I SOLISTI & The Banquet / Jan Decleir & Marjan De Schutter - Fouché

After the great success of Landru, I SOLISTI and Het Banket are joining forces again. This time they are tackling the improbable but true life story of Joseph Fouché (1759–1820), a forgotten key figure of the Franse Revolutie. Much has already been written, sung, filmed, and told about that great revolution. While figures like Robespierre, Marat, Napoleon, Danton, and Marie Antoinette dominated history, Fouché always moved in their shadow. Yet he was at every moment at the focal point of the historical developments of his time. Fouché changed sides like underwear, from one radical extreme to the other. In his young years, he was a Catholic trainee priest, but later he turned into a ruthless persecutor of everything that had to do with faith. He defected from the Girondins to the Jacobins, the two extremes within the revolutionary movement. He was alternately a fanatical royalist and a militant anti-royalist. The once radical revolutionary later became a minister in the service of Napoleon Bonaparte and ended his career as minister of police under King Louis XVIII. To new music by Frederik Neyrinck, Jan Decleir, Marjan De Schutter, the musicians of I SOLISTI, and the young soprano Hanna Al-Bender bring the story of Joseph Fouché to life. By putting this forgotten protagonist in the spotlight, they simultaneously cast a new light on the period in which we live today. After all, interest in this fascinating episode of our history has been growing in recent years, perhaps because we have once again ended up in an era in which our familiar society is shaking to its foundations.