Charpentier | Vespers for the Virgin
Saison
2026/2027
Double orchestra and double choir
The singers of the Centre de musique baroque de Versailles join Hervé Niquet and Le Concert Spirituel for a poignant performance of Marc-Antoine Charpentier’s works for double choir and double orchestra, some of the most striking pieces in the Baroque repertoire.
Distribution
Hervé Niquet conductor
Fanny Valentin*, NN soprano
Cyril Auvity, Anders Dahlin haute-contre
Antoine Ageorges*, François-Olivier Jean tenor
Matthieu Walendzick, Thierry Cartier bass-baritone
* members of the Académie de l'Opéra Royal de Versailles
Les Chantres du Centre de musique baroque de Versailles (Fabien Armengaud Artistic Director)
Le Concert Spirituel choir and orchestra
Program
Marc-Antoine Charpentier
Salve Regina H.24
Litanies of the Virgin H.87
Overture for the Consecration of a Bishop H.536
Dixit Dominus H.190
Lauda Jerusalem H.191
Laudate Dominum H.223
Beatus Vir H.224
Magnificat H.74
Production
Co-produced by the Opéra Royal / Château de Versailles Spectacles, Le Concert Spirituel, and the Centre de musique baroque de Versailles. Scores published by the Centre de musique baroque de Versailles. This program is recorded on CD for the Château de Versailles Spectacles label.
Duration
1h20
Photo credit
Additional information
Musicological and scientific collaboration
Benoît Dratwicki and Thomas Leconte
A passionate devotee of Charpentier’s music, to which he has dedicated a dozen albums with Le Concert Spirituel over the past 40 years, and following the immense success of Médée (2024 Diapason d’Or), Hervé Niquet has decided to revive this collection of pieces. These works, among the most imposing of the 17th and 18th centuries in France, were composed for the King’s Chapel or the Jesuits of the Rue Saint-Antoine. The density of the polyphony highlights the composer’s genius for brilliance and magnificence, as well as the tenderness, sensuality, and suavity characteristic of this French composer who studied in Rome.
"What luxury! By recreating a concert today that only Louis XIV or the Parisian Jesuits could afford to produce at the time, Le Concert Spirituel revives the splendor of Versailles by summoning Charpentier’s Roman and Italian blood. With an octet of soloists, a double orchestra, and a double choir, this trilogy brings together 65 artists in unison: you have to be a little crazy to do this, to reproduce this exceptional acoustic rendering that connects heaven and earth. I have been performing Charpentier for a long time and understand him more easily today. If you pay attention to the rhythm, the metrics, and the mathematics, the music emerges on its own. There is a body of work for two choirs and two orchestras that has almost never been touched, let alone heard or recorded. This is how I wish to complete our recordings and our contribution to Charpentier." Hervé Niquet