Fayçal Karoui: Opera Gala with Dinara Alieva and René Barbera

Having supervised and directed the young musicians of Annecy Campus Orchestra 2015 (see the ACO 2015 concert on 26/08), for a high-level training course in orchestral playing, Fayçal Karoui will rejoin the musicians of the St Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra.

For its second season of "Opera Gala", Annecy Classic Festival has invited the soprano Dinara Alieva, associate artist with the Bolshoi Theatre since 2010, and the tenor, René Barbera, a member of Chicago Lyric Opera company and a winner of Plácido Domingo's 2008 Operalia Competition. On this occasion, they will present some of the most beautiful and moving arias from operatic masterpieces by composers ranging from Mozart to Gounod, via Puccini and Massenet.

Former assistant to Michel Plasson at the Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse, Fayçal Karoui has been musical director of the Orchestre de Pau Pays de Béarn since 2002. For five years he also held a similar post with the prestigious New York City Ballet founded by George Balanchine. In that mecca of dance, he firmly positioned music as a unifying force. After several years at the head of the Orchestre Lamoureux, Fayçal Karoui has chosen to devote himself fully to the Orchestre de Pau Pays de Béarn.

Photo: © Yannick Perrin.