‘Magdalena Kožená & Ohad Ben-Ari’

Who better to open our recital series at the Palais than Magdalena Kožená? Familiar with the baroque repertoire, this time the Czech soprano whisks us off to a more recent universe, abound with nuance and refinement. With her programme largely devoted to Debussy, she invites us to discover the charms of the profoundly modern and inspired language of the French composer, who was considered a true revolutionary. Debussy was a colourist who set some of the most beautiful poems by Verlaine, Baudelaire and Pierre Louÿs to music for voice and piano. Les Chansons de Bilitis created by the latter are shrouded in mystery: these erotic Greek poems of which he provides a translation are in fact entirely by his hand! In his Poèmes pour Mi, Olivier Messiaen set verses of his own to music to celebrate his love for his wife, the violinist Claire Delbos.