This week we are happy to bring to you three days of Opera in Song. Tickets are still available, but they are going fast, so be sure to book yours now.
Opera in Song is a short series of song recitals with an innovative focus on storytelling that closes the traditional gap between opera and song.
Each evening features a unique selection of songs and lieder performed by leadings artists including Louise Alder, Nicky Spence, Anush Hovhannisyan, Fleur Barron, Julien Van Mellaerts, and pianists Simon Lepper, Dylan Perez and Ella O’Neill.
Opera in Song: The Diary of One Who Disappeared – Sunday 25 July, 7.30pm
Tenor Nicky Spence and pianist Dylan Perez perform Janáček’s passionate 1920 song cycle, in a programme that also includes the composer’s Moravian Folk Songs and Dvorák’s Gypsy Songs.
The Diary of One Who Disappeared was the first of a sequence of works to be inspired by the composer’s autumnal infatuation with Kamila Stösslova, including The Cunning Little Vixen.
Opera in Song: Violetta and Tatyana – Monday 26 July, 7.30pm
Soprano Anush Hovhannisyan explores the music of Verdi and Tchaikovsky’s most loved heroines and the dark beauty of Armenian folk songs. La traviata and Eugene Onegin are two of the greatest operatic studies of heartbreak. This recital is designed to complement this season’s revival of La traviata and to identify the points of contact and difference between two great soprano roles.
Opera in Song: The Marriage of Figaro – Tuesday 27 July at 4pm
Julien Van Mellaerts and Louise Alder step out of Mozart’s soundworld to retell the story of Count and Countess Almaviva’s marriage in an imaginative programme of songs and duets based on The Marriage of Figaro. In songs and duets by Brahms, Mahler, Duparc, Gounod, Vaughan Williams, Obradors and Toldrá, Van Mellaerts, Alder and Lepper trace the Almavivas’ relationship from secret courtship to the public betrayal in The Marriage of Figaro. Spanish warmth and themes of love, jealousy and reconciliation thread through a programme that offers new insight and an unusual perspective on two operatic characters.
We hope to see you there!