Best Concerts and Opera in November
A new work by Isobel Waller-Bridge, London's newest orchestra plays Mozart, comedy with Cal McCrystal, and masterpieces for the stage by Verdi, Wagner
A new work by Isobel Waller-Bridge, London's newest orchestra plays Mozart, comedy with Cal McCrystal, and masterpieces for the stage by Verdi, Wagner
It's party time when the curtain rises on Verdi's opera about a society hostess who finds true love and a simple life with Alfredo. But tragedy awaits Violetta, who sacrifices her own happiness to secure another woman's future. Richard Eyre's timeless production returns to Covent Garden with a succession of sopranos as Violetta, among them Lisette Oropesa.
Read more ...Gilbert and Sullivan poke fun at privilege and at the under-talented and over-promoted in their timeless comic opera set at sea. Captain Corcoran commands the Pinafore, where a deckhand falls in love with his daughter. He is not worthy of her, by birth. Or is he...? Cal McCrystal returns to his mission to make ENO audiences laugh themselves silly, with help from the hilarious John Savournin (pictured) as Corcoran.
Read more ...Shorter concerts with no interval have become popular with audiences, and the LSO's early evening series continues to delight and illuminate. This time, Francis-Xavier Roth unwraps Beethoven's surging and mould-breaking Symphony No 3, the Eroica. A great introduction for youngsters to live classical music or welcome change of key after the working day.
Read more ...Under its new principal conductor, Edward Gardner (pictured), the LPO opens with Grieg's charming Lyric Suite arranged for orchestra and is joined by soloist Jan Lisiecki in Schumann's lilting, romantic and occasionally theatrical Piano Concerto. After an interval, Sibelius's mighty Symphony No 2 in D, inspired by a stay in Italy.
Read more ...Baritone Simon Keenlyside (pictured) reprises the title role in Verdi's powerful opera based on Shakespeare's tragedy. Italian soprano Anna Pirozzi sings the manipulative Lady Macbeth, in Phyllida Lloyd's sinister production.
Read more ...Compare two Mozart piano concertos, written at the beginning and the end of the composer's 20s, when soloist András Schiff (pictured) plays No 9 and No 20 in a concert with the Philharmonia Orchestra, which he also directs from the keyboard. The evening opens with the dramatic overture to Mozart's opera Don Giovanni, and ends with the Symphony No 36, named the Linz, after the Austrian city for which it was composed at virtuosic speed.
Read more ...London's newest orchestra, Figure (pictured), gives its second performance at its adopted home, the church of St Bartholomew the Great, near Smithfield. The outstanding oboist Leo Duarte is among the 13 wind players drawn from Figure in Mozart's astonishingly inventive Serenade No 10 for Winds, known as the Gran Partita, for a historically informed performance true to the piece's roots.
Read more ...'If you like epic sagas such as The Avengers, Game of Thrones and Lord of the Rings.... you’ll love The Valkyrie.' So says English National Opera, which embarks on a five-year collaboration with the Met in New York to stage the whole of Wagner's Ring cycle, starting with this colossal clash of wills. Listen out for the brassy Ride of the Valkyrie, among the best loved and most dramatic music in the repertoire.
Read more ...In the salon atmosphere of Wigmore Hall, pianist Angela Hewitt plays music by three contrasting composers. Contrast two of Mozart's sparkling sonatas with the passion of Chopin's Nocturnes and a breakneck scherzo, and atmospheric pictures in music of Messiaen.
Read more ...Catch the world premiere of a new work, Temperatures, by Isobel Waller-Bridge, who composed the music for her sister Phoebe's Fleabag. The concert continues with Benjamin Britten's Four Sea Interludes, stirring instrumentals from his opera Peter Grimes, and Vivaldi's unmatchable canter through the times of year, his Four Seasons. An evening of aural colour and improvisation inspired by the natural world, from the Philharmonia under violinist Pekka Kuusisto (pictured).
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