12 best concerts and opera in May
It's a bumper month for women composers, soloists and conductors, with world and London orchestral premieres and the Opera Holland Park season under way
It's a bumper month for women composers, soloists and conductors, with world and London orchestral premieres and the Opera Holland Park season under way
The healing that comes with passing time is celebrated in music by the London by the LPO under principal conductor Edward Gardner. In Gustav Mahler's symphony of song, Das Lied von der Erde – The Song of the Earth, mezzo-soprano Magdalena Kožená (pictured) and tenor Andrew Staples are the soloists. Deep Time, by British composer Harrison Birtwistle, who died in April at the age of 87, is inspired by the long eras and sudden eruptions of geology.
The exciting, Paris-based Insula Orchestra was founded 10 years ago by its conductor Laurence Equilbey. She brings the players and Accentus choir for a rare appearance in London with a semi-staged performance of Beethoven's only opera, Fidelio. The cast includes Sinéad Campbell-Wallace as Leonore, who disguises herself as a man to rescue her beloved Florestan, a political prisoner, sung by French tenor Stanislas de Barbeyrac (pictured).
Read more ...The confidence and buoyancy of the Baroque is a tonic in taxing times, so a week-long festival of 17th- and 18th-century music is a very uplifting prospect. At St John's Smith Square in Westminster, with its elegant architecture and perfect acoustic, 14 concerts include a performance by Joanna MacGregor (pictured) of Bach's spellbinding Goldberg Variations.
Read more ...Inspired by the Science Museum's Stephen Hawking at Work exhibition, this concert features music with a mathematical edge. Oliver Zeffmann (pictured) conducts players in George Benjamin's Canon & Fugue, based on Bach's The Art of Fugue, a new commission by William Marsey, Terry Riley's In C, and Tragoedia by the late Harrison Birtwistle. it all takes place in the Making the Modern World gallery on Level 0, and a pop-up bar is in the Exploring Space gallery from 6:30pm.
Read more ...Music brings back memories, and the master of encapsulating the power of memory was the French writer Marcel Proust. In a concert marking 100 years since his death, staged by the Institut Français, part of its lively series, violinist Geneviève Laurenceau and pianist David Bismuth take a musical journey through the landscape of the celebrated author of A la recherche du temps perdu (In Search of Lost Time). The route includes works by the lyrical Reynaldo Hahn, a sonata and Romance by Camille Saint-Saëns, and music by Richard Wagner.
Read more ...Odaline de la Martinez conducts the orchestra founded by double bass player Chi-chi Nwanoku (pictured), soloist with Dame Evelyn Glennie in Jill Jarman's Concerto for Double Bass and Percussion. Also on this must-catch programme, Dvořák's lovely Serenade for Strings, and, after the interval, the London premiere of James B Wilson's Free-man and Fela Sowande's African Suite.
Read more ...The dynamic American conductor Marin Alsop joins the Philharmonia for a satisfying programme that concludes with Shostakovich's instantly involving Symphony No 5, with its strong themes and driving rhythms. Arabella Steinbacher is the soloist in Britten's haunting Violin Concerto, and the evening opens with the American folk-inspired piece Strum, by contemporary New Yorker Jessie Montgomerie.
Read more ...The composer Dame Ethel Smyth wrote the Suffragettes' anthem and beat a path for other women though the male-dominated Edwardian music world. Her opera The Wreckers is both a love story and a study of a cruel and closed society. Set in Cornwall, its staging by director Melly Still opens this year's Glyndebourne Festival Opera season.
Read more ...An invincible man, a vengeful woman.... Who will be the victor when cunning meets strength in Saint-Saëns' opera? SeokJong Baek plays Samson and Elīna Garanča devious Dalia in a new production for Covent Garden by Richard Jones of a piece famed for its writing for the lush mezzo-soprano voice.
Read more ...Here's a terrific programme: Beethoven's final 'Choral' Symphony No 9 brings together, under conductor Oliver Gooch, the Philharmonia and the Bach Choir, which sings in the rousing last movement. Soloists include Claire Rutter (soprano) and Toby Spence (tenor, pictured). To open, Mendelssohn's much-loved Overture, The Hebrides (Fingal's Cave). Then Ivana Gavric is the soloist in Grieg's evergreen Piano Concerto. What a great night out.
Read more ...The two hottest singers share a platform for a recital of opera favourites. Do not miss the Norwegian soprano everyone is talking about, alongside the overnight sensation, British tenor Freddie De Tommaso (pictured), who recently came to the rescue at Covent Garden in Puccini's Tosca. Puccini and Verdi highlights feature in the first half of this very attractive programme, followed by heart-wrenching Neapolitan ballads and songs from light opera. A landmark occasion.
Read more ...Summer starts here, with the opening production in Opera Holland Park's season. In Tchaikovsky's poignant, dramatic and melody-packed opera, the phenomenal Armenian soprano Anush Hovhannisyan sings the innocent Tatyana, and Samuel Dale Johnson is the older, more worldly Onegin, for whom she falls. Czech-born Lada Valešová continues her OHP association conducting this masterpiece.
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