Le roi d'Ys: the great French opera by Édouard Lalo

Hungarian György Vashegyi, who conducted Rameau' s Les Boréades earlier this season, is breaking ground for yet another French opera: Le roi d'Ys by the late romantic Édouard Lalo.

Lalo's (almost) sunken city of Ys
He is best known internationally for his Symphonie espagnole for violin and orchestra, but French composer Lalo, born in Lille, also wrote operas. He worked on his greatest work, Le roi d'Ys, for about ten years, and it was premiered in Paris in 1888. The opera goes back to a Breton legend about the coastal town of Ys, which was supposedly swallowed by the sea. Two king's daughters, one of whom is driven by intense jealousy, love the same man. The defeated daughter takes revenge by opening the floodgates and flooding the city, which is prevented by religious intervention.

Echoes of Breton folk music and Lohengrin
Lalo's orchestral language is evocative and chromatic, with very occasional echoes of Wagner and his Lohengrin, but he also uses Breton folk music. Debussy later wrote his piano piece La cathédrale engloutie based on this legend. The Matinee presents this great romantic title from the French repertoire which, due to its great success at its premiere in Paris, was immediately performed in Amsterdam in 1888 - then in Dutch.