The theme of femme fatale has always been present in the arts. It has inspired poets, composers and painters to create captivatingly evocative works that are impressive also today. This programme of the NFM Wroclaw Philharmonic features compositions by three composers, their common denominator being the femme fatale motif. The composers were inspired by literature: a play by Oscar Wilde, the famous drama by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and a novel by Prosper Mérimé. The concert will be conducted by Gergely Madaras, born in 1984 in Budapest, Artistic Director of the Orchester Philharmonique Royal de Liège.
The first piece will be the sensual, at times orgiastic Dance of the Seven Veils from Salome by Richard Strauss. In the opera, King Herod Antipas wants to see Princess Salome dance, and she agrees on the condition that the king gives her anything she wants. The monarch agrees to the demand, and the heroine wishes, to Herod’s dismay, that the severed head of John the Baptist be served on a platter. However, an oath is an oath and Salome gets her reward, which contributes to her tragic end. The audience at the beginning of the 20th century was appalled by the erotic atmosphere of the work, and although today Salome no longer outrages anyone, it still fascinates with the colourfulness and suggestiveness of the musical language used by the composer.
No less colourful are three excerpts from Hector Berlioz’s Condemnation of Faust: the slightly ethereal, slightly demonic Minuet of the Imps, the lacy Dance of the Sylphs or the energetic Hungarian March. The latter movement was written in 1846 during Berlioz’s trip to Budapest. In order to win the favour of the local audience, the composer decided to write a work using an authentic Hungarian melody. The choice fell on the Rákóczi March whose author was probably Nicolaus Scholl. Berlioz’s intuition did not disappoint him – it was a huge success, and he liked the piece so much that, after minor alterations, he included it in the Condemnation of Faust, placing the plot of the first movement on the Hungarian plain.
The second part of the concert features both suites from Georges Bizet’s Carmen. Although it may seem unbelievable today, the work, premiered in March 1875, was a complete failure. There were several reasons – sung fragments alternated with spoken parts, which disqualified the composition as suitable for staging at the Paris Opera. So Carmen was presented at the Opera Comique, where the audience did not like the tragic ending and the setting of the plot among the workers and smugglers. However, the extraordinary melodic invention of the French composer, combined with the colourfulness of the music and its Spanish flavour, made the story of Carmen very popular. Both suites featured in tonight’s programme were arranged after Bizet’s death by his friend Ernest Guiraud.