April
Saturday 23 April 2016 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall
Anniversary gala concert Scenes from: Verdi Otello Tchaikovsky Hamlet Vaughan Williams Serenade to Music Britten A Midsummer Night’s Dream Mendelssohn A Midsummer Night’s Dream Berlioz Roméo et Juliette Prokofiev Romeo and Juliet Thomas Adès The Tempest Walton Henry V Verdi Falstaff
Vladimir Jurowski conductor Simon Callow director Soloists including: Kate Royal soprano Allison Bell soprano Iestyn Davies countertenor Ronald Samm tenor Simon Keenlyside baritone ‘I have had him in my hands from my earliest youth’, said Giuseppe Verdi of William Shakespeare, ‘I have read and reread him continually.’ Verdi wasn’t alone. Shakespeare’s body of plays has exercised more influence over composers and musicians than anything else in literature bar the Bible. This concert opens with music from Verdi’s setting of Othello – probably the most bold and significant music he would write – and closes with music from his final, ebullient masterpiece Falstaff. In between come orchestral and operatic settings from Britten, Mendelssohn, Berlioz, Prokofiev and Adès, each filled with character and overflowing with drama. Vladimir Jurowski conducts the music, which is interspersed with readings from the plays directed by Simon Callow, as we mark the 400th year since the death of the greatest playwright that ever lived. Concert generously supported by Victoria Robey OBE.
Contemporaries Subscription Series
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Simon Callow
See page 57