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By Ben Mattison
29 May 2005
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| Bryn Terfel |
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| photo by Simon Fowler |
Ca Ira, a new opera by rock star Roger Waters, will be released on CD by Sony BMG in September, the record company announced.
The recording will feature baritone Bryn Terfel, tenor Paul Groves, and other singers from the opera world.
Ca Ira is set during early years of the French revolution; characters include Marie Antoinette, Louis XVI, and Marie Marianne— "the Voice of Liberty, Reason, and the Republic." It uses a circus as "a central theatrical framing device and metaphor," according to a statement.
The libretto was first written, in French, by songwriter Etienne Roda-Gil and his wife Nadine to mark the bicentennial of the revolution in 1989. Waters began work on a score at the time, but stopped when Nadine Roda-Gil died of leukemia. In 1997, he took up the project again and completed an English translation.
"Although it's rooted in the history of the revolution, its philosophical slant is, I suppose, contemporary as well," Waters said in a statement. "It's more than just a history of the French Revolution, it's a piece about the human potential for change."
On the recording, to be released on two Super Audio CDs, Terfel plays the parts of Louis XVI, the Ringmaster, and the Troublemaker; soprano Ying Huang is Marie Antoinette and Marie Marianne. Groves is a Revolutionary Priest and a Military Officer; Nigerian pop singer Ismael Lo plays a Revolutionary Slave.
Waters was a founder of the band Pink Floyd , with which he helped create the "rock opera" The Wall, among other bestselling albums.
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