of the hostesses. Along with the Ensemble Contraste, they host a party at Prince Orlofsky’s in *Die Fledermaus*, toast with the Grand Duchess of Gerolstein, and get into a heated argument like the two rivals in *La Fille de Madame Angot*. Then the parlor transforms into a dance floor to the sound of waltzes by Poulenc and Satie.

Around midnight, the party sets off on a journey. It passes through Seville with *Carmen* and Chapí’s zarzuela, then on to New York with Gershwin and Bernstein. In the early morning, Paris returns home humming Piaf and Gréco, and the cancan from *Orpheus in the Underworld* sweeps everyone away in a final gallop.

The program continues the work that the Ensemble Contraste has been pursuing since its founding in 2000: bringing opera and song together, and offering the audience an evening whose melodies linger in their minds until the very next day.

Detailed Program:

Johann Strauss II – Orlofsky’s Couplets “To Each His Own” (Die Fledermaus)
Jacques Offenbach – “Ah! How I Love Soldiers” (The Grand Duchess of Gerolstein)
Charles Lecocq – Duet of the Quarrel (La Fille de Madame Angot)
Champagne!
Jacques Offenbach – “Ah! What a Dinner” (La Périchole)
Jacques Offenbach – Barcarolle (The Tales of Hoffmann)
Gioachino Rossini – Cat Duet
Jacques Offenbach – Infernal Gallop (Orpheus in the Underworld)
Francis Poulenc – The Paths of Love
Erik Satie – I Want You
André Messager – “I Have Two Lovers” (Love in Disguise)
Jacques Offenbach – The Letter “O My Dear Lover” (La Périchole)
Ruperto Chapí – Carceleras (The Daughters of Zebedee)
Georges Bizet – Habanera (Carmen), “The sistrum rods were jingling”
Leonard Bernstein – America (West Side Story)
George Gershwin – I Got Rhythm
Ángel Cabral and Michel Rivgauche – La Foule
Joseph Kosma and Raymond Queneau – Si tu t’imagines
Gaby Verlor and Robert Nyel – Déshabillez-moi
Cole Porter – I Love Paris (Can-Can)

ENCORE: Franz Lehár – L’heure exquise (The Merry Widow)

Running time: 1 hour 20 minutes, no intermission