Peter Lieberson's Neruda Songs at the Opera in the City festival

Lorraine Hunt Lieberson & Peter Lieberson in 1998 (Photo Emil Miland/Courtesy Peter Lieberson)

The American composer Peter Lieberson (1946-2011) wrote his Neruda Songs for his wife, the mezzo-soprano Lorraine Hunt Lieberson (1954-2006), having unexpectedly come across the poems by the great Chilean poet Pablo Neruda. Lorraine Hunt Lieberson premiered the songs in 2005 with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen and then performed them with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, conductor James Levine (with whom she made a commercial recording). Lorraine Hunt Lieberson died the following year, of breast cancer; she is perhaps best associated in the UK with the role of Irene in Handel's Theodora which she performed at Glyndebourne in the premiere of Peter Seller's production.

There is a welcome chance to hear Peter Lieberson's Neruda Songs on Saturday 31 August 2019, when mezzo-soprano Katherine Marriott and pianist Nigel Foster perform them at the Bridewell Theatre at 9pm, as part of the Opera in the City festival. Full details from the Opera in the City website.