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Classical Music

12 best concerts and opera in May

By Claudia Pritchard on 25/4/2022

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 Song of the Earth, London Philharmonic Orchestra

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.

WHEN

Friday 6 May, 7:30pm

WHERE

Royal Festival Hall, Belvedere Road, London SE1 8XX

Beethoven's Fidelio, Insula Orchestra

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).

WHEN

Wednesday 11 May, 7:30pm

WHERE

Barbican Hall, Silk Street, Barbican, London EC2Y 8DS

Pianist Joanna MacGregor plays Bach on 20 May. Photo: Pal Hansen

London Festival of Baroque Music, St John's Smith Square

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.

WHEN

Friday 13 May – Saturday 21 May, 14 daytime and evening concerts. Start times and duration vary

WHERE

St John's Smith Square, 30 Smith Square, London SW1P 3HF

Oliver Zeffmann's Maths in Music, Science Museum

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.

WHEN

Tuesday 17 May, 7:30pm

WHERE

Science Museum, Exhibition Rd, South Kensington, London SW7 2DD

Geneviève Laurenceau and David Bismuth remember Proust. Photo: Rémi Rière

Tribute to Marcel Proust, Institut Français

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.

WHEN

Wednesday 18 May, 8:30pm – 9:30pm

WHERE

Ciné Lumière, 17 Queensberry Place, South Kensington, London SW7 2DT

Across the Divide, Chineke! Orchestra

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.

WHEN

Thursday 19 May, 7:30pm

WHERE

Queen Elizabeth Hall, Southbank Centre, Belvedere Road, London SE1 8XX

Shostakovich and Britten, Philharmonia Orchestra

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.

WHEN

Thursday 19 May, 7:30pm

WHERE

Royal Festival Hall, Belvedere Road, London SE1 8XX

The Wreckers, Glyndebourne Festival Opera

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.

WHEN

Saturday 21 May to Friday 24 June, 10 performances at 4:55pm

WHERE

Glyndebourne, Lewes, East Sussex BN8 5UU

Elina Garanča sings Dalila in Saint-Saëns opera

Samson et Dalila, Royal Opera House

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.

WHEN

Thursday 26 May – Sunday 19 June, eight performances, start times vary. Running time c2hr 40min including one interval

WHERE

Royal Opera House, Bow Street, Covent Garden, London WC2E 9DD

Beethoven's Choral Symphony, Philharmonia Orchestra

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.

WHEN

Saturday 28 May, 7:30pm

WHERE

Royal Festival Hall, Belvedere Road, London SE1 8XX

Lise Davidsen and Freddie De Tommaso

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.

WHEN

Monday 30 May, 7:30pm

WHERE

Barbican Hall, Silk Street, Barbican, London EC2Y 8DS

Eugene Onegin, Opera Holland Park

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.

WHEN

Tuesday 31 May to Saturday 25 June, 7:30pm

WHERE

Opera Holland Park, Holland Park, London W8 6LU