Live events
The best opera and concerts across the country
LONDON BBC Proms
Royal Albert Hall, 2 September Tel: +44 (0)20 7070 4441
Web: www.bbc.co.uk/proms
As the BBC Proms tilt into their final week, it’s a tale of two cities with the Boston Symphony and Berlin Philharmonic going head-to-head on a single day. Conductor Andris Nelsons leads his Bostonians in an afternoon devoted to Mahler’s Third Symphony, while in the evening incoming music director Kirill Petrenko is at the helm for the Berliners’ Beethoven Seventh Symphony, coupled with tone poems by Richard Strauss.
London Symphony Orchestra
Barbican, 16 September
Tel: +44 (0)20 7638 8891
Web: www.barbican.org.uk Britten’s Spring Symphony sets the LSO off with a bounce as it launches a new season built around new and British music. Premieres of works by Harrison Birtwistle and Markanthony Turnage take care of the ‘new’; bolstering the ‘British’, meanwhile, conductor Sir Simon Rattle also includes Holst’s brooding Egdon Heath.
O/modernt
Kings Place, 21 September
Tel: +44 (0)20 7520 1490
Web: www.kingsplace.co.uk
Works by John Adams and Philip Glass bookend a visit by the Swedish O/modernt Orchestra under violinist Hugo Ticciati
(who gives the UK premiere of Erkki-sven Tüür’s Violin Concerto No. 2). Turning back the clock with a vengeance is an arrangement of Pérotin’s joyous Viderunt omnes.
Wagner’s Ring
Royal Opera House, 24, 26, 29 September, 1 October
Tel: +44 (0)20 7304 4000
Web: www.roh.org.uk
Sir Antonio Pappano conducts the first of four Ring cycles reviving Keith Warner’s acclaimed production forged from 2004-06. Baritone John Lundgren sings the role of Wotan with soprano Nina Stemme as his daughter Brünnhilde.
Philharmonia
Royal Festival Hall, 27 September
Tel: +44 (0)20 3879 9555
Web: www.southbankcentre.co.uk Wagner isn’t confined to the Royal Opera House. Music from the Ring cycle’s final installment Götterdämmerung initiates conductor Esa-pekka Salonen’s two-pronged exploration of connections linking the composer to Bruckner and Schoenberg. Soprano Camilla Nylund is the soloist in the latter’s monodrama Erwartung, which prefaces Bruckner’s Symphony No. 6.
SOUTH Plush Festival
St John’s Plush, 14-16 September Tel: +44 (0)20 3286 1885
Web: www.plushfestival.com
Plush Festival’s September Weekend navigates the complete Beethoven cello sonatas shared between Adrian Brendel and Bjørg Lewis, both accompanied by guest curator pianist Tim Horton (see box, right). With Haydn, Schoenberg and Berg also on the bill, the context is determinedly Viennese, though music by Pierre Boulez gatecrashes the finale in modernist Gallic style.
Hatfield House Chamber Music Festival
Hatfield House, 20-23 September Tel: +44 (0)1707 287000
Web: hatfieldhouse musicfestival.org.uk
This year’s festival, deep in the heart of Hertfordshire, expands its chamber horizons to include the Brahms Double Concerto played by the Johnston brothers, Magnus (violin) and Guy (cello) alongside Mendelssohn’s Hebrides overture. There’s more sibling stagecraft on the last night, too, as Mary and Benjamin Bevan are the soloists in the Brahms’s solemn Ein deutsches Requiem.
Ex Cathedra
Assembly Hall Theatre, Tunbridge Wells, 22 September Tel: +44 (0)1892 530613
Web: www.excathedra.co.uk Musical life begins at 40! The Ex Cathedra choir gathers together five works scored for 40 parts, setting familiar Tallis and Striggio beside a motet by Gabriel Jackson and Alex Roth’s Earthrise, inspired by a photograph taken from Apollo 8.
EAST Carducci String Quartet
St Mary’s Cratfield, 9 September Tel: +44 (0)1728 603077
Web: concertsatcratfield.org.uk Guitarist Craig Ogden joins the Carduccis for the final concert of Cratfield’s summer series, where Boccherini’s Fandango Quintet and Piazzolla’s Tango Sensations dispel the shadows of Mendelssohn’s F minor Quartet Op. 80 and Dowland’s down-hearted Lachrimae.
Roman River Festival
All Saints’ Church, Fordham, 26 September
Tel: +44 (0)7759 934860
Web: www.romanrivermusic.org.uk Essex’s Roman River Festival cuts Wagner’s Gotterdämmerung down to size, and The Marian Consort pairs Miserere settings by Allegri and James Macmillan. Elsewhere, the Trio Isimsiz sets its sights firmly on Shostakovich and Schubert, whose debut piano trios are framed by works by Henze and Kaner.
Midlands and North Wales
Leeds International Piano Competition
University and Town Hall, Leeds, 6-15 September
Tel: +44 (0)113 3760318
Web: www.leedspiano.com
Eight days, 24 pianists, and a nail-biting finale accompanied by the Hallé orchestra: in the newlook Leeds International Piano Competition, there’s everything to play for.
Prokofiev’s War and Peace
Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff, from 15 September and on tour
Tel: +44 (0)29 2063 6464
Web: www.wno.org.uk
It may be David Pountney’s last season as artistic director at Welsh National Opera, but he’s not going quietly. First up is his new production of Prokofiev’s epic work in a new edition conducted by Tomá Hanus. Jonathan Mcgovern and Lauren Michelle are the young lovers Natasha and Andrei caught up in the maelstrom, with Mark Le Brocq as the idealistic Pierre.
Leicester International Music Festival
New Walk Museum and
Art Gallery, Leicester,
20-22 September
Tel: +44 (0)116 225 4920
Web: leicesterinternational musicfestival.org.uk
Spotlighting her 90th birthday, Scottish-born, Us-based Thea Musgrave is invited to be the featured composer in a festival exploring composers who moved to America. Her music is woven into all five concerts alongside works by Bartók, Martinu˚, Rachmaninov and Dvořák.
Ian Bostridge and Julius Drake
Bridgewater Hall, Manchester, 21 September
Tel: +44 (0)161 907 9000
Web: www.bridgewater-hall.co.uk Tenor Ian Bostridge won the 2016 Pol Roger Duff Cooper non-fiction prize for his book on Schubert’s Winterreise, and now returns to his ‘anatomy of an obsession’ for a performance of the song-cycle in partnership with Julius Drake at the piano.
Beverley Chamber Music Festival
St Mary’s, Beverley, 26-29 September
Tel: +44 (0)1482 391672
Web: www.newpathsmusic.com Falling deep and crisp and even during the Festival, St Wenceslas Day on 28 September prompts a Bohemian programme, plus Mahler’s Rückert-lieder sung by mezzo Marta Fontanalssimmons, and Bartók from the Doric String Quartet.
SCOTLAND
AND N IRELAND Scottish Opera
St Mary’s Church, Haddington, 21 September
Tel: +44 (0)131 473 2000
Web: lammermuirfestival.co.uk Scottish Opera makes its Lammermuir Festival debut with a new semi-staging by Jenny Ogilvie of Britten’s 1966 church parable The Burning Fiery Furnace. Ben Johnson heads the cast as the defiant Nebuchadnezzar; conductor Derek Clark is at the helm.
BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra
Glasgow Cathedral,
27 September
Tel: +44 (0)141 353 8000
Web: www.bbc.co.uk/bbcsso
Nearly a century after its composition, and a decade after he introduced Langgaard’s cosmic surround-sound starscape Music of the Spheres to the Proms, Thomas Dausgaard conducts its Scottish premiere alongside Richard Strauss from soprano Rowan Pierce and Haydn’s Symphony No. 99.
Verdi’s Rigoletto
Grand Opera House, Belfast, from 30th September
Tel: +44 (0)28 9024 1919
Web: www.niopera.com
With its Festival of Voice (31 August-2 September) safely stowed, Northern Ireland Opera raises the curtain on its first production of the season: Verdi’s heartrending tale of jealousy and self-sacrifice. Conducted by Gareth Hancock, and staged by Walter Sutcliffe, Sebastian Catana takes the title role with Nadine Koutcher as Gilda.