Friday 22 July 2016

Youthful genius: Classical Opera's 2016/17 season explores the young Mozart

Mozart painted in 1763
Mozart painted in 1763
Classical Opera's 2016/17 season continues the Mozart 250 exploration of the year 1766 before moving on to 1767 including the first two major stage works by the young composer himself. 

1766 concludes with La Cantarina, a performance of one of Haydn's first operas along with arias from Josef Myslivecek's opera Semiramide, plus Haydn's Symphony No. 34. Ian Page conducts the Orchestra of Classical Opera at the Wigmore Hall on 19 September 2016 with soloist Ailish Tynan, Rachel Kelly, Kitty Whately and Robert Murray.

1767 opens with a retrospective at the Wigmore Hall on 17 January 2017. Ian Page conducts a programme of arias and symphonies by Mozart, JC Bach, Gluck, Haydn, and Arne all coming from works performed in 1767, with soloist Gemma Summerfield, Stuart Jackson and Ashley Riches.

Mozart's first stage work, written when he was eleven, was The First Commandment and Ian Page will be conducting a staging of the work, directed by Thomas Guthrie, at St John's Smith Square on 21 & 22 March 2017. Sung in Nigel Lewis' translation, it will feature Rebecca Bottone, Rachel Kelly and Alessandro Fisher. In fact we will be only hearing one third of the work, as the final two parts are lost. The company will return to St John's on 12 & 13 June 2017 for another of Mozart's stage works from 1767, his Apollo et Hyacinthus which will be staged by Thomas Guthrie with Ian Page conducting soloists including Tom Verney and Gemma Summerfield.

Pianist Kristian Bezuidenhout will be joining Ian Page and the Orchestra of Classical Opera at the Wigmore Hall on 16 May 2017 for a programme of Mozart's earliest keyboard concertos, the eleven-year-old Mozart's orchestrations of existing keyboard works. Soprano Anna Devin will also be joining the ensemble two perform two arias from the same year.

All is not quite Mozart 250, Ian Page,  and the Choir and Orchestra of Classcial Opera are joined by soloists Sarah Fox, Angela Simkin, Stuart Jackson, and Neal Davies for a performance of Handel's Messiah in Middle Temple Hall on 19 December 2016 as part of Temple Winter Festival.

Full details from Classical Opera's website.

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