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Waters: Ça Ira / Terfel, Huang, Groves


Release Date: 09/27/2005 
Label:  Sony   Catalog #: 96439   Spars Code: DDD 
Composer:  Roger Waters
Performer:  Ismael Lo,  Huang Ying,  Paul Groves,  Jamie Bower,   ... 
Conductor:  Richard Wentworth,  Rick Wentworth
Orchestra/Ensemble:  London Voices,  London Oratory Choir,  Italia Conti Children's Choir,   ... 
Number of Discs: 2 
Recorded in: Stereo 
Length: 1 Hours 51 Mins. 

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Notes and Editorial Reviews

Premiere Recording

Waters, who co-founded the groundbreaking rock group Pink Floyd in 1966, began to bridge the worlds of rock and classical music in such pioneering major works as "The Dark Side Of The Moon" (1973) and "The Wall" (1979) in which he incorporated elements of operatic form--theatricality, coherent narrative, dramatic arcs, thematic music and song cycles--in a pop context.

Waters' work on "Ça Ira," his first opera for full orchestra and voice, began in 1989, during the Bicentennial of the French Revolution. The well-respected and successful songwriter Etienne Roda-Gil and his wife, Nadine, had created an original libretto for an opera, written in French, Read more as part of the Bicentennial. Entitled "Ça Ira," after a revolutionary song of the period, the Roda-Gil's original manuscript, copiously and beautifully illustrated by Nadine, portrayed the events and the spirit of the French Revolution through a multitude of perspectives--ranging from Marie Antoinette to the eyes and ears of the period's revolutionaries and common people--using a circus as a central theatrical framing device and metaphor.

The finished version of "Ça Ira" features orchestration and choral arrangements by Rick Wentworth and Roger Waters, also the album's producers. Principal characters in the opera are brought to life by the Welsh bass-baritone Bryn Terfel (the Ringmaster, the Troublemaker, Louis Capet - the King of France); internationally acclaimed soprano Ying Huang (Marie Marianne - the Voice of Liberty, Reason and the Republic, Marie Antoinette - the Queen of France); American tenor Paul Groves (A Revolutionary Priest, A Military Officer); and Senegalese "one man orchestra" Ismael Lo (a Revolutionary Slave). Other parts are sung by Jamie Bower (Honest Bird - the young Revolutionary Priest) and Helen Russill (Madame Antoine - the young Marie Antoinette).

Before the rise and fall of the guillotine, before the terror took hold, the People of France fought for a better world based on the ideals of liberty, equality and fraternity rather than one ruled by a callous and outmoded nobility. It is this story of hope and promise that inspired "Ça Ira."

This is an Enhanced CD, which contains both regular audio tracks and multimedia computer files.

Libretto included.
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Works on This Recording

1. Ca Ira by Roger Waters
Performer:  Ismael Lo (Voice), Huang Ying (Soprano), Paul Groves (Tenor),
Jamie Bower (Voice), Bryn Terfel (Baritone), Helen Russill (Voice)
Conductor:  Richard Wentworth,  Rick Wentworth
Orchestra/Ensemble:  London Voices,  London Oratory Choir,  Italia Conti Children's Choir  ... 
Period: 20th Century 
Written: England 
 Length: 1 Minutes 38 Secs. 
Language: English 
Notes: EMI Abbey Road Studios, London; Air Lyndhurst, London, England; Sphere Studios, London, England; Whitfield Studios, London, England; Studio Guillaume Tell, Paris, France; Mega, Paris, France 

Sound Samples

The Gathering Storm (English Version)
Overture (English Version)
A Garden in Vienna 1765 (English Version)
"Madame Antoine, Madame Antoine..." (English Version)
Kings, Sticks and Birds (English Version)
"Honest bird, simple bird..." (English Version)
"I want to be King..." (English Version)
"Let us break all the shields..." (English Version)
The Grievances of the People (English Version)
France in Disarray (English Version)
"To laugh is to know how to live..." (English Version)
"Slavers, Landlords, Bigots at your door..." (English Version)
The Fall of the Bastille (English Version)
"To freeze in the dead of night..." (English Version)
"So to the streets in the pouring rain..." (English Version)
Dances and Marches (English Version)
"Now Hear Ye!..." (English Version)
"Flushed with wine..." (English Version)
The Letter (English Version)
"My dear Cousin Bourbon of Spain..." (English Version)
"The ship of state is all at sea..." (English Version)
Silver, Sugar and Indigo (English Version)
"To the Windward Isles..." (English Version)
The Papal Edict (English Version)
"In Paris there's a rumble under the ground..." (English Version)
The Fugitive King (English Version)
"But the Marquis of Boulli has a trump card up his sleeve..." (English Version)
"To take your hat off..." (English Version)
"The echoes never fade from that fusillade..." (English Version)
The Commune de Paris (English Version)
"Vive la Commune de Paris..." (English Version)
"The National Assembly is confused..." (English Version)
The Execution of Louis Capet (English Version)
"Adieu Louis for you it's over..." (English Version)
Marie Antoinette - The Last Night on Earth (English Version)
"Adieu my good and tender sister..." (English Version)
Liberty (English Version)
"And in the bushes where they survive..." (English Version)

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