Anthony Roth Costanzo, Jonathan Cohen, Les Violons du Roy
Biographie Anthony Roth Costanzo, Jonathan Cohen, Les Violons du Roy
Anthony Roth Costanzo
continues to build his reputation as one of the rising stars of the next generation of singers.
This season, Mr. Costanzo makes his debuts at the San Francisco Opera in Partenope, Teatro Real in Death in Venice, and the English National Opera in The Indian Queen. He will also be presented in recital in New York by the George London Foundation and in Princeton by Princeton University Concerts.
Mr. Costanzo’s other recent opera engagements have included Rodelinda, The Enchanted Island, and Die Fledermaus at the Metropolitan Opera; his debut at the Glyndebourne Festival as Eustazio in Rinaldo, Semele at the Canadian Opera Company, the title role in Tolomeo, the Sorceress in Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, and staged performances of Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater at the Glimmerglass Festival; the title role in Orfeo ed Euridice at the Palm Beach Opera, Armindo in Partenope at the New York City Opera, Tolomeo in Giulio Cesare at the Michigan Opera Theater, Ottone in Agrippina at the Boston Lyric Opera, the US premiere of Henze’s Phaedre at the Opera Company of Philadelphia, a guest appearance as Oberon in Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream with the Seattle Opera’s Young Artists Program, and the title role in Manhattan School of Music’s main stage production of Lucas Foss’ Griffelkin. In 1994, he performed in Amahl and the Night Visitors at Lincoln Center and with the Opera Company of North Carolina, made a critically acclaimed debut with the New Jersey Opera Festival as Miles in Britten’s The Turn of the Screw, and appeared with Luciano Pavarotti in Philadelphia at the Academy of Music’s Opera Extravaganza. He also recently had the honor of appearing as a special guest artist in a traditional Kabuki production of The Tale Genji in Kyoto.
Les Violons du Roy
takes its name from the celebrated court orchestra of the French kings. It was founded in 1984 by Bernard Labadie, now styled founding conductor, and continues under music director Jonathan Cohan to explore the nearly boundless repertoire of music for chamber orchestra in performances matched as closely as possible to the period of each work’s composition. Its minimum fifteen-member complement plays modern instruments, albeit with period bows for Baroque and Classical music, and its interpretations are deeply informed by the latest research on seventeenth- and eighteenth-century performance practice. The repertoire of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries receives similar attention and figures regularly on the orchestra’s programs.
Les Violons du Roy has been a focal point of Québec City’s musical life since it was founded in 1984, and in 1997 it reached out to enrich the cultural landscape of Montréal as well. In 2007, the orchestra moved into its permanent home base in Québec City’s Palais Montcalm while continuing to build on the worldwide reputation it has acquired in countless concerts and recordings carried by medici.tv, Radio-Canada, CBC, and NPR along with regular appearances on the festival circuit. Les Violons du Roy has performed dozens of times throughout Canada as well as in Germany, the U.K., Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Spain, the United States, France, Israel, Morocco, Mexico, Norway, the Netherlands, Slovenia, and Switzerland, in collaboration with such world-renowned soloists as Magdalena Kožená (2006 and 2014), David Daniels (2001 and 2004), Vivica Genaux (2007), Alexandre Tharaud (2011, 2014, and 2016), Ian Bostridge (2011), Emmanuel Pahud (2012), Stephanie Blythe (2013), Marc-André Hamelin (2015), Philippe Jaroussky (2017), Anthony Marwood (2017), Isabelle Faust (2018), and Julia Lezhneva (2018). The orchestra has performed at the Berlin Philharmonie and iconic venues in London, Paris, and Brussels, with two performances on invitation at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam.
Since Les Violons du Roy’s first trip to Washington, D.C., in 1995, its U.S. travels have been enriched with numerous and regular stops in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. Its seven appearances at Carnegie Hall include three with La Chapelle de Québec featuring the Messiah, the Christmas Oratorio, and the St. John Passion under Bernard Labadie, founder and music director of the choir, and another featuring Dido and Aeneas under Richard Egarr. Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles has hosted the orchestra three times, once with La Chapelle de Québec in the Messiah, again under Bernard Labadie. Les Violons du Roy is represented by Opus 3 Artists and Askonas Holt.
The thirty-two recordings released thus far by Les Violons du Roy have been met with widespread critical acclaim. The twelve released on the Dorian label include Juno Award–winning recordings of Mozart’s Requiem with La Chapelle de Québec and of Handel’s Apollo e Dafne with soprano Karina Gauvin. A dozen more have appeared through a partnership between Les Violons du Roy and Quebec’s ATMA label, including 2008 Félix Award winner Water Music, 2006 Juno Award winner Piazzolla with conductor Jean-Marie Zeitouni, and three releases under the baton of Mathieu Lussier including a CD of Vivaldi violin concertos and another of Mozart’s horn concertos. Further recordings on Erato, Naïve, Hyperion, Analekta, and Decca Gold include mezzo Vivica Genaux with arias by Handel and Hasse; C. P. E. Bach’s cello concertos with Truls Mørk; Marie-Nicole Lemieux performing opera arias by Mozart, Haydn, Gluck, and Graun; Bach and Mozart piano concertos with Alexandre Tharaud; Haydn piano concertos with Marc-André Hamelin; arias by Handel and Philip Glass with Anthony Roth Costanzo; and albums with soloists Valérie Milot and Diane Dufresne.
Jonathan Cohen
is one of Britain’s finest young musicians. He has forged a remarkable career as a conductor, cellist, and keyboardist. Well known for his passion and commitment to chamber music, Jonathan is equally at home in such diverse areas as Baroque opera and the Classical symphonic repertoire. He is Artistic Director of Arcangelo, Music Director of Les Violons du Roy, Associate Conductor of Les Arts Florissants, Artistic Director of the Tetbury Music Festival, and Artistic Partner of the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra.
The 18/19 season for Cohen also includes return visits to the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, and Les Violons du Roy, and debuts with the Cleveland Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic, Mozarteum Orchester, Royal Northern Sinfonia, and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales. He returns to the BBC Proms for Theodora with Arcangelo, the ensemble he founded in 2010 that performs high quality special projects. He has toured with the ensemble to exceptional venues and festivals including Wigmore Hall in London, the Philharmonie in Berlin, the Kölner Philharmonie, the Musikverein in Vienna, the Salzburg Festival, and Carnegie Hall in New York City. Other recent highlights include a European tour with Vilde Frang with concerts at the Oslo Opera House and Tonhalle Zürich and their BBC Proms debut at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse in 2016.
Arcangelo is busy and much in demand in the recording studio, partnering with fine soloists such as Iestyn Davies (its disc Arias for Guadagni won the Recital Category at the 2012 Gramophone Awards and its recording of Bach cantatas was best Baroque Vocal recording at the 2017 Gramophone Awards), Anna Prohaska, and Christopher Purves for Hyperion Records. Arcangelo’s Mozart disc with Vilde Frang on Warner Classics (2015) reached No. 1 on the UK specialist Classical chart and received an Echo Klassik Concert Award. Recital recordings with both Christiane Karg (Scene!) and Matthew Rose (Arias for Benucci) were nominated for International Opera Awards in 2016. Its recording CPE Bach Cello Concertos with Nicolas Altstaedt on Hyperion Records won the BBC Music Magazine Awards Concerto category in 2017, and its Buxtehude Trio Sonatas, Op.1 recording for Alpha Classics was nominated for Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance at the 2018 Grammy Awards. Arcangelo’s most recent recordings of Magnificats by members of the Bach family and Charpentier’s Leçons de ténèbres are already attracting critical acclaim.
