News
Ljubljana Festival – Cultural Hub: September Highlight
24 August 2016
In September the Polish tenor Piotr
Beczała brings all the atmosphere of opera to the Ljubljana Festival. The end of the summer will
also feature two remarkable dance events. The SNG Opera & Ballet Maribor
will bring Lord Byron's poem to life with the ballet Le Corsaire, while the
Eifman Ballet from St Petersburg returns to the Ljubljana Festival with a
performance of Up and Down, which will close this year's festival on 13
September. Two world-famous orchestras are also coming to Ljubljana: the Royal
Concertgebouw Orchestra from Amsterdam with conductor Daniele Gatti, and the
Shenzhen Symphony Orchestra from China. And to ensure a relaxed festival
atmosphere, the programme also includes a performance by avant-garde group
Laibach in concert with the RTV Slovenija Symphony Orchestra.
Orchestras and conductors
Its string section has been called
"velvety", the sound of the brass "golden", the timbre of
the woodwinds "distinctly personal" and the percussion have an
international reputation – these are the attributes of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, one of the
world's finest orchestras. In the opinion of many connoisseurs, the acoustics
of its home venue, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, are the best in the world.
As well as 80 concerts performed here, the RCO gives 40 concerts at leading
concert halls throughout the world each year. Since its foundation in 1888, the
orchestra has been led by a succession of outstanding conductors, among them
famous composers such as Gustav Mahler and Richard Strauss. With effect from
the 2016/17 season, the chief conductor of the RCO is Daniele Gatti, who until this year was the
music director of the Orchestre National de France. Before that he served as
principal conductor of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, chief conductor of the
Zurich Opera, music director of the Orchestra del Teatro Comunale in Bologna
and principal conductor of the Orchestra Dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa
Cecilia in Rome, among other appointments. Together with the RCO he will
present a programme of remarkable colour, frequent changes of tempo and
unconventional musical forms and harmonies. The programme includes two works
originally written to accompany ballets (Jeux and Petrushka) that were
premiered in the early twentieth century by Diaghilev's famous Ballets Russes,
featuring the legendary dancer and choreographer Nijinsky. (1. 9.)
From faraway China comes the Shenzhen Symphony
Orchestra, which since its founding in 1982 has
worked with numerous eminent artists, including composer and conductor Tan Dun,
who has appeared before Slovenian audiences in both roles several times, most
recently as a guest of the Ljubljana Festival at the opening of last year’s
festival. The orchestra performs here with the Chinese virtuoso
violinist Chen Xi, who
won the Lipinski-Wieniawski International Competition for Young Violinists at
the age of just 15 and took a dazzling top prize at the prestigious International
Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow at 17. With the introductory symphonic poem
by the Chinese composer Xu, the orchestra will conjure up the tonal palette of
the Chinese musical tradition. The varied programme also includes a concertante
work by the great Finnish symphonist Sibelius and the famous symphonic suite by
the Russian master of orchestration Rimsky-Korsakov. The orchestra will be
conducted by DaYe Lin, the winner of the 2012 Sir Georg Solti International Conducting
Competition in Frankfurt. Lin studied in Berlin under Christian Ehwald, who
together with Uroš Lajovec is responsible for the artistic direction of the
Shenzhen Symphony Orchestra. (8. 9.)
Opera evenings
RTV Slovenia Symphony Orchestra will appear with the Polish tenor Piotr
Beczała, who is renowned for the beauty of
his voice and his exceptional interpretations of the roles he performs. In the
2015/16 season alone he sang Edgardo in Lucia de Lammermoor at the San
Francisco Opera, the Duke in Rigoletto at the Metropolitan Opera in New York
and Werther at the Opéra National de Paris. He also appeared in Un ballo in
maschera at both the Bavarian State Opera and the Vienna State Opera and sang
the title role in Wagner's Lohengrin opposite Anna Netrebko at the Semperoper
Dresden. In addition to his operatic roles Beczała also gives regular concert
performances at major festivals and important concert venues. In Ljubljana he
will offer a selection of arias from the most famous French and Italian operas
of the nineteenth century. The RTV Slovenija
Symphony Orchestra, which this year celebrates its 60th anniversary,
will be conducted by the French maestro Marc
Piollet, who has enjoyed a rich career conducting opera in the
world's most prestigious opera houses and is also frequently heard conducting
the symphonic repertoire. (6. 9.)
To make the summer even more relaxed
Following their successful concert with the RTV Slovenia
Symphony Orchestra in the famous Henry Le Boeuf Hall of the BOZAR
arts centre in Brussels on 9 February, the group – accompanied by symphony
orchestra and mixed choir – has prepared an expanded programme for their
appearance at Križanke. The first part of the concert will include the premiere
performance of a brand-new work, a 30-minute original composition based on
France Prešeren’s Baptism By The Savica, set in the period of the
conversion of Slovenes to Christianity and the battles between Christians and
pagans. Laibach performed this work
for the first time at the Ultima Contemporary Music Festival in Oslo in 2014.
The Ljubljana performance of the two works coincides with the 30th anniversary
of the staging of the “retrogarde event” Baptism Below Triglav by
the Sisters of Scipio Nasica Theatre, to which Laibach contributed the
soundtrack. In the second part of the concert, Laibach will present a selection
of the pieces they performed in Brussels with the RTV Slovenia Symphony
Orchestra, this time in arrangements for an even larger orchestra (“Smrt za
smrt”, “Eurovision”, “Now You Will Pay”, “Whistleblowers”, “We Are Millions And
Millions Are One”, “Resistance Is Futile”, “Opus Dei/Leben heisst Leben”). Like
all Laibach concerts, this will be a multivisual event accompanied by stunning
film projections. Orchestrations are by the young Slovene composer Anže Rozman.
The orchestra will be conducted by Simon Dvoršak. (2. 9.)
A summer of dancing
Written in 1814, Byron's tale in verse The Corsair evinces the romantic interest in
exotic places where time seemed to stand still in the infinity of the moment
and where even the greatest fantasies could come true. This spirit is
personified in the poet's work by the figure of Conrad, a ship's captain who
has been banished from society and forced to become a pirate. A sudden twist of
fate – the kidnapping of the beautiful Medora, with whom Conrad has fallen in
love – sees the two lovers face a stern new test. In order to rescue Medora and
free her from a life of slavery, Conrad and his friends plan an attack on Seyd
Pasha's harem and set off on an exciting adventure. The romantic ballet based
on Byron's verse-tale was created by Jules-Henri Vernoy de Saint-Georges in
1855 and orginally choreograped by Joseph Mazilier to music by Adolphe Adam,
who had already won acclaim with his original music for the ballet Giselle
fifteen years earlier. The first integral production of the ballet in Slovenia
was staged in Maribor in April this year, with choreography by the renowned
Latvian ballet director, choreographer and dancer Aivars Leimanis. (7. 9.)
The Eifman Ballet from St Petersburg returns
to the Ljubljana Festival with a performance of Up and Down, which will close the 64th
Ljubljana Festival. Boris Eifman is one of the world's greatest choreographers
who has created his own unique ballet universe. He is justly known as a
"choreographer-philosopher", but a more subtle definition that
accurately captures the aesthetic individuality of the great maestro would be a
"choreographer-psychoanalyst". Rightly believing that the tools of
ballet open up truly unlimited research opportunities to the dance creator,
Eifman plunges into the unknown depths of the inner worlds of his characters
and penetrates the most hidden corners of their subconscious. The ballet Up
& Down is the quintessence of the choreographer's psychoanalytic research.
In this love story set in the early 20th century, Boris Eifman
repeatedly confronts psychological themes and delves into the realms of mental
illness, destructiveness and the subconscious.
The ballet features the music of Alban Berg, Franz Schubert and George
Gershwin. (12. - 13. 9.)
Information / Public relations
Živa Steiner
Tel.: +386 (0)1 241 60 19 - ziva.steiner@ljubljanafestival.si
www.ljubljanafestival.si
www.facebook.com/ljubljanafestival
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The Ljubljana Festival thanks its founder, the City of
Ljubljana, for the support.