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CHRONIC. The Opéra-Comique closes its season in style with ‘Zémire et Azor’, a French gem by André Grétry (1741-1813), directed by Michel Fau. A spell!
By Olivier Bellamy
the French comic opera by André Grétry (1741-1813).
© Stefan Brion
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De Grétry, we know above all the delicious aria “I feel my heart beating/I don’t know why” (Richard Heart of lion), which Tchaikovsky took up in his Queen of Spades. Incidentally, it would be difficult to quote a single title from his forty comic operas, a genre in which he was the undisputed master under Marie-Antoinette and then under Napoleon. Caught between Rameau and Berlioz, regarded with contempt as sub-Gluck, the Liège-born composer’s only fault was to please audiences rather than to theorize to better distinguish himself from his rivals.
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