Soprano Hera Hyesang Park to Perform In Featured Recital At Orchestre De Chambre De Paris

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Soprano Hera Hyesang Park will perform at the prestigious Salle Gaveau on Sunday, May 19, 2024 2024 at 5:00pm in a recital with the Orchestre de Chambre Paris, alongside celebrated bass Kyungil Ko and pianist Jeff Cohen. Titled Jeux Lyriques, or "Lyric Games," this program celebrates cultural and artistic exchanges between Korea and France - also a fitting theme for Park, known for her versatility and famously cosmopolitan outlook on music and culture. This concert is presented by the Korean Foundation for International Cultural Exchange (KOFICE) and the Korean Cultural Center in Paris.

Park is featured in this varied program on pieces by Mozart and Purcell; works by 20th century composers Reynaldo Hahn, Henri Duparc, and Édith Piaf; and Korean folk songs arranged by Ilnam Chang and Dunam Cho. In her first piece on the program, she performs Mozart's Exsultate Jubilate, the joyful motet described by musicologist Stanley Sadie as "a jewel of a piece with its high spirits and its wit ... like no other piece of Mozart's." She follows with Reynaldo Hahn's L' Enamouree, set to poet Paul Verlaine's work capturing the romantic dream of reuniting with a dead lover, and Henri Duparc's Chanson triste, written during a difficult period in the composer's life and expressing the wish that the love of a woman could heal his sorrows. She performs alongside Kyungil Ko in the Korean folk songs Sin-go-san-taryeong and Bird Song. In a series of pieces for voice and wind quintet, Park is featured on Purcell's When I am laid (from Dido and Aeneas) and Mozart's Deh vieni non tardar (from Le nozze di Figaro). She performs with Ko and wind quintet for the concert's finale, La vie en rose, the signature song composed and performed by the French cabaret singer Édith Piaf.

In addition, Ko is featured as soloist on Rossini's La Calunnia (Il barbiere di Siviglia), Arrigo Boito's His lo spirito che nega (Mefistofele), Jacques Ibert's Song from Don Quixote IV. Song of Death and Tchaikovsky's Lyubvi vsye vozrasti pokorni (Eugene Onegin).

Musicians from the Orchestre de chambre de Paris are featured as a wind quintet for an instrumental interlude including Grieg's Norwegian Dances op. 35 (arr. D. Walter), Bizet's Suite from Carmen (arr. D. Walter) and Bartók's Six Romanian Folk Dances.

From June 10, 2024 to July 9, 2024, Park returns to Opera de Paris for the role of Despina in Mozart's Così fan tutte. She performs alongside Vannina Santoni (Fiordiligi), Angela Brower (Dorabella), Josh Lovell (Ferrando), Gordon Bintner (Guglielmo), and Paulo Szot (Don Alfonso).

Park's engagements in Paris follow an eventful spring for the soprano, centered around her second album, Breathe, released by Deutsche Grammophon on February 2. As a follow-up to her debut album I am Hera, the new recording celebrates courage in the face of life's struggles, exploring how we survive and emerge victorious from our most difficult times. The album brings together operatic classics by Rossini, Verdi and Massenet with contemporary works by Luke Howard, Cecilia Livingston, Hyowon Woo and Bernat Vivancos. Park signed an exclusive agreement with Deutsche Grammophon in May 2020 as one of the first singers of Asian descent signed to the prestigious label.

In conjunction with her Breathe release, Park performed repertoire from the album at 2024 Seoul Fashion Week and in recital at Seoul's Lotte Concert Hall, both in February 2024, as well as at Teatro Colón in Argentina. On April 24, she appeared as soloist in the New York Philharmonic Spring Gala, marking the first performance led by Gustavo Dudamel since he was named Music Director. She has performed recitals with pianist Andrés Sarre at the Palacio Municipal de Álamos, Mexico, and with pianist Bretton Brown for two dates in the UK: at London's Barbican Centre and Manchester's Stoller Hall. While in the UK, she also made her debut with the London Philharmonic Orchestra under Mo. Edward Gardner in Mozart's Mass in C minor.

Program Details

Grand Gala Classique 'Jeux Lyriques'
Sunday, May 19, 2024 at 5:00pm
Salle Gaveau | Paris, France
Tickets: €10-€30
Link: www.sallegaveau.com/spectacles/grand-gala-classique

Program:
Rossini - La Calunnia (Basilio) - Il barbiere di Siviglia
Boito - Son lo spirito che nega (Mefistofele) - Mefistofele
Ibert - Chanson de Don Quichotte IV. Chanson de la mort
Tchaikovsky - Lyubvi vsye vozrasti pokorni (Gremin) - Eugene Onegin
Kyungil Ko, bass
Jeff Cohen, piano
Mozart - Exsultate Jubilate
R Hahn - L'énamourée
Duparc - Chanson triste
Ilnam Chang (Bass): Sin-go-san-taryeong
Dunam Cho (Soprano): Bird Song
Hera Hyesang Park, soprano
Jeff Cohen, piano

Wind Quintet:
Grieg: Norwegian Dances op. 35 (arr. D. Walter) (extracts)
Bizet: Suite from Carmen (arr. D. Walter) (extracts)
Bartók: Six Romanian Folk Dances

Purcell: When I am laid - Dido and Aeneas
Mozart: Deh vieni non tardar - Le nozze di Figaro
Mozart: Madamina - Don Giovanni
Piaf: La vie en rose
Hera Hyesang Park, soprano
Kyungil Ko, bass
Jeff Cohen, piano
Wind Quintet

About Hera Hyesang Park

Soprano Hera Hyesang Park is celebrated not only for her exquisite voice and stagecraft, but for the deeper ideas embodied in her work. Originally from South Korea and trained at The Juilliard School, she brings a cosmopolitan outlook to her music, combining her Korean roots and Western life experience in a style she describes as "traditional but uncommon": open to learn from both classical and modern attitudes to life and art. Her lyric coloratura voice carries both immaculate technique and a seemingly infinite variety of tonal colors, combining in a fearless and captivating stage presence. Essential to her music is a powerful drive for empathy and understanding, rejecting discrimination and stereotypes of every kind. Live performance and recordings represent, for Park, an act of self-discovery and a means of heartfelt, emotionally honest connection with others.

In the course of her fast-rising career, Park has taken the stage at venues from the Metropolitan Opera to Glyndebourne Festival. Her opera roles have included Rosina in the Glyndebourne Festival's 2019 production of Il barbiere di Siviglia (a performance described by The Times of London as "phenomenal") and Musetta in Barrie Kosky's production of La bohème at the Komische Oper Berlin. She made her Metropolitan Opera debut in 2017 as the First Wood Sprite in Rusalka and made successful returns as Amore in Mark Morris's staging of Orfeo ed Euridice, Pamina in The Magic Flute and Nannetta in Falstaff. She sang the role of Violetta Valéry in the 2020 world premiere of 7 Deaths of Maria Callas, Marina Abramović's pioneering opera project for the Bayerische Staatsoper, reprising the role at the Opera de Paris in 2021. Other key roles have included Adina in Donizetti's L'elisir d'amore at Berlin Staatsoper, Despina in Così fan tutte at Bayerische Staatsoper, Aldimira in Rossini's Sigismondo with the Münchner Rundfunkorchester, and two additional roles at the Glyndebourne Festival: Despina in Così fan tutte and Susanna in Le Nozze di Figaro. She has also performed as a soloist in concerts with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra and the Los Angeles Opera, and in a performance of Brahms' Ein deutsches Requiem at Leipzig's Thomaskirche.

Park's first album, I am Hera, was released digitally in November 2020, with a physical release in January 2021, on Deutsche Grammophon. Curating a selection of works near and dear to her heart, Park recorded pieces by Bellini, Gluck, Handel, Mozart, Pergolesi, Puccini and Rossini alongside works by Korean composers Joowon Kim and Un-Yung La, including the latter's uplifting setting of Psalm 23. "Instead of making myself perform a list of songs that might impress others, I decided to take a chance on myself and perform songs that resonate with my core values," Park told OperaWire in May 2020. "I feel my purpose is to make the world a little better by living a healthy life and knowing that the talent I have been given is in essence meant to bring more light to the world."

Recognized as a standout talent from an early age, Park studied at Seoul National University before earning her two-year Artist Diploma in Opera Studies at the Juilliard School in 2015. Soon afterward, she was selected for the Metropolitan Opera's prestigious Lindemann Young Artist Development Program. She made her international breakthrough in 2015, when she was named among the winners at the Plácido Domingo's Operalia Competition. She went on to win first prize at the Gerda Lissner Foundation International Competition in 2016 and the coveted Hildegard Behrens Foundation Award in 2018. Her flair for fashion subsequently caught the eye of Vogue Editor in Chief Dame Anna Wintour, who chose the Giambattista Valli gown that Park wore to New York's Met Gala in 2018. Learn more at www.herahyesangpark.com.

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