Joyce DiDonato Headlines Bastille Day Concert At Eiffel Tower

Bryn Terfel and Joyce DiDonato during a rehearsal in Paris

"She's no stranger to singing at major outdoor gatherings broadcast to a television audience of millions around the world, as she did last year when she performed the national anthem at the final game of the Major League Baseball World Series. Tonight Joyce DiDonato is an American in Paris, singing at the foot of the Eiffel Tower for Paris' annual Bastille Day classical gala, the Grand Concert de Musique Classique. Performing alongside the likes of Bryn Terfel (the duet 'La ci darem la mano' from Mozart's Don Giovanni), Lang Lang and Gautier Capuçon. The 2014 extravaganza was headed by the beloved homegrown soprano Natalie Dessay, but this year's vocal pyrotechnics come from the Kansas-born mezzo-soprano who received a major award from French classical music magazine Diapason d'Or for

Purchase Joyce DiDonato's new album here.

her last album of rare Italian arias, Stella di Napoli. There will certainly be an American flavour to proceedings, with Bernstein and Gershwin on the programme. Erato is proud of its strong French routes and early championing of French music and artists - but also of its international outlook today. Joyce singing for the people of Paris and viewers around the world in front of the Eiffel Tower could sum up perfectly Erato and Warner Classics' vision today. The concert will finish, as it does every year, with a spectacular fireworks display. Vive la France, vive la musique!" [Source] See the program and star-studded roster after the jump.

Joyeux Quatorze Juillet!

Celebrate Bastille Day by listening to Hildegard Behrens interpret

 "Les nuits d'été" of Hector Berlioz.  

Les nuits d'été (Op. 7):
I. Villanelle
II. Le spectre de la rose
III. Sur les lagunes
IV. Absence
V. Au cimetière
VI. L'île inconnue

Bastille Day Celebration With Jessye Norman

In 1989, Jessye Norman helped France celebrate the 200th anniversary of the French Revolution by draping herself in an oversize flag and singing the "La Marseillaise" in Paris.