La Monnaie Symphony Orchestra

‘Vague and precise, mysterious and clear like a child’s look, absent and present like a summer night...’ With the French philosopher Vladimir Jankélévitch, we could say that, at the turning point between two eras, Fauré’s musical idiom cannot be captured in words. Fauré had a penchant for Antiquity and after years of searching was finally provided with a suitable libretto by the soprano Lucienne Bréval. In Pénélope, inspired by Odysseus’ return home as described by Homer in the Odyssey, we hear the mature Fauré at the peak of his powers. The ‘poème lyrique’ label and the soulful soprano part show that the composer was concerned above all with Penelope’s inner drama – ‘I still have so much love to give him.’ This portrait of marital love is Fauré’s only opera and is also his last masterpiece. The conductor Michel Plasson, a specialist in the French repertoire, and the soprano Anna Caterina Antonacci leave you in no doubt about that.