On the occasion of his 80th birthday

Saturday 14, July > 20h Opéra Berlioz / Le Corum

Richard Wagner
Les Maîtres chanteurs de Nüremberg, ouverture en ut Majeur
Tannhäuser, ouverture en mi Majeur

Anton Bruckner
Symphonie n°7 en mi Majeur

At the head of his orchestra, the Orchestre National de France, Kurt Masur comes back to one of his favourite composers, Anton Bruckner. After Leipzig, with the Orchestra of the Gewandhaus, and New York, with the Philharmonic, it is henceforth with the National that the German conductor is giving his most accomplished Bruckner interpretations. Already in 2003 at the Linz Brucknerfest, the conductor and orchestra caused a sensation with the 3rd Symphony in the Sanctum sanctorum, the collegiate church of Saint Florian, where the composer was organist a century earlier. Concluding his fifth season at the head of the National, Kurt Masur, who celebrates his 80th birthday this year, is offering Montpellier the Seventh, one of the composer’s most grandiose symphonies, which he will perform again two days later at the Proms in London. The most luminous and perhaps most accessible of all the Bruckner symphonies strikes a balance between the intense lyrical flight of the first movement and a joyful, energetic Finale. Between the two, the heart-warming emotion of the Adagio and the elegant rocking of the Scherzo, like a brilliant planet swirling in the shadows. Frohe Geburtstag, Herr Masur!

Franck Mallet