Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall Wednesday 13 November 2019 We regret that soprano Diana Damrau is unwell and has had to withdraw from this evening’s concert. The London Philharmonic Orchestra is very grateful to Sarah Wegener for stepping in at short notice.
© Simon Wagner
SARAH WEGENER soprano Sarah Wegener approaches every role with intensity, as if it were chamber music. She captivates listeners with the richness and warmth of her voice, in performances such as Mahler’s Symphony No. 8 under Kirill Petrenko in Bregenz, Eliahu Inbal in Hamburg and Kent Nagano in Montreal, as well as in her ‘War and Peace’ programme shaped around works by Handel and Purcell, which she also presented at the SWR Schwetzingen Festival. Her ‘marvellously radiant voice, as powerful as it is rich in colour’ (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung) distinguishes her as a Lieder singer of the highest order, as shown on her highly praised current CD Into the Deepest Sea. Highly regarded as a performer of both classical and romantic repertoire, as well as contemporary compositions, Sarah recently sang Dvořák’s Stabat Mater and Haydn’s Seven Last Words (Philippe Herreweghe, Orchestre des Champs-Élysées, Collegium Vocale Gent); Hans Werner Henze’s Das Floß der Medusa (Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, Cornelius Meister); and Strauss’s Four Last Songs (Styriarte Graz); as well as Schoenberg’s Six Orchestral Songs in Saarbrücken. She has given the premieres of numerous works by Georg Friedrich Haas, including the opera Bluthaus, for which she was chosen as Singer of the Year in 2010 by Opernwelt magazine. Recently she appeared on stage as Maiden in Toshio Hosokawa’s chamber opera Futari Shizuka (director: Thomas Israel) at the Tongyeong International Festival. After a successful end to last season with Ligeti’s Requiem under Jonathan Nott in Tokyo, Sarah Wegener once again takes on the title role in Schumann’s Das Paradies und die Peri in performances with Le Cercle d’Harmonie and Jérémie Rhorer at the Beethovenfest Bonn, along with Beethoven concert arias at the the MDR Musiksommer. Other highlights of the 2019/20 season include Henze’s Das Floß der Medusa in Yekaterinburg, Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis under Andrew Manze in Liverpool and under Thierry Fischer in São Paulo, Mozart’s Requiem in Lille, and a European tour of Mahler’s Symphony No. 8 with the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra under Daniel Harding. Tonight’s concert is Sarah’s debut with the London Philharmonic Orchestra.