CSO_1415_Catalog

2014/15 Season Highlight 21
L’enfant et les sortilèges
Esa-Pekka Salonen conducts Ravel’s glittering jewel of a one-act opera
One of French music’s greatest masterpieces, Ravel’s “lyric
fantasy” L’enfant et les sortilèges (The Child and Magic Spells)
tells the dreamlike story of a small child who rebels against the
strictness of his mother only to find his whole world turned upside
down by magical forces beyond his control.
This astoundingly sumptuous score, written in the 1920s to a witty
and provocative text by the scandalous French novelist Colette,
shows Ravel’s orchestral mastery at its most flawless and virtuosic.
Singing teapots, clocks, furniture, trees, birds and animals tumble
over one another in a story which moves from the laughter and
whimsy of a child’s nursery to the darkness and power of nature
and—in the final bars—a deeply moving sense of reconciliation
and forgiveness.
PERFORMED MAY 7–9 AND 15
Series: Thursday C and E, Friday B and D, Saturday D
This work is part of the 2015 Reveries and Passions Festival.