Verbier Festival 2018: Haydn: The Creation

The Creation is one of Haydn’s masterpieces. Despite its biblical subject (the seven days of the creation of the world), it remains a secular work, written for a concert hall rather than a church. It also takes a few liberties with the libretto, notably by including angels (the 5 solo parts and choir) alongside God. This libretto and the instrumentation, very often imitative of the described action, give The Creation much humour, in addition to the joyousness characteristic of most of Haydn’s works. In this Verbier version, the 5 solo parts are beautifully sung by Miah Persson (singing both Gabriel and Eve), Bernard Richter (Uriel), Andreas Bauer (Raphaël) and Peter Mattei (Adam), joined by the extremely powerful Rias Kammerchor: an impressive cast up to the greatness of the work.
Und es war so.