Ça Ira (opera)
| Ça Ira | |||||
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| Studio album by Roger Waters | |||||
| Released | 26 September 2005 | ||||
| Recorded | 2 December 1988 – 29 August 2005 | ||||
| Genre | Classical, opera | ||||
| Length | 108:29 | ||||
| Label | Sony Classical | ||||
| Producer | Roger Waters and Rick Wentworth | ||||
| Roger Waters chronology | |||||
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| Roger Waters studio chronology | |||||
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| Professional ratings | |
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| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic |   |
| Rolling Stone | |
Ça Ira (French for "It'll be fine", subtitled "There is Hope") is the fourth studio album by Roger Waters. It is an opera in three acts and a concept album. The album is based on the French libretto co-written by Étienne and Nadine Roda-Gil on the historical subject of the early French Revolution. Ça Ira was released 26 September 2005, as a double CD album featuring baritone Bryn Terfel, soprano Ying Huang, and tenor Paul Groves. The album received middling, yet indecisive reviews, with critics praising the composition, but dividing the latter with a hard-to-follow plot, as well as its simplicity.
Waters, known for his work in the English rock band Pink Floyd, was approached by friends Étienne Roda-Gil and his wife Nadine Delahaye in 1987, and asked to set their libretto to music. The initial version was completed and recorded by the end of 1988. After hearing it, François Mitterrand was suitably impressed and urged the Paris Opera to stage it for the bicentennial of the revolution the following July. The opera directors, however, were resistant, according to Waters, because "I was English, and I had been in a rock group." Starting in 1989, Waters rewrote the libretto in English.
Ça Ira has received mixed reviews. The biggest criticisms were that the opera is too narrative, which makes staging very difficult – and, as a result, disrupts the flow of the piece. Others have complained that the score is too conventional and that Waters should have taken more risks with it.
The first time any part of Ça Ira was heard in public was on 16 October 2002 when the Overture was performed live at the Royal Albert Hall in London by the Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra, during a benefit gala for the Countryside Alliance.
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