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Mozart: Le nozze di Figaro
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ACADEMY OF ANCIENT MUSIC 2018-19 SEASON
Thursday 4 July 2019 7pm Barbican Hall, London
The musical editon of this performance is published by Bärenreiter-Verlag, Kassel. By arrangement with Faber Music Ltd, London. There will be one 20-minute interval after Act Two.
Le nozze di Figaro MOZART Le nozze di Figaro (1786) Libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte
Richard Egarr director & fortepiano Toby Girling Count Almaviva Simona Mihai Countess Almaviva Ellie Laugharne Susanna Roberto Lorenzi Figaro Wallis Giunta Cherubino
Louise Winter Marcellina Ben Johnson Basilio Jonathan Best Bartolo Richard Suart Antonio Rowan Pierce Barbarina The Grange Festival Chorus William Edelston Stage Direction Kenneth Chalmers English surtitles Adapted and operated by Jonathan Burton
Mozart: Le nozze di Figaro
Academy of Ancient Music
Mozart
A C A D E M Y O F A N C I E N T M U S I C 2018 - 19 S E A S O N
Welcome from Chief Executive, Academy of Ancient Music It is enormously exciting to welcome you to tonight’s performance of Mozart (and Lorenzo da Ponte)’s great opera, Le nozze di Figaro. Summer 2019 marks the third year of a brilliant artistic partnership between The Grange Festival, led by Michael Chance, and the Academy of Ancient Music, and we are delighted, together, to bring this summer’s production of Figaro to London for this concert performance. We have enjoyed six highly successful, sell-out shows at The Grange over the course of the last month – and this excellent cast has garnered an array of glittering and well-deserved reviews. Even the sun has, in the main, been in our favour. Online, AAM continues to grow. Visit our YouTube channel to see two of Wallis Giunta’s arias from Figaro ("Voi che sapete!" and "Non so piu"); and for the next five months you can watch last summer’s production of Handel’s Agrippina from The Grange Festival, with AAM directed by Robert Howarth, on the OperaVision YouTube channel.
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At Easter this year we performed Handel’s little-known Brockes-Passion, 300 years to the week from its firstknown performance, in a brand new AAM edition of the music and new translation, created over the last year or more by a team of musicologists and experts from an array of institutions. Our recording will be released in the autumn, an important document for Handel-lovers, containing additional material from new sources, a complete additional appendix revealing Charles Jennens’s partial English translation for the first time, a new translation as well as the original "Kurrentschrift" from manuscript, newly created original artwork, and more, in a three-CD album with a booklet running to over 200 pages. We are very proud of this project – the new scores will be made freely available to other performing groups, professional and amateur – and look forward to hearing your thoughts and reactions on the album when it is released in October; an ideal Christmas present, perhaps, for a friend who might enjoy a Handel masterpiece. The recoring can be pre-ordered from the AAM desk at the Barbican this evening.
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Welcome from Artistic Director, The Grange Festival
Over the summer, highlights include renewing our partnership with Nicola Benedetti in a special programme for Cheltenham Festival, and two concerts with VOCES8 and friends at Milton Abbey – a Bach St. John Passion and Haydn’s Creation – both of which will be streamed online, and we hope you might enjoy seeing them there if not in person. Our 2019-20 season here at the Barbican contains a glittering array of concerts with Viktoria Mullova, Mary Bevan, Laurence Cummings, Jean Rondeau, Benjamin Appl, David Blackadder, Rowan Pierce and more: we hope that you have a warm, sunny and enjoyable summer, and look forward to seeing you very soon.
Performances of operas on the concert stage which follow a full production run are infused with all the drama of the opera theatre and focussed entirely on the music. Quite a few prefer their operas served in this way. The Grange Festival is thrilled that our just-completed and sold-out run of Le nozze di Figaro at The Grange is performed this evening at the Barbican, presented by AAM to the full glare of the metropolis. This is the Festival’s first venture away from its Hampshire home. We hope for many more, especially as part of our ongoing collaboration with AAM.
Michael Chance CBE
Artistic Director, The Grange Festival
Alexander Van Ingen Chief Executive Academy of Ancient Music
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AAM Quick Pick Each concert Lars Henriksson picks out one key thing to listen out for. Le nozze di Figaro is often claimed to be the best opera ever written. Apart from the numerous “earworms” (probably only Carmen can compete on that score) the compositional depth is astounding and, combined with Mozart’s impressive dramatic flair, the result is a complete masterpiece. The most noticeable feature, in terms of compositional virtuosity, is the finale of Act Two which lasts for about 20 minutes. It begins as a regular aria but soon turns into a succession of episodes, gradually adding another voice in order to support the dramatic build up, culminating in seven voices singing together. Mozart worked closely with the librettist Da Ponte, which is the only way to explain such a coordinated display of compositional and dramatic virtuosity. The finale of Act Two, was worked into a brilliant scene in Milos Forman’s blockbuster film Amadeus. Mozart’s attempt to cajole emperor Joseph II into supporting
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his new opera, despite the rather politically incorrect libretto, is nothing but hilarious. By stressing his ability to sustain the Act Two finale by adding numerous voices, he finally wins the emperor over. In the film the production, however, was a fiasco. But much of this is dramatic license!
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Synopsis Seville ACT ONE On the morning of their wedding, Figaro, delighted with the convenient room his master has given them as a bedroom, is perplexed by Susanna’s unhappiness. She spells out that the Count wants to resurrect the ancient "droit du seigneur", by which the lord of the manor may sleep with the wife of any of his servants on her wedding night. Figaro promises to frustrate the Count’s plans. Marcellina has come to hold Figaro to the terms of a loan. If he fails to repay her, the contract states that he must marry her. She has brought Bartolo, a lawyer and her ex-employer, to help press her case – a task sweetened for him by the prospect of avenging Figaro for his part in preventing his marriage to the Countess. Cherubino, a love-struck, aristocratic teenager, has been caught canoodling with Barbarina. He hopes that the Countess, on whom Cherubino has a terrible crush, will intercede on his behalf, and stop the Count from sending him away. When the Count turns up, Cherubino hides. The Count uncovers the skulking teenager and, furious, says that
Cherubino must join the army. His ranting is interrupted by Figaro, who has brought the household staff to sing the praises of the Count in the hope of embarrassing him into allowing a quick wedding. Figaro taunts Cherubino about military life, while surreptitiously telling him to stick around as he has a cunning plan to outwit the Count … ACT TWO In her bedroom, the Countess laments her husband’s waning love. Figaro and Susanna promise to help her: first they will provoke the Count’s jealousy by sending him a letter suggesting the Countess has a lover; next, Susanna will tempt the Count with promises of a romantic assignation in the garden, but instead of Susanna, they will send Cherubino, disguised as a woman, and shame him into submission. Desperate, the Countess agrees. Cherubino, smitten with the Countess, appears, and the two women begin to dress him for the farcical rendezvous. The Count knocks at the door. In a panic, Cherubino locks
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Synopsis continued
himself in the wardrobe while the furious Count rages at his wife. Seeking some way of opening the locked door, the Count leaves, giving Cherubino the opportunity to escape through the window. On their return, both the Count and the Countess are stunned when Susanna emerges from the wardrobe. Figaro arrives to escort everyone to the wedding. The Count confronts him with the anonymous letter, but Figaro pleads innocence. The arrival of the gardener, Antonio adds to the confusion and Figaro saves the situation only by claiming that it was he who jumped from the window. Just when all seems resolved, Marcellina storms in, accompanied by Bartolo and Basilio, pressing the terms of Figaro’s loan – he must pay up or marry her. 20-minute interval
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ACT THREE The Count wonders what on earth is going on. The Countess, meanwhile, has a new plan, involving a swap with Susanna, each dressing as the other. All Susanna has to do is to set up a secret assignation with the Count. Moved by the Countess’s plight, Susanna agrees and meets with the Count. As she’s leaving, he overhears her telling Figaro they’ve "won the case already". Realising he’s been tricked, the Count vows revenge. Meanwhile, the loan contract has been declared legal, and Marcellina is on the point of claiming Figaro as her husband when it is discovered that she is, in fact, his mother – and Bartolo his father. The Countess vows to recapture her husband’s love. She dictates a letter to Susanna, sealed with a pin. The presentation of some flowers is disrupted by Antonio, who reveals that one of the girls is, in fact, Cherubino. Some fast-talking from Figaro persuades them all to get on with the wedding ceremony – a double wedding, as Marcellina
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and Bartolo have decided to do the decent thing and get married. During the reception, Figaro notices the Count surreptitiously reading a letter – sealed with a pin. The celebrations continue. ACT FOUR Barbarina has lost the pin which the Count asked her to return to Susanna indicating his acceptance of their secret meeting. Figaro finds it and jumps to the conclusion that Susanna is unfaithful. He gets Basilio and Bartolo to hide so they can witness her treachery. The Countess and Susanna arrive, having swapped clothes. Susanna is livid at Figaro’s assumption of her infidelity, and takes the opportunity to provoke him, pretending she really is meeting a lover.
seducing the disguised Countess himself. Seeing what he believes to be Susanna’s compliance with the Count, Figaro emerges, devastated. Eventually, Figaro and Susanna discover that neither is being unfaithful, but decide to continue with the charade to teach the Count a lesson. Believing he is witnessing the seduction of his wife, the Count storms in. Everyone suggests that the Count show mercy, but it isn’t until the Countess herself appears that he realises what he’s done. The healing power of forgiveness is celebrated, and everyone celebrates Figaro and Susanna’s wedding. Synopsis by Michael Chance and Martin Lloyd-Evans
Cherubino unexpectedly appears, looking for Barbarina. Distracted by a woman who appears to be Susanna (in fact the Countess dressed as Susanna), he tries to seduce her. The Count frightens Cherubino away and sets about
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The Quintesentially Revolutionary Artist
The overture to Le nozze di Figaro opens with a low chuckle that grows to an unstoppable guffaw of laughter. But what the overture doesn’t quite prepare us for is the anger, heartbreak and tenderness that is to follow, taking the opera’s audience on an emotional roller-coaster that leaves it uncertain whether to laugh or cry from one minute to the next. It was Mozart himself, finger on the pulse of his times, who suggested turning a French play that had recently caused an uproar in Paris into an Italian opera for the court theatre in Vienna. Originally banned by King Louis XVI, Beaumarchais’s play The Marriage of Figaro, eventually performed in 1784, concerns the conflict between the aristocratic Count Almaviva, and his servant Figaro over the Count’s attentions to Figaro’s bride-to-be Susanna. The battle between masters and servants had long been a staple of comic drama, familiar from a thousand commedia dell’arte plots. But Beaumarchais brought
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to his archetypal story a topical twist that made it much more provocative, for Count Almaviva claims the feudal right of the lord of the manor to enjoy the favours of any newlywed on his estate on her bridal night. Lurking beneath the age-old plot is a devastating critique of the social structures of late 18th-century Europe, and of the continued dominance of the aristocracy, which erupts in a great tirade by Figaro against the injustices of wealth and power that still resonates today. Napoleon considered that the play had been the first step towards the French Revolution, which began only five years later. Mozart knew about the indignities of class all too well, and often expressed the rage of those who are condemned to lowly social status because of their birth. In 1777 he wrote to his father to convey his own resentment that, for all his talent as a musician, he was treated as no better than a servant: as a court musician in Salzburg he was placed above
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the cooks but below the valets in the pecking order. After a humiliating encounter with some aristocrats in Augsburg he resolved from that moment, he told his father, "to let the whole company of patricians lick my arse". The play spoke directly to his own experience. And Mozart was politically astute enough to know that the play’s message was also in accord with Emperor Joseph II’s own attempts to modernise the creaking Habsburg empire by dismantling the power of the feudal aristocracy. Despite having banned German translations of Beaumarchais’s play, Joseph let Mozart go ahead with the opera, knowing that at the court theatre its provocative message would be relayed to an aristocratic audience. In 1781 Joseph II’s Serfdom Patent abolishing serfdom had placed great emphasis upon the freedom of marriage for servants, and Le nozze di Figaro is a plea for those newly emancipated from feudal obligation to be allowed to unite freely in
marriage. For many of the Enlightenment thinkers, marriage was the sole institution capable of reconciling the contradictory needs of the individual with those of the family, property, religion and state; a contractual agreement between free individuals that stood as a symbol for other social and political contracts. And the ideal of marriage based upon love lay at the centre of Mozart’s own social vision as one of the key markers of the distinction between the new middle classes and the aristocracy. In a letter to his father of 1778, Mozart asks his father to send his congratulations to an aristocratic Salzburg acquaintance who had recently got married. But he cannot refrain from casting aspersions: I wish him joy with my whole heart; but his, I daresay, is again one of those money matches and nothing else. I should not like to marry in this way. People of noble birth must never marry from inclination or love, but
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Programme Notes continued
only from interest and all kinds of secondary considerations … We poor humble people can not only choose a wife whom we love and who loves us, but we may, can and do take such a one." Beaumarchais’s play is a fast-moving intrigue with ingenious twists and turns, plots and subplots. Mozart’s Italian librettist, Lorenzo Da Ponte, had to shape this into an opera. He later recalled: I did not make a translation of this excellent comedy, but rather an adaptation or, let us say, an extract. To this end … I had to omit, apart from an entire act, many a very charming scene and a number of good jests and sallies with which it is strewn, in place of which I had to substitute canzonettas, arias, choruses, and other forms and words susceptible to music. And he had to tone down some of the more confrontational political content. Nonetheless, social
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criticism is inherent in the plot, expressed in the anger of Figaro and Susanna at their predicament. When Figaro realises what his master the Count is up to he declares war in an aria of scarcely controlled rage, "Se vuol ballare": "If you want to dance, little mister Count, I’ll play the tune". The aria starts with a mockingly formal minuet, the dance of the aristocracy, and then explodes into a series of unseemly middle-class hopping dances as Figaro imagines the indignities to which he will subject the Count, Mozart drawing on his audience’s knowledge of the class associations of the dances of his day to make the point. Throughout the opera Mozart carefully deploys his various musical languages (comic, serious, sentimental, parodic) to depict the different characters, and then brings them together in the equalising ensembles and finales. For the ensembles, Mozart was able to construct musical frameworks that permitted characters simultaneously to express
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entirely different thoughts or emotions in response is also prevalent throughout. Cherubino, the to the same situation. One of the most remarkable adolescent page boy enraptured by every women examples is the sextet in Act Three when it is he meets, is expelled from the Edenic garden of his revealed that two of Figaro’s staunchest enemies are innocent desires after gaining guilty knowledge of in fact (plot-spoiler alert) his long-lost parents; as the the Count’s amours; Figaro’s bellicose aria Non più revelations and surprises unfold, andrai at the end of Act One depicts and as the characters change the adult world outside Eden as a relationships and allegiances, battlefield of hardship and strife. The ideal of marriage Mozart matches every plot twist The Countess repeatedly bemoans and turn effortlessly in the music. her lost happiness, and the Count based upon love lay at Even more remarkable are the end- the centre of Mozart's is tormented by the knowledge of-act finales, when the dramatic that his servant Figaro will enjoy own social vision action is brought to a climax, fulfilment with Susanna from which with all of the characters thrown he is excluded. Susanna invokes the together in mounting chaos recovery of Eden in the nocturnal and confusion. Mozart paces his finales carefully, idyll of her Act Four aria Deh vieni, in which the allowing the tension to build slowly until it explodes whole frantic, bustling world seems to stand still. like a suppressed geyser. The gardener’s daughter Barbarina, in her wistful little cavatina at the beginning of the last act, with And the opera is not just about social issues. The the banal words "I have lost it", ostensibly laments a theme of loss, of both happiness and innocence, lost pin. Nudge-nudgingly we know that the song
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Programme Notes continued
refers to the loss of her sexual innocence; but in truth, it mourns a whole fallen world of regret for lost innocence. The German poet and playwright Friedrich Schiller, born three years after Mozart, wrote a famous essay on the "naïve" and "sentimental" in literature. In this essay he identified humankind’s sense of loss as its primary existential experience. The naive artist is lucky enough not to experience existence as loss and celebrates the world as it is, whereas the sentimental artist conveys modern humankind’s longing to regain its lost unity with nature through the artistic modes of the elegy and idyll. Both modes lie at the heart of Le nozze di Figaro, in which Mozart proves himself to be the quintessential "sentimental" artist. People living in societies undergoing the fundamental transition from closed, customary and religious patterns of organisation to more open, individualistic, relativistic and secular systems experience with special intensity humankind’s
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otherwise universal (since all human beings must abandon infancy) sense of a lost past in which order, wholeness and certainty prevailed. The Vienna in which Mozart lived for ten years between 1781 and his death in 1791 was a society undergoing one of the most rapid processes of modernisation hitherto experienced anywhere. During the reign of Joseph II, between 1780–90, the Habsburg Empire, backward and impoverished, was dragged breathlessly and traumatically from the medieval into the modern age, a process that had taken place over three centuries in England, and over two centuries in France. No great artist has been more acutely aware of the nature of this transition than Mozart, nor conveyed its impact so profoundly or movingly. © Nicholas Till
M O Z A R T: L E NO Z Z E DI F IG A R O
The Rules of the Game, and Beyond
Think of a ball game. The ball is the thing which escapes, which flies in all directions, which never bounces or rolls entirely true, which always has a certain bias, which wants to play. Where and how do you catch, contain or control the ball? The where may be simpler than the how. The where could be a court, like a tennis court, with its lines and squares and rectangles, the baseline, the service line, the sidelines. These are all human constructions, arbitrary but necessary. It could be a billiard table, with its cushions, its pockets and its lines. If the ball escapes the table (as it very occasionally does with a spectacularly mishit shot), it loses its power, it becomes just another random uncontrollable element or a fish out of water. Mozart apparently loved to play billiards and was rather good at it (not really a surprise). The Irish tenor Michael Kelly, who sang Don Basilio and Don Curzio (the judge) in the first production of Le nozze
di Figaro at the Burgtheater in Vienna in May 1786, recounts in his memoirs how he played hundreds of times with Mozart and never won once. If there was no-one to play with, Herr Mozart played Herr Mozart. It seems he also composed at the billiard table, whether or not with manuscript paper strewn about on the baize, as shown in the film Amadeus. It is not fanciful to imagine some connection between the fine art of controlling the potentially freewheeling balls with the tip of a cue and the miraculous balancing of the most volatile human emotions and actions which Mozart achieved in his operatic collaborations with Lorenzo Da Ponte, above all in Le nozze di Figaro. Le nozze di Figaro is about love, in almost all its imaginable forms, from incipient to passĂŠ, from the most shapeless and polymorphic to the most enduring and stable, from youthful ardour to mature regret, and not without consideration of the forms love sadly decays into when it does not meet its
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Programme Notes continued
match or live up to its highest aspirations, jealousy, possessive spite, impotent lust, vengefulness and all the rest. Of course, Le nozze di Figaro is not just about love, the most powerful, uncontrollable feeling humans experience, the force which courses through all living things as Lucretius described it at the beginning of De Rerum Natura, which, according to Dante (in Paradiso Canto 33, to which we will return) binds the universe together. The opera is also, as its name suggests, about marriage: that means about love in society, the ideal transformation of the uncontrollable freewheeling force of desire into an enduring and stable social bond. Society adds its own spins and biases to those already present in individual psychology. It is, as we might say, by no means a level playing field. The green baize is torn, the tennis court is sloping and full of potholes and it may even be, as John
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McEnroe once claimed when a line call went against him, that the lines aren’t straight. All relationships are warped by differences of class, gender, age and so on. Chaos and anarchy, even incipient violence, loom large in Le nozze di Figaro. The bubbling energy of the beginning of the overture (is there a more perfect one in the whole operatic literature?) speaks of an energy which is barely containable, or barely contained. The first two acts, after the deceptively tranquil, bourgeois opening scene of the measuring up of Figaro and Susanna’s bedroom for the marital bed (in which numbers take on a rather different complexion from the one they assume in Leporello’s catalogue aria in Don Giovanni), are a build-up of craziness and impossibility that reach their climax in the astonishing Act Two finale. This (to change the name of the game slightly) is like the most impossible snooker you could imagine; almost everyone is snookered by everybody else. Figaro
M O Z A R T: L E NO Z Z E DI F IG A R O
and Susanna are snookered by the Count, Figaro The Count believes he can play by his own rules, is also snookered by Marcellina and Bartolo, the which include the antiquated custom of the Count is snookered (only just) by Susanna and "droit du seigneur". Figaro, once he hears of the the Countess, Cherubino is snookered by more or Count’s designs on his bride-to-be, is determined less everybody (though almost everybody, in their not so much to beat the lecherous nobleman at hearts of hearts, would be happy to his own game (Se vuol ballare be unsnookered by him). Even when signor Contino), as to re-right Cherubino miraculously escapes, he the rules, not just for his own The first two acts are a encounters the most unlikely snooker marriage but for all future build-up of craziness and in the form of the drunken, barely marriages. impossibility ... almost conscious gardener Antonio. everyone is snookered by It turns out, however, that men, How on earth can all this chaos and who have such belief in their everyone else. confusion, arising from blocked and intelligence, their power and misdirected and misunderstood dignity, are never really up to passions, in some cases advanced and protected speed when it comes to this most complicated of all by outmoded social hierarchies, rules and games. It is the women, and especially Susanna, the customs, possibly be contained in order? It would cleverest and most capable of all the characters in be far too simple to say that the answer lies in the opera, who understand that this game cannot playing according to the rules, or to new and be played straight, because in reality and not just improved rules. in John McEnroe’s imagination the lines are not
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Programme Notes continued
straight, that it involves a kind of necessary and virtuous deception. What is to stop all this game-playing descending either to cynicism or even worse, to the violence and tragedy that come when virtuous deception is imperfectly understood? This is the fate of the characters in Jean Renoir’s not so much Mozartian as Beaumarchaisian film La Règle du Jeu (which is headed, you may remember, with the following quotation from Le Mariage de Figaro: Sensitive hearts, faithful hearts, Who shun love whither it does range, Cease to be so bitter: Is it a crime to change? If Cupid was given wings, Was it not to flitter? The over-literal gamekeeper Schumacher, seeing, or so he assumes, the womanising Octave having a tryst with his (Schumacher’s) wife Lisette in a greenhouse, shoots "Octave". In fact, "Octave" is the romantic airman André dressed in Octave’s
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coat, and "Lisette" is the mistress of the house, Christine. Perhaps game-playing only works for the upper classes. Or to put it another way, what lies beyond gameplaying? Is the game only a game, or is it the reflection of a diviner order? Beaumarchais and Jean Renoir may share a certain (dare one say French?) fatalism and cynicism about love, but Mozart and Da Ponte, at least in The Marriage of Figaro, do not. A double articulation of an enduring love, a love of infinite tender resource and of shining not-tobe-extinguished constancy, stands at the heart of Le nozze di Figaro. It is sung by Susanna and the Countess, in those arias and lovingly complicit and conspiratorial duets which take this opera to a place far removed from anything imagined by Beaumarchais or Jean Renoir. This love is closer to the ecstatic vision which Dante unfolds in the concluding Canto 33 of
M O Z A R T: L E NO Z Z E DI F IG A R O
Paradiso, "the noonday torch of charity" and "on earth, among the mortals … a living spring of hope." This "loving-kindness does not answer / the one who asks, but it is often ready / to answer freely long before the asking". These words come from St. Bernard’s prayer to the Virgin, requesting that she intercede for the long-travelling pilgrim Dante as he approaches the culmination of his journey. What Dante finally sees, or glimpses, is a vision of miraculous, hardwon order: "the substances, accidents, dispositions" of the universe, which normally seem "separate, scattered", "ingathered / and bound by love into one single volume." This, I believe, is what Mozart and Da Ponte achieved, once and for all time, in Le nozze di Figaro, the opera which Joseph Haydn heard in his dreams and tried to put on the stage at Esterháza (but was prevented by the death of his patron), of which
Brahms said "it is quite beyond me how anyone could create anything so perfect; nothing like it was ever done again." At the very end of Paradiso 33, which means at the conclusion of the entire Divina Commedia, Dante confronts the ultimate conundrum, the equivalent of the geometer’s attempt to square the circle: how can the human form – that is to say humanity, with all its propensity to error, violence and misunderstanding – fit into what he now sees as the intricately infolded and perfect unity and harmony of the universe? He is struck by a flash of illumination: the recognition that his "desire and will were moved already – like a wheel revolving uniformly – by the Love that moves the sun and other stars." © Harry Eyres
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Explore If you have enjoyed this evening's concert, you may be interested in the following releases:
Mozart Le nozze di Figaro, K492
Keenlyside, Gens, Ciofi, Kirschlager, Regazzo, McLaughlin, Concerto Köln, Collegiun Vocale Gent / Jacobs [Harmonia Mundi, HMC901818/20]
Mozart Le nozze di Figaro, K492
Hampson, Yoncheva, Karg, Brower, Pisaroni, Muraro, von Otter, Vilazón, Chamber Orchestra of Europe / Nézet-Séguin [Deutsche Grammophon, 4794945]
Mozart Fantasias and Rondos
Richard Egarr, pianoforte [Harmonia Mundi, HMU907387]
Mozart The Horn Concertos
Anthony Halstead, Academy of Ancient Music / Christopher Hogwood [Decca, 4767088] You can find many of AAM's recordings at www.prestomusic.com/aam. Receive £5 off when you spend £25 or more at Presto Classical with voucher code AAM2018.
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“Feasting Reconciles Everybody" Samuel Pepys
In Amadeus, Peter Shaffer's play (and subsequent Forman film), Mozart is portrayed as childish, base, and mad, bad and dangerous to know. However, his lewd behaviour, despite its evidence in his prolific letters, is partly apocryphal, embellished by outraged 19thcentury commentators. What is not in question is his love of food, also widely discussed in his letters. Top of his menu was liver dumplings with sauerkraut – typically heavy Austrian fodder of the 18th century. He may have enjoyed this modern take on an old favourite:
Leberknödel Suppes [Liver Dumplings Soup]
½1b calves liver / 2 Tbsp butter / 1 small onion / fresh parsley / ¼ tsp marjoram / ¼ tsp salt / pepper / bread crumbs / 2 eggs / 4 cups beef broth (well seasoned) Combine the liver, butter, onion, parsley and seasonings. Add the breadcrumbs and eggs, and mix well. Form dumplings, adding a bit more bread crumbs (or flour) if needed. Bring broth to boil. Add dumplings and reduce heat to a simmer. Dumplings will float to the top when they are done, about 20 minutes.
M O Z A R T: L E NO Z Z E DI F IG A R O
Richard Egarr director and harpsichord
Š Patrick Allen
Orchestra in Minnesota. He will become Music Director Designate of Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra and Chorale in 2020-21 and assume Music Directorship from 2021-22.
Richard Egarr brings a joyful sense of adventure and a keen, enquiring mind to all his music-making – whether conducting, directing from the keyboard, giving recitals, playing chamber music, or, indeed talking about music at every opportunity. Music Director of the Academy of Ancient Music since 2006, in September 2019 he adds two new responsibilities: Principal Guest Conductor of the Residentie Orkest in The Hague and Artistic Partner of the St. Paul Chamber
Highlights this season include his debut with the Cincinatti Symphony Orchestra and a return to Seattle Symphony, St. Paul Chamber, the Scottish Chamber, and the Seoul Philharmonic orchestras. As a soloist he performs harpsichord recitals at the Wigmore Hall, Tokyo Spring Festival and the Madrid Auditori. Season highlights with the Academy of Ancient Music at the Barbican Centre include Handel's rarely performed Brockes-Passion and first collaboration with The Grange Festival in Le nozze di Figaro. Early in his tenure with AAM Egarr established the Choir of the AAM. Operas and particularly Handel's oratorios lie at the heart of his repertoire. He made his Glyndebourne debut
in 2007 and has directed Mozart's La Finta Giardinera, a Monteverdi cycle and Purcell operas with the Academy of Ancient Music at the Barbican, and staged productions of La clemenza di Tito and Rossini's Il Signor Bruschino at the Netherlands Opera Academy. Richard's extensive discography on Harmonia Mundi includes solo keyboard works by Bach, Handel, Mozart and Couperin. His long list of recordings with the Academy of Ancient Music includes seven Handel discs (2007 Gramophone Award, 2009 MIDEM and Edison awards), and JS Bach's St John and St Matthew Passions on the AAM's own label. His latest recital disc of Byrd and Sweelinck appeared in May 2018 on Linn Records. He has a long-standing teaching position at the Amsterdam Conservatoire and is Visiting Professor at the Juilliard school.
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Toby Girling
Simona Mihai
Toby Girling’s current and future engagements include Nicomedes in Der König Kandaules and Pallante Agrippina (Vlaamse Opera, Antwerp), Belcore L'elisir d’amore (Scottish Opera), Angelo Das Liebesverbot (Chelsea Opera Group at Cadogan Hall), Sam Trouble in Tahiti (Oper Leipzig on tour in Bolzano, Wexford Festival and Teatro Pérez Galdós in Gran Canaria). Recent engagements include Evangelist / Watchful / First Shepherd Pilgrim’s Progress (English National Opera), Masetto Don Giovanni, Ruggero La Juive (Peter Konwitschny), Mozart’s Mass in C minor, a staged version of Winterreise and Junkman / Hermann Augustus Candide (Vlaamse Opera), Top in Copeland’s The Tenderland (Opéra de Lyon), Marcello La bohème and Morales Carmen (Neville Holt), Guglielmo Così fan tutte (English Touring Opera), and Il Chirurgo / Alcade La Forza del Destino (Théâtres de la Ville de Luxembourg). For the Glyndebourne Opera Festival Chorus, he sang Arthur Jones and covered Donald Billy Budd in the Michael Grandage production. Toby is a graduate of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.
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Countess Almaviva soprano
© George Pahountis
Count Almaviva baritone
A 2010 graduate of the Jette Parker Young Artists Programme at the Royal Opera House, Romanian-British Soprano Simona Mihai began her studies in the UK, attending the Royal College of Music as a Queen Mother Scholar. Major operatic roles have included Nedda I Pagliacci, Musetta and Mimi La bohème, Poussette Manon and Frasquita Carmen (Royal Opera House), Mimi La bohème (Frankfurt and Perm), Adina L’Elisir d’Amore (Salzburg), Second Niece Peter Grimes and Pousette (La Scala, Milan), Governess The Turn of the Screw (Santiago, Chile), Roksana Krol Roger (Palermo) and Despina Così fan tutte (Glyndebourne on Tour). Most recently, Simona sang Musetta in the premiere of Richard Jones’s new La bohème at the ROH, also singing Mimi later in the run. She returned to Covent Garden in January for further performances as Mimi and made her Vienna debut in the Orleanskaya Deva production for Theater an der Wien as Agnes Sorel The Maid of Orleans. In 2018 she sang Nedda at the ROH, before making her debut at La Monnaie, Brussels in the same role.
M O Z A R T: L E NO Z Z E DI F IG A R O
Ellie Laugharne Susanna soprano
Ellie Laugharne studied on the Guildhall School of Music and Drama Opera course after graduating from Birmingham University and Birmingham Conservatoire. In 2012 she was a Jerwood Young Artist for the Glyndebourne Festival and more recently an Associate Artist for Opera North. Recent engagements include Polissena in Handel’s Radamisto (English Touring Opera), Phyllis in a new production of Iolanthe (English National Opera), Pamina The Magic Flute and Gretel Hänsel und Gretel (Opera North), and Zerlina Don Giovanni (Opera Holland Park and Classical Opera Company). This summer, having sung Susanna Le nozze di Figaro in her company debut at The Grange Festival, she next performs the title role of Helen in Blackheath Halls’s production of Offenbach's La Belle Hélenè. Next season Ellie returns to ENO to sing Frasquita Carmen, and performs the role of Gianetta in Scottish Opera’s production of Gilbert and Sullivan's The Gondoliers.
Roberto Lorenzi Figaro baritone
Roberto Lorenzi is a graduate of the Luigi Boccherini Institute of Musical Studies in Lucca, Italy. He won First Prize in the AsLiCo’s Competition for young singers and was finalist of the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World in 2017. He was a member of Opernhaus Zürich, where he performed Lorenzo I Capuleti e i Montecchi, Otello, Caronte Orlando Paladino, Alidoro La Cenerentola, Zuniga Carmen and Publio La Clemenza di Tito. Lorenzi made his La Scala debut in Franco Zeffirelli’s acclaimed production of La bohème, under the baton of Daniele Rustioni. Elsewhere he has appeared as Angelotti Tosca, Count Almaviva Le nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni (title role) in Lucca, as well as Alidoro La Cenerentola in Tuscany and Lille; Leporello Don Giovanni (New Israeli Opera); and Rossini’s Petite Messe Solennelle in Pesaro. Future plans include Masetto Don Giovanni in Bologna and Figaro Le nozze di Figaro for Norske Opera.
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Louise Winter
Wallis Giunta
Marcellina mezzo-soprano
© Tim Dunk
Mezzo-soprano Wallis Giunta was the winner of the “Young Singer” category at the 2018 International Opera Awards and “Breakthrough Artist in UK Opera” in the 2017 WhatsOnStage Awards. Highlights in the 2018-19 season include role debuts as the title role in Carmen, Rosina The Barber of Seville, and Octavian Der Rosenkavalier (Oper Leipzig); Idamante Idomeneo (Opera Atelier, Toronto), Flora La traviata with Plácido Domingo (Royal Opera House, Muscat), and Cherubino Le nozze di Figaro at The Grange Festival. Recent highlights include critically acclaimed performances as the title role in Ravel's L’enfant et les sortilèges, as Dinah in Bernstein's Trouble in Tahiti and as Angelina La Cenerentola (Opera North), a return to Opera Atelier, Toronto for Dido Dido and Aeneas and Weill's Seven Deadly Sins with the Real Orquesta Sinfónica de Sevilla. On the concert platform, she has returned to the Münchner Rundfunkorchester for Mozart Die Schuldigkeit des Ersten Gebots, and Koerner Hall in Toronto for a Bernstein Centenary gala.
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© Simon Newbury
Cherubino mezzo-soprano
Louise Winter was born in Preston, Lancashire, and studied at the Royal Northern College of Music, where she was the recipient of the Esso Glyndebourne and John Christie Awards. Since her debut as Dorabella with Glyndebourne Touring Opera, she has sung with major companies including the Royal Opera, English National Opera, Glyndebourne, Canadian Opera Company, Opera Frankfurt, Berlin Staatsoper and La Monnaie. Her most recent roles include Maya Agreed (Glyndebourne), Governess Pique Dame (Royal Opera House), Gertrude in Brett Dean’s Hamlet (Glyndebourne on Tour), Marcellina (Royal Opera House), Madame Larina Eugene Onegin (Garsington Opera), and Wife in Mark-Anthony Turnage’s Greek with Music Theatre Wales at the Linbury Studio Theatre, and on tour in the UK and Korea. She created the role of Susan in Huw Watkins's In the Locked Room (a co-production between Music Theatre Wales and Scottish Opera), and recently created the role of Pilar in David Sawyer’s The Skating Rink for the Garsington Festival.
M O Z A R T: L E NO Z Z E DI F IG A R O
Ben Johnson Basilio tenor
Acclaimed tenor Ben Johnson represented England in BBC Cardiff Singer of the World 2013 and won the Audience Prize. A former BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist and 2008 winner of the Kathleen Ferrier Award, Johnson trained as an English National Opera Harewood Artist. His 2017-18 season included a return to English National Opera as Earl Tolloller Iolanthe as well as performances of Beethoven’s Symphony No.9 with Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne and Britten's Canticles with Fundacion Juan March in Madrid. Recent highlights include Eisenstein Die Fledermaus and Don Ottavio Don Giovanni (Opera Holland Park) as well as Alfredo La Traviata, Tamino The Magic Flute, and Nemorino L’elisir d’amore, for English National Opera. He has also performed Don Ottavio for Glyndebourne Festival Opera, Lysander A Midsummer Night’s Dream for Bergen National Opera, Copland’s performances of The Tender Land at Opéra de Lyon and Britten’s War Requiem at De Doelen and the Concertgebouw Brugge.
Jonathan Best Bartolo bass
Jonathan Best was born in Kent and studied at St. John’s College‚ Cambridge and the Guildhall School of Music. Recent engagements include Bartolo (Opera North)‚ Lesbo Agrippina (The Grange Festival)‚ Father Traurnacht (Festival d’Aix en Provence)‚ Sarastro The Magic Flute‚ Benoit/Alcindoro La bohème and Le Bailli Werther (Scottish Opera)‚ Judge Turpin Sweeney Todd (Châtelet and Münchner Rundfunkorchester‚ Saul and Drunken Poet The Fairy Queen (Handel and Haydn Society‚ Boston)‚ Saul (The Sixteen)‚ Capellio I Capuleti e i Montecchi‚ Don Fernando Leonore‚ Zebul Jephtha‚ Notary Intermezzo and Maître Jean La Colombe (Buxton)‚ Don Alfonso Così fan tutte and Lord Henry The Picture of Dorian Gray (Den Jyske Opera)‚ Quince A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Speaker The Magic Flute (Garsington)‚ 3rd Seller / Dignitary The Portrait and Achilla Giulio Cesare (Opera North)‚ Pastor Oberlin Jakob Lenz and Bartolo (ENO)‚ Sacristan / Lunarbore / Domšic The Adventures of Mr Broucek (Opera North and Scottish Opera)‚ Missa Solemnis (Gloucester Cathedral)‚ Arthur The Lighthouse‚ Narrator The Waste Land‚ and the world première of Sally Beamish’s The Sins (Psappha).
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Richard Suart
Rowan Pierce
Richard Suart studied at St. John’s College‚ Cambridge‚ and the Royal Academy of Music‚ where he was elected a Fellow in 2004. He has worked for all the major British opera houses and is much sought after in music theatre‚ contemporary opera and as a comedian in the more standard repertoire. Recent and future engagements include Ko-Ko The Mikado (English National Opera and Scottish Opera)‚ Lord Chancellor Iolanthe (San Francisco)‚ Pangloss Candide (Toronto, Vancouver, LA‚ Hollywood Bowl and Firenze)‚ title role Gianni Schicchi (Diva Opera)‚ Judge Trial by Jury (English National Opera)‚ Antonio Le nozze di Figaro (The Grange Festival), Bartolo The Barber of Seville (Charles Court Opera)‚ Zeta The Merry Widow (Michigan), Major-General Stanley The Pirates of Penzance (Scottish Opera), Judge Turpin Sweeney Todd (Reisopera)‚ Jack Point The Yeomen of the Guard and Major-General (RTE Concert Orchestra)‚ The Soldier's Tale and Façade (Psappha).
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Barbarina soprano
© Gerard Collett
© Neil Mockford
Antonio baritone
Yorkshire-born Rowan Pierce is a Samling Artist who has performed at the BBC Proms, Wigmore Hall, Sage Gateshead, and various festivals, with ensembles including the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Academy of Ancient Music, Florilegium, Scottish Chamber, City of Birmingham Symphony and BBC Scottish Symphony orchestras. Opera roles include Galatea Acis and Galatea with AAM, Susanna (The Marriage of Figaro) and Miss Wordsworth Albert Herring. Recent and future performances include The Fairy Queen with both AAM and the Gabrieli Consort, Belinda Dido and Aeneas with AAM, and Tiny Paul Bunyan and Papagena The Magic Flute for English National Opera where she is a Harewood Artist. Prizes include the Van Someren Godfery Prize, Schubert Society Singer Prize and the President’s Award at the Royal College of Music as well as winning both the song and main prizes at the Grange Festival’s inaugural singing competition. She was generously supported by the Countess of Munster Award and Midori Nishiura at the RCM.
M O Z A R T: L E NO Z Z E DI F IG A R O
Who we are and what we do The Academy of Ancient Music is an orchestra with a worldwide reputation for excellence in baroque and classical music. It takes inspiration directly from the music's composers, using historically informed techniques, period-specific instruments and original sources to bring music to life in committed, vibrant performances.
performances. (Among its countless accolades for recording are Classic BRIT, Gramophone and Edison awards.) It has now established its own record label, AAM Records, and is proud to be the most listened-to orchestra of its kind online.
AAM's education and outreach programme, AAMplify, nurtures the next generation of audiences and The ensemble was founded by musicians. With this expanding Christopher Hogwood in 1973 and remains at the forefront of the worldwide programme, working from pre-school through tertiary education and beyond, early music scene more AAM ensures its work reaches the than four decades on; Richard Egarr widest possible audience and inspires became its Music Director in 2006. people of all ages, backgrounds and cultural traditions. The Academy of Ancient Music has always been a pioneer. It was established This season AAM collaborates with to make the first British recordings of orchestral works using instruments from Michael Collins, VOCES8, Lucie Horsch, Nicolas Altstaedt, Tenebrae, the the baroque and classical periods and BBC Singers, the Choir of King's College, has released more than 300 discs, many Cambridge, and the Grange Festival. of which are still considered definitive
Programmes include large-scale vocal masterpieces such as Bach's St Matthew Passion, Handel's Israel in Egypt, and a rare performance of Handel's Brockes-Passion, as well as concert performances of operas including Dido and Aeneas and The Marriage of Figaro. The AAM is based in Cambridge and is Orchestra-in-Residence at the city's university. Its London home is the Barbican Centre, where it is Associate Ensemble, and it is also Orchestra-inResidence at the Grange Festival, Chiltern Arts Festival, Music at Oxford and the Apex, Bury St Edmunds. Visit www.aam.co.uk to find out more.
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Academy of Ancient Music
Violin II Kinga Ujszászi Sijie Chen Alice Evans William Thorp Joanna Lawrence Alice Earll Viola Jane Rogers Jordan Bowron Clare Barwick Emma Alter
Cello Jonathan Rees Imogen Seth-Smith George Ross Anna Holmes Double Bass Judith Evans Dawn Baker
Clarinet Emily Worthington Fiona Mitchell
Horn Daniele Bolzonella Christos Maltezos
Bassoon Ursula Leveaux Joe Qui
Trumpet David Blackadder Robert Vanryne
Timpani Benedict Hoffnung Fortepiano supplied by Alexander Skeaping Thornhill Pianos: 5½ octave fortepiano by Paul McNulty after Anton Walter & Sohn, 1805
Flute Rachel Brown Guy Williams Oboe Leo Duarte Lars Henriksson
© Patrick Allen
Violin I Bojan Čičić Elin White Persephone Gibbs Liz MacCarthy Iwona Muszynska
The Grange Festival Chorus Soprano Emily Garland Frances Israel Roisín Walsh
Tenor Kamil Bien Dominic Bevan William Smith
Mezzo-soprano Rebecca Barry Sarah Denbee Leila Zanette
Bass Aaron O’Hare Stuart Orme Michael Ronan
Step-out Soloists First Bridesmaid Roisín Walsh Second Bridesmaid Leila Zanette Don Curzio Kamil Bien
The chorus of The Grange Festival is an elite vocal unit picked from hundreds of auditions throughout the previous year. In the 2019 festival, their flexibility has been tested, triumphantly, in a rich mix of Mozart, Handel and Verdi. Opportunities to be understudies and to sing small roles come with chorus membership. In 2020, the chorus will sing in productions of Manon Lescaut, La Cenerontola and My Fair Lady.
A C A D E M Y O F A N C I E N T M U S I C 2018 - 19 S E A S O N
Music Director Richard Egarr
Finance Manager Julie Weaver
Hogwood Fellow Sandy Burnett
Head of Concerts and Planning ChloĂŤ Wennersten
Chief Executive Alexander Van Ingen
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Concerts and Projects Co-ordinator Alice Pusey Librarian Emilia Benjamin
Education and Outreach Manager Sue Pope
Marketing and Audience Engagement Manager Lorna Salmon
Development Consultant John Bickley
Fundraising and Marketing Assistant Kemper Edwards
Programme Editor Sarah Breeden
Board of Trustees
Development Board
Council
Paul Baumann CBE Hugh Burkitt Elizabeth de Friend Philip Jones (Chair) Ash Khandekar Graham Nicholson John Reeve Terence Sinclair Madeleine Tattersall Janet Unwin Kim Waldock
Elise Badoy Dauby Hugh Burkitt Elizabeth de Friend (Chair) Andrew Gairdner MBE Philip Jones Agneta Lansing Roger Mayhew Craig Nakan Chris Rocker Terence Sinclair Madeleine Tattersall
Richard Bridges Kate Donaghy Matthew Ferrey Jonathan Freeman-Attwood CBE Nick Heath Lars Henriksson Christopher Lawrence Christopher Purvis CBE (Honorary President)
PR Consultant Orchid Media PR
Sir Konrad Schiemann Rachel Stroud Dr Christopher Tadgell The Lady Juliet Tadgell
BBC RADIO 3 LUNCHTIME CONCERTS
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Featuring the Nash Ensemble, Ashley Wass, Lucy Crowe, Adam Walker, Carolyn Sampson, Alice Sara Ott, Ray Chen & more
Drop in for 45 minutes of free music performed by LSO and Guildhall School musicians, with introductions from presenter Rachel Leach.
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BAROQUE AT THE EDGE 4 to 6 January 2019 Leading musicians from all backgrounds take the music of the Baroque and see where it leads them.
ACADEMY OF ANCIENT MUSIC Music Director Richard Egarr Hogwood Fellow Sandy Burnett Founder Christopher Hogwood CBE
11b King’s Parade, Cambridge CB2 1SJ +44 (0)1223 301509 info@aam.co.uk | www.aam.co.uk Registered charity number 1085485
Associate Ensemble at the Barbican Centre Orchestra-in-Residence at the University of Cambridge Orchestra-in-Residence at The Grange Festival Orchestra-in-Residence at Chiltern Arts Orchestra-in-Residence at the Apex, Bury St Edmunds Associate Ensemble at Music at Oxford Partner: Culture Mile
All details correct at time of printing
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West Road Concert Hall Cambridge Live Tickets Box Office Tel. 01223 357 851 www.cambridgelivetickets.co.uk
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• past concert programme information • performance and educational video content on YouTube • news and updates through social media • developing playlists for leading streaming services such as Spotify
Recordings
• over 300 albums, creating a substantial resource of historically informed performance practice • our own record label, AAM Records • new Strategic Recording Fund enabling track-by-track recording of lesser-known works
Learning
• dedicated Education & Outreach Manager, curating programmes for schools and communities • working with the next generation of performers and audience members • open rehearsals; opportunities to engage with performers • high-level scholarship and research presented in informative ways
jan‘19 11 26
36 performances 18 locations 1 unique festival For tickets & more information:
vallettabaroquefestival.com.mt
MINISTRY FOR JUSTICE, CULTURE & LOCAL GOVERNMENT
M O Z A R T: L E NO Z Z E DI F IG A R O
Friday 26th July 7pm The Great Gallery, The Wallace Collection
Schubert's Trout
Registered Charity No. 1148641
An evening of chamber music and song centred around Schubert's bubbling ‘Trout Quintet’ presented by CMF Artists and guest performer, pianist Sholto Kynoch.
Part of CMF's 2019 Summer Residency at The Wallace Collection (22nd – 26th July) Tickets £30 (£25 concession)
www.wallacecollection.org/whats-on/schuberts-trout
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New releases featuring AAM on sale tonight
A C A D E M Y O F A N C I E N T M U S I C 2018 - 19 S E A S O N
Baroque Journey
The Cares of Lovers
Featuring Lucie Horsch, Charlotte Barbour-Condini, Thomas Dunford, Academy of Ancient Music
Featuring Rowan Pierce with Richard Egarr and William Carter
Decca Classics
Highlights from the album include works from tonight’s programme, plus Handel’s Arrival of the Queen of Sheba, Bach’s Badinerie, Dido’s Lament by Purcell and the world premiere recording on recorder of a concerto by Jacques-Christophe Naudot.
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Linn Records
Including songs such as Sweeter than Roses, If Music be the Food of Love, and the title work The Cares of Lovers, as well as solo works for theorbo and harpsichord. Praise for Rowan Pierce in AAM’s 2018 Dido & Aeneas: “Rowan Pierce sounding crystalline as Belinda” THE GUARDIAN “Rowan Pierce was superb as Belinda, conveying... vivacity, directness and integrity through... her dramatically sensitive phrasing” OPERA TODAY
Opera and dance in a jewel of a theatre with the most magical setting
LE NOZZE DI FIGARO
FALSTAFF
BELSHAZZAR
DA N C E@ THEGRANGE
GERSHWIN & H O L LY WO O D
MOZART
VERDI
HANDEL
C U R AT E D BY
THE JOHN WILSON O RC H E S T R A
J U N E 6 - J U LY 6| + 4 4 (0)19 62 791 020
T H E G RAN G E F E S T I VA L . C O . U K
A C A D E M Y O F A N C I E N T M U S I C 2018 - 19 S E A S O N
Introducing our 2019-20 season:
Beethoven & Dussek Wednesday 2 October, 2019
Rejoice!
Thursday 24 October, 2019
Viktoria Mullova
Wednesday 20 November, 2019
Sacred Cantatas: Bach & the Divine Sunday 19 January, 2020
Jean Rondeau plays Bach Thursday 20 February, 2020
Handel’s Heroines Thursday 19 March, 2020
Glories of Venice Wednesday 22 April, 2020
Tickets £10-60 plus booking fee* £5 AAMplify tickets (students and under 26) barbican.org.uk 020 7638 8891
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*£3 online, £4 by telephone, no fee when booked in person
Johann Kuhnau
Magnificat The sacred works of the Leipzig St. Thomas Cantor Johann Kuhnau (1660–1722) have so far largely gone unnoticed in terms of research and performance practice. His »Magnificat« is considered Kuhnau’s most ambitious and best known vocal work.
Magnificat in C major with Insertion Movements for Performances over Christmas edited by David Erler
First Urtext edition, edited from authentic manuscript sources Detailed text sections, facsimiles as well as critical report Available for sale, complete
PB 32108 Score OB 32108 Performance material EB 32108 Piano vocal score by Andreas Köhs
18-19
concert programme
Tuesday 2 October 2018, Barbican Hall (semi-staged)
BBC Singers: Rameau & Lully
Friday 19 October 2018, Milton Court Concert Hall Sunday 21 October 2018, West Road Concert Hall
Wednesday 27 March 2019, West Road Concert Hall Thursday 28 March 2019, Milton Court Concert Hall Saturday 30 March 2019, Eindhoven, Netherlands
Bach’s St Matthew Passion
Mozart’s Requiem
Saturday 14 November 2018, King’s College Chapel, Cambridge
Monday 15 April 2019, King’s College Chapel, Cambridge Tuesday 16 April 2019, King’s College Chapel, Cambridge Wednesday 17 April 2019, Cadogan Hall, London
Michael Collins & Mozart
Handel’s Brockes-Passion
Friday 23 November 2018, Oxford Town Hall Sunday 25 November 2018, West Road Concert Hall Thursday 29 November 2018, Milton Court Concert Hall
Handel’s Messiah
2018-19 Season at a glance:
Nicolas Altstaedt plays Haydn
Saturday 17 November 2018, Antwerp, Belgium Monday 3 December 2018, Gresham Centre, London Wednesday 5 December 2018, Trinity College Chapel, Cambridge Sunday 9 December 2018, Fribourg, Switzerland
Vivaldi’s Four Seasons
Design by AproposCover photo: Patrick Allen
Purcell’s Dido & Aeneas
Good Friday 19 April 2019, Barbican Hall
Handel’s Israel in Egypt
Friday 10 May 2019, Milton Court Concert Hall Monday 13 May 2019, St James’ Church, Chipping Campden
Barbican Weekend: Sound Unbound
Saturday 18 - Sunday 19 May 2019, Barbican Centre
Handel’s Messiah
Saturday 1 December 2018, Vic, Spain Sunday 2 December 2018, Granada, Spain
Saturday 15 June 2019, Halle, Germany
Bach’s Christmas Oratorio
Thursday 6 June, Saturday 8 June, Friday 14 June, Wednesday 19 June, Sunday 23 June, Thursday 27 June, Tuesday 2 July, Sunday 7 July, Grange Festival, Hampshire Thursday 4 July 2019, Barbican Hall (concert performance)
Saturday 22 December 2018, St Luke’s, Chelsea (parts I, II & III) Friday 11 January 2019, St Luke’s, Chelsea (parts IV, V & VI)
Bach’s B minor Mass
Friday 1 February 2019, Oxford Town Hall
Lucie Horsch & Richard Egarr
Sunday 24 February 2019, Milton Court Concert Hall Monday 25 February 2019, Apex, Bury St Edmunds Tuesday 26 February 2019, West Road Concert Hall Thursday 28 February 2019, Groningen, Netherlands Friday 1 March 2019, Heerlen, Netherlands Saturday 2 March 2019, Rotterdam, Netherlands Sunday 3 March 2019, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro
Musick for the Royal Fireworks Friday 21 June 2019, Katowice, Poland
Partner, Culture Mile Network