Clyne Franz Schubert / Luciano Berio Haydn

Gasteig HP8

Opéra-fantastique in five acts by Jacques Offenbach (1819-1880)
Libretto by Jules Paul Barbier after the drame fantastique of the same name
by Barbier and Michel Florentin Carré

EPSG:4326

Les Contes d’Hoffmann

Opernhaus Zürich

The work is at once pastoral and romantic, the music fully expressing Holst’s affection for the landscape. It is also a gentle tribute to the great designer and Socialist visionary, William Morris, who was one of Holst’s great heroes, evoking Morris’ vision of the English countryside as a Heaven on Earth. It is a joyful work with hints of the greatness to come, and his masterpiece The Planets, with its visionary opening Mars, the Bringer of War. Invocation, a hauntingly contemplative work for cello and orchestra, has a shimmering, mystical quality that is curiously evocative – exotic, and yet somehow, unmistakably English. Written during the build up to the Second World War, Vaughan Williams’ Dona Nobis Pacem is an eloquent cry for peace and a reminder that war inevitably brings misery and loss before culminating in a joyous vision of the ending of war through reconciliation between people and nations and the hope for a brighter future.

Holst 150

Chichester Cathedral

Lighthouse, Poole's Centre for the Arts

Ferrando and Guglielmo reckon they’re loved-up for life, secure in romantic bliss with fiancées Dorabella and Fiordiligi. Don Alfonso, their older and more cynical pal, begs to differ. “Così fan tutte,” he tells the brothers. Women are all the same. And then he sets about trying to prove them wrong…

English National Opera

The Bridgewater Hall

Elgar

Bringing the power of opera to the concert platform, Mozart's penultimate symphony is a passionate masterclass in tension and release. The darkly intense opening movement gives way to a lighter more lyrical Andante and light and shade abound as a terse Minuet leads to a colourful Trio before the anguishingly turbulent finale ramps this masterpiece to a close.

Andrew Foster-Williams

Events

Upcoming events

27 - 28 Feb, 2026

English National Opera · The Bridgewater Hall

6 - 7 Mar, 2026

Elgar · Munich Philharmonic

Mar 26, 2026

BBC NOW - Brahms Requiem · Brangwyn Hall

Past events

29 - 30 Oct, 2025

Clyne Franz Schubert / Luciano Berio Haydn · Munich Philharmonic

Jun 28 - Jul 12, 2025

Les Contes d’Hoffmann · Opernhaus Zürich

Future and recently performed repertoire

Don Alfonso in Così fan tutte by Mozart

The Bridgewater Hall

Singer in Ein Deutsches Requiem by Brahms

Brangwyn Hall

Singer in The Dream of Gerontius by Elgar

Munich Philharmonic

About

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