2015 i 2016 london season - classical opera · fascinating selection of arias by gluck –...

London Season

2015 I 2016

“... stylish, eloquent and dramatic music-making of the highest order”INTERNATIONAL RECORD REVIEW

“These young singers and a period-instrument orchestra – packed with many of the wisest practitioners in the business – deliver uniformly superb interpretations.”

GRAMOPHONE

“The series of Mozart operas being recorded under the direction of Classical Opera’s director Ian Page has already established him as one of the most stylishly authoritative interpreters of the composer working today… Tempos throughout were finely gauged, while Page inspired beautifully pointed and poised playing from his orchestra.”

OPERA

It probably comes as no surprise that Classical Opera’s exciting 2015/16 season begins and ends with Mozart. Mozart’s music forms the central rationale, driving force and inspiration for our work, and the quest for fresh, insightful and definitive performances of his great masterpieces remains the work of a lifetime.

But our season also incorporates music by ten of Mozart’s contemporaries, and ranges from three of the most famous pinnacles of the repertoire – Handel’s Messiah, Beethoven’s First Symphony and, most tantalisingly of all, Mozart’s Don Giovanni – to works never previously performed in this country.

Similarly the singers appearing with us range from internationally established stars to hugely promising young artists, although in recent years a significant number of the latter category have swiftly progressed to the former; this is perfectly exemplified in this season’s programme by Sophie Bevan and Jacques Imbrailo, both of whom first worked with Classical Opera when they were still students.

MOZART 250, our epic chronological survey of Mozart’s life, work and influences, launched in 2015 to widespread acclaim. 1766, whose 250th anniversary we celebrate in 2016, was a curiously quiet year for the leading composers of the day, but this allows us to explore more neglected byways of musical history. Niccolò Jommelli was held in uncharacteristically high regard by Mozart, and continues to be by modern musicologists, but audiences are rarely given the opportunity to make up their own mind. As such, the UK première of Il Vologeso in April promises to be a significant event.

We strive to create a welcoming spirit of discovery and a genuine sense of occasion at all Classical Opera performances, and I hope that you will find plenty in our 2015/16 season to captivate, enchant and inspire you.

With many thanks and warmest wishes,

Ian PageConductor and Artistic Director

Welcome

@IanPageMozart

CLASSICAL OPERA · 2015/16 LONDON SEASON2 3CLASSICAL OPERA · 2015/16 LONDON SEASON

Sophie Bevan (soprano)

The Orchestra of Classical Opera

Ian Page (conductor)

Our 2015/16 season opens with a concert of works composed by the three towering masters of the Classical era. The thrilling and multi award-winning young soprano Sophie Bevan sings three of the greatest concert arias ever composed, including Haydn’s magnificent Scena di Berenice – composed in London in 1795 – and Beethoven’s dramatic “Ah! perfido” – composed in Vienna the following year. Slightly less well known but no less remarkable is Mozart’s extraordinary “Ah, lo previdi!”, of which the scholar Alfred Einstein wrote: “Mozart almost never wrote anything more ambitious, or containing stronger dramatic feeling”.

Ian Page and the vibrant period-instrument Orchestra of Classical Opera frame these arias with three orchestral works, all in the key of C major, culminating in Beethoven’s exhilarating and prophetic first symphony.

PROGRAMMEMozart Overture to La clemenza di Tito, K.621 “Ah, lo previdi!... Ah, t’invola agl’occhi miei”, K.272 Haydn Overture to Windsor Castle Scena di Berenice Beethoven “Ah! perfido”, Op.65 Symphony No.1 in C major, Op.21

29 September 20157.30pmCadogan Hall

Tickets £18, £25, £30, £35

£3 booking fee per online transaction or by phone. No fee when tickets are booked in person.

Please see back cover for full venue information.

Box office: cadoganhall.comTel: 020 7730 4500

Sophie Bevan sings Mozart, Haydn & Beethoven

“Sophie Bevan stole the limelight…What a gorgeous timbre this young soprano has at her disposal; it seems to be getting bigger and juicier with every appearance ”OPERA

“ No praise is too high for the singing of Sophie Bevan.”

THE INDEPENDENT

“ The Orchestra of Classical Opera, under Ian Page, created an almost deliriously beautiful sound, playing with imagination and verve.”

BACHTRACK

Handel’s Messiah at Middle Temple Hall

14 December 20157.30pmMiddle Temple Hall

Tickets £15, £25, £45, £65

All include a glass of wine


Box office: templemusic.orgTel: 020 7427 5641

Louise Alder (soprano) Helen Sherman (mezzo-soprano) Benjamin Hulett (tenor) Darren Jeffery (bass-baritone)



Classical Opera brings its trademark freshness, vitality and dramatic flair to Handel’s most popular masterpiece, filling the stage of Middle Temple Hall with an outstanding ensemble of singers and instrumentalists.

Premièred in Dublin in 1742, Messiah received its first London performance a year later. After an initially lukewarm reception it grew in popularity during Handel’s final years, and it now enjoys a position as one of the most famous and frequently performed choral works in Western music.

Classical Opera’s 2012 performance of Messiah at Wigmore Hall received a sensational ovation and widespread praise for its intimacy, power and narrative flow, and this performance, in the exquisite setting of Middle Temple Hall (where Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night received its first performance) promises to be just as memorable.

“Then shall the eyes of the blind be open’d,and the ears of the deaf unstopped;

then shall the lame man leap as an hart,and the tongue of the dumb shall sing.”

Darren JefferyHelen ShermanLouise Alder

“With inspired singing and the company’s band at the top of their game, the evening proved – as advertised – endlessly pleasurable.”

THE GUARDIAN


Ana Maria Labin (soprano) Benjamin Hulett (tenor)



Classical Opera’s triumphant MOZART 250 continues its unique traversal of the musical scene 250 years ago with a fascinating programme of works dating from the year 1766. The repertoire is surprisingly varied and wide-ranging, from elegantly lyrical concert arias and symphonies by the ten-year-old Mozart to intriguing operatic rarities by Jommelli and Guglielmi, and the programme also includes a dynamic G minor symphony by Vanhal and a startlingly extrovert symphonic movement by Franz Ignaz Beck.

PROGRAMMEMozart Symphony No. 5 in B flat major, K.22Jommelli “De’ miei desiri ormai… Che faro” from Il VologesoMozart “Per pietà, bell’ idol mio”, K.78 “O temerario Arbace… Per quel paterno amplesso”, K.79 Vanhal Symphony in G minor Haydn “Et incarnatus est” from Missa CellensisGuglielmi “Sento aimè, nè sò che sia” from Lo spirito di contradizioneBeck 1st movement from Symphony in D major, Op.4, no.1J.C. Bach “Ah, why shou’d love with tyrant sway”Mozart “Or che il dover... Tali e cotanti sono”, K.36 Symphony in G major, K.45a, ‘Old Lambach’

1766 – a retrospective

Benjamin Hulett Ana Maria Labin

19 January 20167.30pmWigmore Hall

Tickets £15, £20, £25, £30, £36

£2 booking fee per online transaction, £3 by phone. No fee when tickets are booked in person.

Booking opens 6 November 2015

Please see back cover for full venue information.Box office: wigmore-hall.org.uk Tel: 020 7935 2141

Ian Page

The performance by Classical Opera under Ian Page launched what is among the most audacious classical music scheduling ever.”

THE OBSERVER

“

28 April 20167.30pmCadogan Hall

Tickets £18, £28, £36, £42 £50 (premium seats)




CAST INCLUDES:Vologeso Rachel Kelly Lucio Vero Stuart Jackson Berenice Gemma Lois Summerfield



As part of MOZART 250, we present the UK première of Niccolò Jommelli’s Il Vologeso, first performed 250 years ago on 11 February 1766 for the Stuttgart court in Ludwigsburg. Jommelli was born just north of Naples in 1714 (the same year as Gluck) and died there in 1774. He composed over eighty operas, and was particularly renowned for the dramatic intensity and emotional realism of his music.

Il Vologeso is set in Ephesus in the second century. The Roman general Lucio Vero has defeated the Parthian king Vologeso but fallen in love with a Parthian princess, Berenice, who is herself betrothed to Vologeso. Powerless to protect her beloved, Berenice is faced with the choice of receiving either Lucio Vero’s hand in marriage or Vologeso’s severed head.

For this eagerly awaited performance Classical Opera has assembled a superb young cast, headed by the Irish mezzo-soprano Rachel Kelly, a recent graduate of the Royal Opera’s Jette Parker Young Artist Programme, tenor Stuart Jackson, a current Classical Opera Associate Artist, and soprano Gemma Lois Summerfield, winner of the 2015 Kathleen Ferrier Award.

Gemma Lois SummerfieldStuart JacksonRachel Kelly

Jommelli: Il Vologeso

You can count on Page to come up with startlingly good singers.”

THE TIMES

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Tickets £15, £25, £30, £35, £40

£2 booking fee per online transaction, £3 by phone. No fee when tickets are booked in person.

Booking opens 5 February 2015


Box office: wigmore-hall.org.uk Tel: 020 7935 2141

Ann Hallenberg (mezzo-soprano)



Internationally acclaimed Swedish mezzo-soprano Ann Hallenberg joins Ian Page and Classical Opera for the first time in a thrilling programme of rare and familiar masterpieces from the second half of the eighteenth century. Hallenberg sings a fascinating selection of arias by Gluck – including his celebrated depiction of paradise in ”Che puro ciel” from Orfeo ed Euridice – and Mozart – culminating in Sesto’s magnificent ”Deh, per questo istante solo” from his valedictory La clemenza di Tito. The programme also features two superb but rarely performed minor-key symphonies – the intense and fiery C minor symphony by ’the Swedish Mozart’ and a G minor symphony by Mozart’s friend and mentor, ’the London Bach’.

PROGRAMMEGluck “Resta, o cara” from Il trionfo di Clelia “O del mio dolce ardor” from Paride ed ElenaKraus Symphony in C minorGluck “Che puro ciel” from Orfeo ed Euridice “Misera dove son... Ah, non son io” from EzioMozart “Che scompiglio, che flagello” from La finta semplice “Dunque sperar poss’io...Il tenero momento” from Lucio SillaJ.C. Bach Symphony in G minor, Op.6, no.6Mozart “Se l’augellin sen fugge” from La finta giardiniera “Deh, per questo istante solo” from La clemenza di Tito

“The superb Ann Hallenberg produced a memorable, bravura performance.”

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH

“Che puro ciel” Ann Hallenberg at Wigmore Hall

In the realm of Baroque opera the mezzo Ann Hallenberg belongs to a rare and precious breed. She is a complete singer.”

OPERA

23 May 20167.30pmWigmore Hall

“

Classical Opera’s London season concludes with the company’s first ever performance of Mozart’s complex masterpiece, considered by many to be the greatest opera ever written and described by E.T.A. Hoffmann as “the opera of all operas”. A thrilling international cast is headed by two exceptional Sourh Africans as Don Giovanni and Leporello.The inveterate seducer Don Giovanni has just made Donna Anna his two thousand and sixty sixth conquest, but when he is interrupted by her father before he can complete his escape events start to spiral inexorably and irredeemably out of control...

Tickets £18, £28, £38, £48 £60 (premium seats)




Jacques Imbrailo Vuyani Mlinde Ellie Laugharne Robert Murray

17 June 20167.30pmCadogan Hall

CAST INCLUDES:Don Giovanni Jacques ImbrailoLeporello Vuyani MlindeDonna Anna Ana Maria LabinDonna Elvira Helen ShermanDon Ottavio Robert MurrayZerlina Ellie Laugharne

Mozart: Don Giovanni



“ There are three things in the world I love most – the sea, Hamlet and Don Giovanni.”GUSTAVE FLAUBERT

A baton as discerning as Page’s can also uncover the emotional truth with which the music transcends the strictures of time, and the conflicts of love and duty were played out with sensuous and irresistible style.”

THE TIMES

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Classical Opera Recordings available to buy or pre-order

NEW RELEASEMozart: Il re pastoreSignum Classics, October 2015

Mozart: Die Schuldigkeit des ersten GebotsSignum Classics

Blessed Spirit – a Gluck retrospectiveWigmore Hall Live

Mozart: Apollo et HyacinthusLinn Records

Arne: ArtaxerxesLinn Records

The A-Z of Mozart Opera Signum Classics

Mozart: Mitridate, re di PontoSignum Classics

Cast: Sarah Fox, Ailish Tynan, Anna Devin, John Mark Ainsley, Benjamin Hulett

This performance of Mitridate succeeds not only in raising that bar further, but also in surpassing the levels of achievment of almost every prior recording of any of Mozart’s early operas.”

VOIX DES ARTS

“ MEMBERSHIPS

Our members support every aspect of our work, from concerts and recordings to our work with world-class young artists.

Friends receive:• advance information and

priority booking• regular news and updates• credits in our programmes

and other materials• the opportunity to join us

for an annual Friends event

Join us behind the scenes

From celebrated masterpieces to exquisite rarities, none of our work would be possible without the generous investment of our supporters. They share in our vision, whether on stage, in concert or in the recording studio, and help us to develop and inspire the next generation of artists and audiences.

We invite you to be part of our company, to step behind the scenes with our artists, and to join us on our exciting journey.

Opportunities to be involved in our work include:

Memberships: Alongside our Friends and Associates, members of the Amadeus, Project and Conductor’s Circles are involved at the very heart of our music.

Corporate Partnerships: With bespoke entertainment opportunities involving world-class artists at prestigious venues, we offer a range of unique partnerships to suit every business.

Legacies: Your legacy will ensure the future of Classical Opera and support the artists and audiences of tomorrow.

Thank you.

Friends’ membership starts at£50 per annum

To join our mailing list or find out more, please email [email protected] or call 020 8846 9744

To join our mailing list please email [email protected] or call 020 8846 9744

@classicalopera /classicaloperalondon

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CLASSICAL OPERA · 2015/16 LONDON SEASON 1110 CLASSICAL OPERA · 2015/16 LONDON SEASON

Britannia House, 11 Glenthorne Road, London, W6 0LH tel +44 (0) 208 846 9744 [email protected]

Box office: www.wigmore-hall.org.ukTel: 020 7935 2141 Wigmore Hall, 36 Wigmore Street, London W1U 2BP

For full details please contact House Management, tel: 020 7258 8210 or email [email protected]

Director: John Gilhooly, The Wigmore Hall Trust. Registered Charity No. 1024838.

In person: 7 days a week: 10am–8.30pm. Days without an evening concert: 10am–5pm. No advance booking in the half hour prior to a concert.Telephone: 020 7935 2141. 7 days a week: 10am–7pm. Days without an evening concert: 10am–5pm. There is a £3 administration fee for all telephone bookings.Online: www.wigmore-hall.org.uk There is a £2 administration fee for online bookings.

Box office:www.cadoganhall.comTel: 020 7730 4500Cadogan Hall, 5 Sloane Terrace, London SW1X 9DQ

In person: Mon–Sat: 10am–6pm (to 8pm on performance days); Sun: 12–6pm (performance days only).Telephone: 020 7730 4500. Mon–Sat: 10am–6pm (to 8pm on performance days) , Sunday 3pm–8pm (performance days only). All telephone bookings are subject to a fee of £3 per transaction. Online: www.cadoganhall.com. 7 days a week; 24 hours a day. All online bookings are subject to a £3 transaction fee.

www.classicalopera.co.uk

Box office: www.templemusic.orgTel: 020 7427 5641 Lower Ground Floor, 2 King’s Bench Walk, Temple, London EC4Y 7DE

To book tickets or for more information contact the Temple Music Foundation Box Office on 020 7427 5641, weekdays 9.30am–2.30pm, or visit us online at www.templemusic.org

Classical Opera registered in England, No.3361716, Registered Charity, No.1063387

@classicalopera /classicaloperalondon

2015 i 2016 london season - classical opera · fascinating selection of arias by gluck –...

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