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Standing Ovations for La Damnation de Faust © FB Ljubljana Festival

In the line with the above Faust’s quote by Goethe the community of St. Stanislav’s Institution is extremely proud to announce that both St. Stanislav Youth Choir of the Diocesan Classical Gymnasium and Megaron Chamber Choir participated at one of the highlights of the 70th Ljubljana Festival, namely in the opera La Damnation de Faust by Hector Berlioz under the baton of Charles Dutoit, presently one of the most esteemed conductors. The impressive performance took place on 15th July, 2022 in Cankarjev dom, Slovenia’s main cultural and congress centre.

At the time when this extensive vocal-instrumental work was written, it was considered eccentric, nevertheless, Berlioz dealt with an ever-green theme of the price of the human soul based on Goethe’s play. Both the above-mentioned choirs under the conductorship of Damijan Močnik had the honour of rehearsing and learning from two other Slovene choirs, the Slovenian Philharmonic Orchestra and the phenomenal quartet of soloists: the French mezzosoprano Sophie Koch (Marguerite), British tenor Charles Workman (Faust), Canadian bass-baritone John Relyea (Méphistophélès) and British baritone Ashley Riches (Brander). This offered a unique opportunity for the choirs to show their strengths in acting with their voices and ability to sing in French. St. Stanislav Youth Choir and Megaron Chamber Choir – congratulations on the amazing perfomance! You definitely fed the audience’s imagination, both with musical and life matters./Lily Schweiger Kotar/