Les Paladins
In 1760 Jean-Philippe Rameau composed Les Paladins, the last masterpiece of the French Baroque spirit, written under the sign of fantasy and imagination. It is in this spirit that Jérôme Correas founded Les Paladins in 2001, a baroque orchestra with which he explores the dramatic musical repertoire of the 17th and 18th centuries, from Monteverdi to Mozart.

Les Paladins collaborate with directors from different artistic fields (theater, video, puppetry, dance, circus); Les Paladins’ critically lauded theatrical productions include Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea and Il ritorno di Ulisse in patria (directed by Christophe Rauck), Cavalli’s Ormindo and Monteverdi’s Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda (directed by Dan Jemmett), La Fausse magie (revival of Gretry’s comic opera, directed by Vincent Tavernier), Rameau’s Les Indes Galantes (an adaptation with puppets and choreography by Constance Larrieu), Viva España (with choreographer Ana Yepes), Handel’s Amadigi (with a video staging by Bernard Levy), a reconstruction of Louis Clapisson’s comic opera Le Code Noir, about slavery (directed by Jean-Pierre Baro). In 2021 Les Paladins produced and recorded Tempesta di Mare, based on Antonio Vivaldi’s Concerto da Camera. In 2022 Jérôme Correas and Les Paladins produced ORFEO 5063, an encounter between Monteverdi’s music and digital arts, entrusted to video artist Guillaume Marmin. For Café Libertà, which will be the next creation in 2023, Les Paladins invited choreographer Ambra Senatore for a lyrical and choreographic journey around the café cantatas of Jean-Sébastien Bach and Nicolas Bernier.

In concert, Les Paladins collaborate with soloists such as Karine Deshayes and Sandrine Piau at numerous festivals in Europe, the United States, and Japan, helping to make known unpublished works of the Baroque repertoire.

Les Paladins are also engaged in cultural mediation and professional training of young singers and instrumentalists. The ensemble participates in numerous educational projects in the places where Les Paladins are in residence. In June 2022, Jérôme Correas and Les Paladins will present Orphée et Eurydice, an opera by Gluck featuring 250 adult and child amateur choristers, choreographed by Elodie Escarmelle, produced by the Théâtre de Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines.

Les Paladins have recorded around twelve CDs with Arion, Pan Classics, Ambronay Editions, Naïve, Cyprès Records, Alpha Classics, and B Records. After L’Ormindo by Cavalli (Pan Classics) and Le triomphe de l’amour (Naive), Enchantresses (released in January 2022 by Alpha Classics) their successful collaboration with soprano Sandrine Piau began. September 2022 will see the release of Tempesta di Mare, an album recorded live by B Records, about Antonio Vivaldi’s Concerto da Camera. In October 2022 Jérôme Correas and Les Paladins will record Exsultate, Jubilate! with mezzo-soprano Karine Deshayes for Aparté, to be released in 2023.

Jérôme Correas
trained as a harpsichordist and singer. A pupil of harpsichordist and musicologist Antoine Geoffroy-Dechaume, he received first prize at the CNSMD (Conservatory) in Paris in baroque singing in the class of William Christie, then in opera in the class of Xavier Depraz. He continued his training with René Jacobs at the Studio Versailles Opéra, then at the Lyric Art School of the Paris Opera.

As a member of Les Arts Florissants from 1988 to 1993, he sang under Christophe Rousset, Sigiswald Kuijken, Jean-Claude Malgoire, Marek Janowski, Sylvain Cambreling, Christophe Coin, Michel Corboz, Philippe Entremont, Marco Guidarini, François-Xavier Roth , Jean-François Heisser.

In 2001 Jérôme Correas founded Les Paladins, a baroque orchestra that explores repertoires ranging from Monteverdi to Mozart. His double experience as a harpsichordist and as a singer allows him to offer Les Paladins a very personal interpretation based on theatricality, breathing and the rubato, as well as the search for the art of “parlar cantando”, particularly appreciated in the Italian opera of the 17th century, in lyric tragedy and comic opera, genres that are particularly dear to him.

With directors such as Dan Jemmett, Christophe Rauck, Vincent Tavernier, Vincent Vittoz, Irène Bonnaud, Mireille Larroche, Jean-Denis Monory, Bernard Levy and Jean-Pierre Baro, Jérôme Correas and Les Paladins have staged numerous French, Italian and English operas , from Monteverdi, Cavalli, Rossi, Marazzoli to Haydn and Paisiello, as well as Purcell, Marin Marais, Destouches, Rameau and Gretry, up to the romantic period with Clapisson. Jérôme Correas is very attracted to transversality and loves to create encounters between the Baroque musical repertoire and other artistic genres. In 2022, he conducted ORFEO 5063, an encounter between Monteverdi’s music and digital arts, with video artist Guillaume Marmin. In 2023, he invited choreographer Ambra Senatore (from the Centre Chorégraphique National de Nantes) for Café Libertà, a programme based on the coffee cantatas by Jean-Sébastien Bach and Nicolas Bernier.

In parallel with the artistic direction of Les Paladins, Jérôme Correas also has a career as a conductor in France and abroad (Orchestra of the Teatro Massimo Bellini of Catania, Orchestra of the Rouen Opera, Chamber Orchestra of Moscow, Symphony Orchestra of Balearic Islands, St. Petersburg Baroque Orchestra). In March 2022, he conducted the Philharmonic Orchestra and the Nice Opera Chorus in Lully’s opera Phaéton,directed by Éric Oberdoff. Appointed Chevalier des Arts et Lettres in 2011, he is also dedicated to young audiences and young instrumentalists and singers. He conducts the youth choir of the Massy Opera and regularly holds master classes at the CNSMD Conservatory of Paris, the CRRs of Toulouse, Paris and Nice, the Pôle Supérieur of Dijon, the Atelier Lyrique of the Paris Opera and the École Normale de Musique in Paris.