Opera Australia, Australia’s premier opera company, opens its UK screening season tonight. The season is starting with a spectacular production of La bohème, which was met with critical acclaim on its performance in Australia. It is set in Weimar Germany and the influences of Hollywood can be seen in its undeniable glamour, but the impending doom of a world on the brink of disaster also gives it a fragile quality. Here, the glitter of the Spiegeltent provides a decadent veneer over the hand-to-mouth existence of the era. Café Momus becomes a cabaret joint, all mirrored panels and carnival colours, populated by characters inspired by the paintings of Otto Dix and George Grosz.
It has a strong cast of international repute, including Ji-Min Park, Taryn Fiebig, Takesha Meshé Kizart and José Carbó. It is conducted by Shao-Chia Lü and directed by Gale Edwards. The running time is 130 minutes including a 15 minute interval.
The screenings are taking place at over thirty towns across the UK. For more information and a list of sites set to screen the series please visit here.
Congratulations to Music in Offices who were yesterday shortlisted for a RPS Award.
The announcement was made on Radio 3′s In Tune, where Ivan Hewett, Classical Music Critic from the Telegraph pipped the education scheme as his one to watch.
Music in Offices offer instrumental and vocal lessons to offices in and around London, offering employees the chance to learn a new skill, de-stress and socialise within their working environment.
Other nominations include Claudio Abbado, Harrison Birtwhistle and Eva-Maria Westbroek. For a full list of nominations visit the Royal Philharmonic Society website.
The winners will be announced on May 8th – good luck to all involved!
From today LA Phil LIVE “Symphony of a Thousand” will be broadcast to UK cinemas.
The concert being screened was the climax of the recent Mahler Project, which saw Gustavo Dudamel conduct all of Mahler’s 9 completed symphonies and the opening movement of his unfinished tenth. The exciting final concert saw him conduct more than 1,400 musicians in the epic Eighth Symphony – the ‘Symphony of a Thousand’.
For more information, read today’s Independent, and for tickets to UK screenings, follow the links below:
Virtuoso Baroque Violinist Johannes Pramsohler will be appearing on BBC Radio 3′s In Tune this afternoon along with his ensemble the International Baroque Players.
Johannes will be joined by IBP Director, Aliye Cornish, to talk about the groups upcoming events and recently released debut CD ‘Pisendel – Violin Concertos from Dresden’. The CD, which features previously unrecorded works by Handel, Fasch, Heinchen and Pisendel, has received rave reviews in the UK and mainland Europe.
The group will be performing tomorrow as part of the London Handel Festival at Grosvenor Chapel, 19.00 in a concert themed The Madness of Love’ featuring Soprano Mercedes Arcuri.
Tune in from 16.30 to listen live or catch up on BBC iplayer
ACCENTUS Music proudly presents Johann Sebastian Bach’s St. Matthew Passion – live from St. Thomas Church Leipzig. The concert will be performed by the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, the St Thomas Boys Choir and a team of acclaimed soloists conducted by Thomaskantor, Georg Christoph Biller.
The St Thomas Boys’ Choir is widely acknowledged as one of the finest boys’ choirs in the world: In 2012, the choir celebrated its 800th anniversary – an almost unbelievable period of time, all ups and downs of European history the choir outlasted, maintaining its unbroken traditions over the centuries and holding onto established principles such as the inclusion of the elder boys in the education of the younger ones. A musical event of very particular significance during the anniversary celebration, commencing in spring, is the traditional performance of one of Bach’s Passions in St. Thomas Church in the run-up to Easter: the St. Matthew Passion.
The concert will be streamed live on ARTE Live Web on Good Friday, 6th April, at 7 p.m and the MDR will present the full length concert on Good Friday at midnight.
For more information please visit the ACCENTUS Music website here.
Leading up to their next major release, ACCENTUS Music has published a trailer available to view on YouTube. The production, Claudio Abbado and the Lucerne Festival Orchestra performing Bruckner’s 5th Symphony, is the latest in ACCENTUS’ catalogue of successful releases.
Previous ACCENTUS productions featuring Claudio Abbado and the Lucerne Festival Orchestra have received widespread critical acclaim. Andrew Clarke in the Financial Times praised the ACCENTUS DVD of Abbado conducting Mahler’s 9th Symphony, writing: “this DVD of last summer’s fabulously fluid performance is an important release.”
For more information on ACCENTUS Music please click here: http://www.accentus.com/
This summer, Thomas Kemp makes his Opera Holland Park debut conducting their new production of Mozart’s Così fan tutte.
The new production, directed by Harry Fehr, features an exciting cast including Elizabeth Llewellyn as Fiordiligi, Andrew Staples as Ferrando, and Julia Riley as Dorabella.
The engagement at Opera Holland Park marks Thomas’ operatic debut; a genre he hopes to apply the same discipline required for contemporary music to:
“The music for Così fan tutte is some of Mozart’s finest and is full of irony as well as heartfelt sincerity and is rich with allusion and quotation – all of which subtly draw attention to the artificiality of Da Ponte’s original and witty libretto. It is often the writing for the inner parts that adds so much depth and colour to the drama – the violas, second violins, bassoons and clarinets. This is what needs to be teased out of the orchestral texture to make this fantastic music truly come alive.”
Cosí fan tutte opens at Opera Holland Park on June 8th and runs until July 7th. For more information please visit the Opera Holland Park website.
Opera Australia and CinemaLive have announced on Friday that their dazzling production of La Bohéme is to be screened by Odeon cinemas. The broadcast will be coming to Odeon cinemas across the UK including:
Basingstoke
Belfast
Blackpool
Cardiff
Colchester
Derby
Dunfermline
Edinburgh Lothian Road
Hull
Kingston
Lincoln
London Panton St
London Greenwich
London Swiss Cottage
Maidenhead
Manchester
Milton Ketnes
Newcastle Silverlinks
Sheffield
Southampton
Taunton
Tunbridge Wells
Wimbledon
This Weimar Germany-set production of La Bohéme, a critical hit in Australia, shows the influences of Hollywood in its undeniable glamour, but the impending doom of a world on the brink of disaster also gives it a fragile quality. Here, the glitter of the Spielgeltent provides a decadent veneer over the hand-to-mouth existence of the era. Café Momus becomes a cabaret joint, all mirrored panels and carnival colours, populated by characters inspired by the paintings of Otto Dix and George Grosz.
For more information on the CinemaLive Opera Australia screenings please click here.
To book tickets for La Bohéme in an Odeon cinema near you, please click here.
WildKat PR are pleased to announce their partnership with Opera Australia and Cinema Live for Spring / Summer 2012.
Opera Australia, Australia’s premier opera company, is broadcasting its productions to cinemas across the UK, starting with La Bohème on April 24th. Highlights of the season will include a spectacular performance of La Traviata, performed on a floating stage in Sydney Harbour on July 31st. WildKat PR manage a UK wide campaign promoting the cinema screenings.
Cinemas confirmed to host La Bohème on April 24th include:
