Opera Lafayette Presents CELEBRATING RAMEAU PART ONE: THE SALON Tonight

Opera Lafayette continues the celebration next season with the modern staged premiere of Rameau's ballet héroïque, Les Fêtes de l'Hymen et de l'Amour, ou Les Dieux d'Egypt on October 6 at the Kennedy Center Concert Hall in Washington, DC, and on October 9at Lincoln Center's Rose Theater in New York City.This production will open Opera Lafayette's 20th anniversary season and has been selected to receive support from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Les Fêtes is the last of Rameau's large-scale opera-ballets to be revived and performed in modern times, and Opera Lafayette has obtained the exclusive rights for the first use of the new Rameau edition being compiled and edited by Rameau scholar Sylvie Bouissou for Bärenreiter/Opera Omnia Publications.

Opera Lafayette will collaborate with three different choreographers and dance companies to stage the opera's prologue and three distinct entrées, the New York Baroque Dance Company (Catherine Turocy, Artistic Director and Choreographer), the Indian dance company Kalanidhi Dance (Anuradha Nehru, Artistic Director and Choreographer), and the contemporary Seán Curran Company (Seán Curran, Artistic Director and Choreographer).

Olivier Baumont:
Awarded a unanimous First Prize in harpsichord and chamber music at the Paris Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse, Olivier Baumont has studied with Huguette Dreyfus and Kenneth Gilbert and was, on several occasions, invited by Gustav Leonhardt to his interpretation classes in Cologne. Baumont's musicianship quickly gained attention, as did his keen sense of communication (through masterclasses, conferences, radio and television programs,) his love of the stage and desire to share a specific fondness for the 17th and 18th century with other art forms - thus distinguishing himself as a truly multifaceted artist, much in demand on the international scene. Invited to major festivals in France and abroad, Olivier Baumont has performed in numerous countries: Germany, Austria, Belgium, Belarus, Brazil, Canada, Croatia, Spain, the United States, the United Kingdom, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Portugal, Czech Republic, Russia, Slovenia, Switzerland and Turkey. A recording dedicated to the works of Johann Sebastian Bach for Lute-Harpischord will be released in early 2014. An accomplished educator, he is the harpsichord teacher at the Paris Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse. Baumont's discography includes some forty recordings, and he has recorded the complete harpsichord works of J.P Rameau for the Accord-Universal label.

Gaële Le Roi:
Renowned for her astonishing stage presence, with which she delights public and critics alike (most recently as Jemmy in Rossini's Guillame Tell at Opéra National de Paris), Gaële Le Roi has firmly established herself as a leading talent of the young generation of French singers. Following her professional debut at the Opéra National de Lyon, Ms. Le Roi was quickly remarked upon by Peter Sellars and asked to sing Yniold / Pelleas et Melisande à l'Opéra d'Amsterdam (Simon Rattle) and at the Los Angeles Music Center (Esa-Pekka Salonen). She then went on to sing this same role at the Teatro Della La Fenice, Venice in a production from Pier-Luigi Pizzi, as well as at the Opéra National de Paris in Bob Wilson's production. In 2002 Ms. Le Roi sang to great success her first Mélisande à l'Opéra de Massy in a production from Yannis Kokkos.

In recent years, Gaële Le Roi has been regularly invited to the Opéra de Montpellier (L'Epouse Injustement Soupconnee, Jenufa, Hippolyte et Aricie, Viva la Mamma by Donizetti), to De Nederlandse Opera (Jenufa, Incoronazione di Poppea) and the Opéra National de Paris (Die Zauberflöte, L'Enfant et les Sortileges), to Le Théâtre des Champs Elysées (Die Zauberflöte), the Salzburg Festival (Les Troyens, Jenufa, Don Carlos) and the Brooklyn Academy of Music (Incoronazione di Poppea).

Opera Lafayette is an American period instrument ensemble focused on the French 18th-century opera repertoire and its precursors, influences, and artistic legacy. Opera Lafayette inspires a love of this repertoire by presenting rediscovered masterpieces and creating a recorded legacy of its work. Founded in 1995 in Washington, DC, by Conductor and Artistic Director Ryan Brown, Opera Lafayette has earned critical acclaim and a loyal following for its performances and recordings with international singers renowned for their interpretations of baroque and classical operas. The New York Times has said, "Opera Lafayette ... has built a sterling reputation through specializing in rarities by Gluck, Grétry and the like." Opera Lafayette's season includes performances at major venues in Washington, DC, and New York City. At the invitation of Château de Versailles Spectacles, Opera Lafayette made its international debut at the Opéra Royal in February 2012 with the modern world premiere of Monsigny's Le Roi et le fermier. France's Opéra Magazine said, "This production should be noted and remembered in the annals of Versailles, for the intelligence of its staging, the beauty of its sets, and its high musical quality." In March 2014, after Opera Lafayette presented its French Così Project at Versailles, the International New York Times noted, "Bringing little-known 18th-century French opera to the Opéra Royal at the Château de Versailles takes audacity and confidence ... Opera Lafayette... has done it twice"

Opera Lafayette's discography on the Naxos label has expanded to ten releases, including Gluck's Orphée et Euridice (2005), Sacchini's Œdipe à Colone (2006), Rameau Operatic Arias (2007), Lully's Armide (2008), Rebel and Francœur's Zélindor, roi des Sylphes (2009), Monsigny's Le Déserteur (2010), Philidor's Sancho Pança (2011) Grétry's Le Magnifique (2012), Monsigny's Le Roi et le fermier, and Félicien David's Lalla Roukh (2014); Philidor's Les Femmes Vengées is scheduled for release in 2015. Opera Lafayette is grateful to Pernod Ricard for its generous support.
This production is made possible in part through generous support from the
Cultural Service of the Embassy of France and SAFRAN
Opera Lafayette is funded in part by the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, an agency supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts.