As 2019 is the 500th anniversary of Leonardo da Vinci's death, the Renaissance polymath is everywhere. Alex Mills, whose imaginative opera Dear Marie Stopes debuted at Tête à Tête: The Opera Festival last year [see my review], is exploring Leonardo through music and his opera Leonardo will debut at the Victoria and Albert Museum on Saturday 9 November 2019 (when there are two performances, at 13.30 and 16;00). Alas the opera is not in one of the museum's evocative Renaissance galleries, but in the Lecture Theatre, though the acoustics there are good.
In the opera Mills aims to focuses on his inner world, emotional life and sexuality, using music to fill in the many gaps that we have in our knowledge of Leonardo the man. In fact, we know fairly little about Leonardo, most of his writings are architectural and technical, and certainly there is precious little about his emotional life or his sexuality. Of course, with historical figures the very silence can be telling.
The text by playwright Brian Mullin is drawn from Leonardo's personal notebooks and journals (of which the V&A have five in their collection), plus other contemporary texts from his lifetime.
The work will be performed by tenor Tom Randle, counter-tenor Feargal Mostyn-Williams and baritone Richard Immerglück with the viol consort Fretwork, conducted by Tim Anderson and directed by Patrick Eakin Young.
Further details from Alex Mills website, and tickets from the V&A website.
Thursday 7 November 2019
Leonardo the opera: Alex Mills' latest work debuts at the Victoria and Albert Museum
Labels:
preview
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Popular Posts this month
-
Septura I first became aware of the brass septet, Septura , when noting their 2017/18 concert series Kleptomania at St John's Smith...
-
Britten: Death in Venice - Tim Mead, Leo Dixon - Royal Opera ((c) ROH 2019 photographed by Catherine Ashmore) 2019 seems to have b...
-
Mural: chamber music by Gabriel Vicéns; Stradivarius Reviewed 15 April 2024 At times fierce and concentrated, Gabriel Vicéns music can evok...
-
National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain, Jessica Cottis Catalyst : Coleridge-Taylor, Julius Eastman, Gavin Higgins, Dani Howard, Prokofiev...
-
Ben Goldscheider Jörg Widmann, Beethoven, Schumann, Huw Watkins, York Bowen; Ben Goldscheider, Richard Uttley; Wigmore Hall Reviewed 17 Marc...
-
Thomas Elwin as Lensky in Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin at West Green House Opera in 2021(Photo: Matthew Williams-Ellis) West Green House...
-
Bizet: Carmen, Act One - Blaise Malaba, Aighul Akhmetshina - Royal Opera House (Photo: ROH/Camilla Greenwell) Bizet: Carmen ; Aigul Akhmets...
-
Gimnazija Kranj Symphony Orchestra I get all sorts of mail, people sending my information on concerts and recordings. Everything gets gl...
-
Mozart: Don Giovanni - Hurn Court Opera (Photo: Patrick Frost, BlackStar Pictures) Mozart: Don Giovanni : Sam Young, Samuel Lom, Lizzie Ryde...
-
Leeds Lieder Young Artists 2024 at Howard Assembly Room Composers & Poets Forum Showcase: A Leeds Songbook; Leeds Lieder Festival at Le...
No comments:
Post a Comment