EVEN BEFORE HIS FIRST OPERA, PUCCINI HAD ALREADY FOUND HIS VOICE 

‘And the Almighty touched me with his finger and said ‘Write for the theatre, and only for the theatre!’ And I have obeyed this supreme commandment.’ When he said this, Puccini, whose name is inseparably linked to opera, was forgetting some of the works of his youth. After all, one of Puccini’s first ambitious compositions and successes was a piece of church music: his five-part Messa a Quattro voci con orchestra, or Messa di Gloria for short. In this work he combined counterpoint and the melodic invention that already points ahead to his operas. For his debut at La Monnaie, the French conductor Fayçal Karoui completes this programme with works inspired by the Italian arts: Botticelli’s painting in Respighi’s Trittico, and a verse by Giacomo Leopardi in a piece by the French composer Guillaume Connesson, who pays tribute to the beauty of the Italian landscape. A symphonic evening that is already looking ahead to the summer holidays.

PROGRAMME

• Guillaume Connesson E chiaro nella valle il fiume appare (2015)
• Ottorino Respighi Trittico Botticelliano (1927)
• Giacomo Puccini Messa di Gloria (1880)

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