Zemire et Azor

Zemire et Azor Andre Ernest Modeste Gretry (1741 - 1813) Jean-François Marmontel (1723 - 1799) after Pierre-Claude Nivelle de La Chaussée's Amour par amour Short version Zémire, Sanderova dcera - Eva Hartová, soprano Azor - Filip Šťovíček, terone, Sander - Daniel Kfelíř, barytone Ali, Sander´s Servant/Sanderův sluha - Dominik Urbánek, terore Lisbé, Sander´s daughter/Sanderova dcera - Jana Podpěrová, soprano Fatimé, Sander´s daughter/Sanderova dcera - Klára Findeisová Nymph - Anežka Kalkusová Genius of Azor´s palace - Jiří Minařík režisér / stage directror Adam Born  kostýmy / costumes: Zuzana Janitorová, Ivana Svobodová  asistent režie / assistant director Anna Marie Němečková  dirigent / conductor Robert Hugo  Recorded on June 27th and 28th in the Baroque Theater of Český Krumlov Castle az the Baroque Night of the Český Krumlov Festival of Chamber Music 2025 Festival director - Hana Pelzová Program advisor - Martin Voříšek kamera/Cameramann - David Matras střih/editor - Miroslav Pergl film director - Miloslav Kučera The composer and his opera André Ernest Modeste Grétry baptised on 11 February 1741 in Liège, where his father, François Pascal Grétry, was a violinist at the St. Martin’s Basilica. At the age of nine, André joined the boys’ choir at the Collegiate Church of St. Denis. In his memoirs, he bitterly complained of the unduly stringent discipline required by his first music teacher. In 1753, he became a pupil of Jean-Pantaléon Leclerc; later on he began taking keyboard lessons from Nicolas Rennekin, the organist at the Saint-Pierre de Liège. He first studied composition with Henri Moreau, music master at the Collegiate Church of St. Paul. Of greater importance, however, was the practical experience he gained from attending performances of an Italian opera company. Hearing operas by Baldassarre Galuppi, Giovanni Battista Pergolesi and other major composers resulted in the desire to complete his studies in Italy. To earn the necessary finance, in 1759 André Grétry wrote a mass, which he dedicated to the canons of the Liège Cathedral. In March of that year, funded by Canon Hurley, he left for Italy. For five years, Grétry studied in Rome at the Collège de Liège under the tutelage of Giovanni Battista Casali. As he himself would admit later, his knowledge of harmony and counterpoint was very modest at the time. Grétry attained the first success of note with La vendemmiatrice (The Grape Harvester), an Italian intermezzo he created for the Teatro Alibert (or Teatro delle Dame) in Rome. After receiving several lessons from Padre Martini, he passed the entrance exam at the Accademia Filarmonica di Bologna. A turning point in Grétry’s career is said to have been his studying of the score of one of Pierre-Alexandre Monsigny’s operas, lent to him by the secretary of the French Embassy in Rome, leading to the decision to devote himself to French opéra comique. On 1 January 1767, Grétry left Rome and, after a brief sojourn in Geneva (where he met the author and philosopher Voltaire, and produced an operetta), came to Paris. Over the first two years in France, he contended with lack of interest and the attendant poverty. The initial difficulties notwithstanding, he made a few friends, with the most influential being the Swedish Ambassador, Count Gustav Philipp Von Creutz (1731–1785), who introduced Grétry to the poet, writer and historian Jean Francois Marmontel (1723–1799). From Marmontel he received a libretto, based on Voltaire’s novella L’Ingénu, which Grétry set to music within less than six weeks. The fruit of their collaboration was the opéra comique Le Huron, whose premiere, in August 1768, was a resounding triumph. Grétry soon composed another two operas, Lucile and Le tableau parlant. Grétry’s operas entertained Paris until 1789. When the French Revolution commenced, he was not yet 50 years of age, and was determined to keep pursuing his illustrious career. That year, he publishedthe first volume of his Mémoires ou Essais sur la musique. Grétry sought to accommodate to the new political situation, yet his attempts to treat the events he had witnessed were unconvincing. While his new works left the audiences indifferent, the old ones were withdrawn from theatre programmes. In 1797, he published the second and third volumes of his Mémoires ou Essais sur la musique, followed in 1802 by the treatise Méthode pour apprendre a préluder. In 1795 (together with Méhul and Gossec), he was named music assistant in the beauxarts class at the new Institut de France. Furthermore, Grétry was among the first to be granted the Cross of the Ordre national de la Légion d'honneur. He spent the twilight of his days in seclusion at the Jean Jacques Rousseau Hermitage in Montmorency, which he bought 20 years after the philosopher’s death. André Grétry died in 1813. He was given a state funeral and buried in Paris. Adam Born & Robert Hugo