Audio CD
Number of Discs: 2
Format: FLAC (tracks)
Label: Sony
Size: 4.04 GB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: cover
CD 01
01. The Gathering Storm
02. Overture
03. A Garden In Vienna 1765
04. Madame Antoine, Madame Antoine…
05. Kings, Sticks And Birds
06. Honest Bird, Simple Bird…
07. I Want To Be King…
08. Let Us Break All The Shields…
09. The Grievances Of The People
10. France In Disarray
11. To Laugh Is To Know How To Live…
12. Slavers, Landlords, Bigots At Your Door…
13. The Fall Of Bastille
14. To Freeze In The Dead Of Night…
15. So To The Streets In The Pouring Rain…
16. Dances And Marches
17. Now Hear Ye!…
18. Flushed With Wine…
19. The Letter
20. My Dear Cousin Bourbon Of Spain…
21. The Ship Of State Is All At Sea…
22. Silver, Sugar And Indigo
23. To The Windward Isles…
24. The Papal Edict
25. In Paris There’s A Rumble Under The Ground…
CD 02
01. The Fugitive King
02. But The Marquis Of Boulli Has A Trump Card Up His Sleeve…
03. To Take Your Hat Off…
04. The Echoes Never Fade From That Fusillade…
05. The Commune De Paris
06. Vive La Commune De Paris…
07. The National Assembly Is Confused…
08. The Execution Of Louis Capet
09. Adieu Louis For You It’s Over…
10. Marie Antoinette – The Last Night On Earth
11. Adieu My Good And Tender Sister…
12. Liberty
13. And In The Bushes Where They Survive…
Roger Waters has long been known for his musical ambition. The bassist and leader of Pink Floyd made that band famous in the 1970s and 1980s with concept-heavy albums as well as a certain self-aggrandizing image–attributes he maintained in his solo career. No wonder, then, to see that he’s written what he calls as an opera. But don’t be fooled: Waters’s work has little to do with contemporary operas by the likes of John Adams or John Corigliano–even if the latter’s 1991 The Ghosts of Versailles is set in Marie-Antoinette’s Versailles, just as Waters’s Ça Ira takes place during the French queen’s last years, as the French Revolution unfurls. Based on a clunky libretto by Etienne and Nadine Roda-Gil, the show could have been a successful musical theater-opera hybrid in the vein of Sweeney Todd but it falls closer to Andrew Lloyd Webber’s historical pageants, without their recognizable melodies. Thankfully the cast holds the material aloft, especially Welsh baritone Bryn Terfel (no stranger to the world of musical theater, as shown on albums such as his tribute to Rodgers & Hammerstein) and Chinese soprano Ying Huang. Note that this version comes as a double SACD set that includes a making-of DVD and a 60-page booklet.