Appearing now as the guest of the
Hungarian National Philharmonic
,
Bertrand de Billy
is one of today's most successful French
conductors
, whose chief interests in opera are
Wagner
and the French Romantics, like
Massenet and Gounod
. His productions of Wagner, including the complete Ring cycle, have been released on a number of DVDs. Between 1994-2004 he was Chief Conductor of the
Gran Teatre del Liceu
of Barcelona, where several of his productions became the talk of the international opera circuit.
At the
Budapest Spring Festival
he will conduct Liszt's Orpheus, a delightfully airy piece, as well as a rarely heard transcription of Schubert, a mass, and a seldom played cantata of Berlioz. The latter emerged as three, originally unrelated compositions were conjoined. Extremely original and surprising in its instrumentation and ideas, the resulting triptych is rich in colour and effect, a real musical treat.
