The Brentano String Quartet and mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato are set to perform together at Princeton University’s Richardson Auditorium on Sunday, Feb. 18 at 7:30 p.m.
They will perform Charpentier’s Suite in D Minor; Debussy’s String Quartet in G Minor, Op. 10; and Jake Heggie’s Camille Claudel: Into the Fire, a song cycle for mezzo-soprano and string quartet.
Heggie’s piece, with lyrics by Gene Scheer, focuses on the tragic demise of French sculptor and Rodin’s lover, Camille Claudel. Her career ended when she was confined to a mental hospital for the last three decades of her life. Her involuntary incarceration, which many considered unnecessary, almost doomed her to obscurity.
In conjunction with the concert, Princeton University Concerts are collaborating with the Princeton University Art Museum to screen two films that focus on the life of Camille Claudel. Camille Claudel will be shown on Friday, Feb. 2 and Camille Claudel 1915 will be shown on Friday, Feb. 9. Both screenings will take place at Taplin Auditorium in Fine Hall and are free to the public.
Caroline Harris, associate director for education at the Princeton University Art Museum and an authority on Claudel, will introduce both films and discuss their historical accuracy.
From 1999 to 2014 the Brentano String Quartet was the first and only resident string quartet at Princeton University where they gave performances and worked with graduate student composers and undergraduates in chamber music. The Brentano left Princeton to joint the faculty of Yale School of Music as quartet-in-residence in the fall of 2014.
Tickets are $20 to $45.
More information is online at princetonuniversityconcerts.org.
