Mercury Baroque presents Pygmalion at the French Baroque Music Festival

Mercury Baroque will present the fully staged opera-ballet Pygmalion by J.P. Rameau and a suite from Les Indes Galantes on Friday, Feb. 16, 2007 at 8 p.m. at the Wortham Center, Cullen Theater, sponsored in part by The Texan-French Alliance for the Arts.

Houston’s Mercury Baroque’s biggest production explores the passion of Baroque music during the time of the French King Louis XV who was born at Versailles. Having lost his mother while still an infant, he always longed for a motherly and reassuring presence, which he tried to find in the intimate company of women, for which he was much criticized both during and after his life. By 27 years of age, he had already fathered 10 royal children. La Marquise de Pompadour, his mistress and a patron of the arts, was the focus of the king's passion and his friend until her death.

“France in 1748 was rich ground for music and dance. Louis XV kept a lavish court, new lands were conquered, the Enlightenment was producing thinkers like Voltaire and Diderot,” said Mercury Baroque Artistic Director Antoine Plante. “Yet one thing remained constant, the human fascination with love.”

In his one-act ballet-opera, Pygmalion, Jean-Philippe Rameau, who by 1733 was arguably the leading French composer of the time, explores the transformative power of that emotion, both in the ancient world of Pygmalion and in the new worlds of Peru, Turkey, Persia and North America in Les Indes Galantes.

“Mercury Baroque will join forces with the acclaimed New York Baroque Dance Company for a rare feast of Baroque French glory,” said Plante.

The concert will feature The New York Baroque Dance Company, founded by Artistic Director Catherine Turocy in collaboration with Ann Jacoby. The New York Baroque Dance Company has been a leading force in the revival of 18th century ballet, challenging aesthetic conventions and bringing forgotten masterpieces to new audiences.

“Catherine Turocy still gives one of the most moving performances in dance today,” said the Washington Star.

The performance includes an international cast of artists, a fully costumed Mercury Baroque orchestra, and Baroque dance. Pygmalion will feature High Tenor Mathias Vidal, a rising star haute-contre, and three sopranos, Ana Treviño-Godfrey, Anne-Julia Audray and Rebecca Beasly and the Mercury Baroque Chamber Singers.

Vidal, a native of France, studied singing at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris where he graduated in 2003. Since his graduation, he was rapidly noticed and started performing works from both contemporary and baroque eras with prestigious ensembles in Europe. Vidal has worked under the direction of conductors such as Richard Egarr in a Purcell’s Fairy Queen, Emmanuelle Haïm in Montervedi’s Coronation of Popea and Pascal Rophé in Poulenc’s Les dialogues des Carmélites.

“It will be a special evening where Houston audiences will have the opportunity to experience a recreation of a Grand 18th century French Ball first hand,” said Plante.