After Dresden and London, Sophie Koch is dazzling audiences today in Salzbourg, Vienna and Munich. For many years she has been hailed as one of the great interpreters of Mozart and Richard Strauss. Her performances, notably in Ariadne auf Naxos at the Paris Opera or in the role of Octavian in Der Rosenkavalier, have made her one of France’s leading icons of opera.

Without abandoning her favourite roles, she is turning today more and more towards the French repertoire. Among other roles, she is an exemplary Charlotte in Werther.

Beyond her success on the stage, her career in the recital hall is just as admirable. With a rare timbre, a fullness and warmth, and perfect diction, she always amazes with her ability to move with such ease and grace from the most extravagant roles to the most intimate and profound music. She has also recorded the Lieder of Wolf and Schubert as well as a recital of Schumann and collections of French melodies.

The programme proposed by Sophie Koch is a story of relationships around the Liedromantique. The Lied of Franz Liszt is a world apart, literary and refined, far removed from the virtuoso Liszt for piano. A man of letters, he was particularly sensitive to the quality of the poems that he put to music. His influence on Wagner was considerable and this performance gives us the opportunity to hear in the same evening the Wesendonck-Lieder, a few pages that presage Die Walkure.

The work of Henri Duparc, who was considerably influenced by Liszt and Wagner, is one of the heights of French music, rich in melodic invention, with a perfect symbiosis between text and music.


Programme of melodies and lieder:
Franz Liszt (1811-1886)
Four melodies on poems by Victor Hugo, Freudvoll und leidvoll, Im Rhein, Im schönen Strome, Die Lorelei. Henri Duparc (1848-1933)
Song triste, L’Invitation au voyage, Extase, La Vie Antérieure, Phydilé
Richard Wagner (1813-1883)
Wesendonck-Lieder.

With

Sophie Koch Mezzo-soprano
Sophie Raynaud Piano