MONDE ET MYSTÈRE Christina Baader & Gert Hecher

• Henri Duparc (1848 - 1933): Chanson triste:
• 1 Duparc: Chanson triste 03:26
• L’Invitation au voyage:
• 2 Duparc: L’Invitation au voyage 03:58
• Extase:
• 3 Duparc: Extase 02:59
• Soupir:
• 4 Duparc: Soupir 03:13
• Romance de Mignon:
• 5 Duparc: Romance de Mignon 04:12
• Élégie:
• 6 Duparc: Élégie 03:13
• Lamento:
• 7 Duparc: Lamento 03:18
• Gabriel Fauré (1845 - 1924): Testament:
• 8 Fauré: Testament 03:57
• En sourdine:
• 9 Fauré: En sourdine 03:12
• Les berceaux:
• 10 Fauré: Les berceaux 02:30
• Ici-bas!:
• 11 Fauré: Ici-bas! 01:51
• Tristesse:
• 12 Fauré: Tristesse 02:44
• Après un rêve:
• 13 Fauré: Après un rêve 02:46
• Spleen:
• 14 Fauré: Spleen 02:15
• Prison:
• 15 Fauré: Prison 01:47
• Au cimetière:
• 16 Fauré: Au cimetière 03:26
• Automne:
• 17 Fauré: Automne 02:43
• Nell:
• 18 Fauré: Nell 02:10
• Au bord de l’eau:
• 19 Fauré: Au bord de l’eau 02:09
• C’est l’extase:
• 20 Fauré: C’est l’extase 02:54
• Larmes:
• 21 Fauré: Larmes 02:37
• Fleur jetée:
• 22 Fauré: Fleur jetée 01:38
• Tendresse:
• 23 Fauré: Tendresse 03:22
• Total Runtime 01:06:20

Info for MONDE ET MYSTÈRE

Stuttgart-born mezzo-soprano Christina Baader has been a sought-after musician for many years, not only in the opera field and as a soloist, but has also been successful internationally as a visual artist.

To mark the 100th anniversary of Gabriel Fauré's death, Christina Baader, together with Gert Hecher (piano), is presenting a selection of his songs and of Henri Duparc, who also played a key role in establishing an independent French song art, under the title MONDE ET MYSTÈRE. The expressive songs are based on poems by famous French poets such as Paul Verlaine, Charles Baudelaire, Armand Silvestre, Théophile Gautier, René-François Sully-Prudhomme and Jean Lahor.

Together with Gert Hecher, a specialist in the restoration of historical keyboard instruments, two grand pianos from 1868 and 1879 from the famous Érard piano manufacturer in Paris, which at the time had a similar status to Steinway & Sons today, were chosen to optimally highlight the different tonal and stylistic elements of the works of both composers.

"With her well-controlled, velvety and highly sensitive voice, the singer explores the compositions with great sensitivity, reveals their dramatic content, their emotions, takes us to regions where everything rational no longer has a right." (Remy Franck, pizzicato)

Christina Baader, mezzo-soprano & Erard piano
Gert Hecher, Erard piano

Christina Baader
was born in Stuttgart. She firstly completed piano studies at the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst Stuttgart and received a postgraduate piano diploma at the Conservatoire de Musique de Lausanne, Switzerland. During her piano studies she pursued training in singing and started to perform in opera productions in Montreux, Geneva, Zurich, Stuttgart and Cologne. In France, where she was granted a state scholarship from the region of Burgundy, she studied with Prof. Jean-Pierre Blivet and perfected her skills with the renowned singing teacher Prof. Irina Gavrilovici in Vienna.

She sang concerts in Sofia, Cologne, Hamburg and performed the Alto solo part in Beethoven's 9th Symphony in Hiroshima 2009 with the Hiroshima Symphony Orchestra directed by Kazufumi Yamashita.

Christina Baader embodied the title role of Bizet's Carmen in numerous cities in Germany, France, Switzerland and Austria and most recently during a much acclaimed production by Frank Van Laecke in Belgium, with whom she already worked in his mise-en-scène of Britten's Peter Grimes as Aunty.

As a soloist ensemble-member of Theater für Niedersachsen she sang Klytämnestra in Gluck's Iphigenie in Aulis, Mrs Quickly in Verdi's Falstaff and Mary in Wagner's Der fliegende Holländer.

In addition to her opera engagements she portrayed dramatic mezzo roles during recitals dedicated to Haydn’s Scena di Berenice, Donizetti’s Anna Bolena or Meyerbeer’s Le Prophète and Les Huguenots. Her divers repertoire spans mezzo characters in Wagner's Die Walküre, Verdi's Rigoletto, Tschaikowsky's Eugen Onegin (Olga, Larina), Strauß’ Die Fledermaus (Prinz Orlofski), Puccini’s Suor Angelica (Zia Principessa), Mozart's Così fan tutte, Goldschmidt’s Beatrice Cenci (Lucrezia) as well as the title roles in Menotti's The Medium and Gluck's Iphigénie en Tauride.

Christina Baader is engaged frequently as a concert singer. She sang Mahler’s Symphony No. 8 in Hong Kong, Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 and Beethoven’s Missa solemnis in Wiener Musikverein as well as Verdi’s Requiem in Vienna Konzerthaus and De Singel Antwerpen.

Her repertoire of Lied and Mélodies ranges from Schubert, Schumann, Wagner, Mahler and Strauss to Duparc, Fauré, De Falla and Granados.

Since November 2017, she is engaged at the Opera Graz as a guest several times where she performed among others the witch in Humperdinck’s Königskinder as well as Erna in Georg Friedrich Haas’ opera Morgen und Abend in 2022. In August 2022 she reprises the title role of Carmen conducted by Nayden Todorov in Germany.

Christina Baader lives in Vienna.

Booklet for MONDE ET MYSTÈRE