Chelsea Opera Group announce their 2024-2025 season
Puccini Centenary Concert
Sunday 2nd November 2024, 7pm, Cadogan Hall, London
Puccini – Capriccio sinfonico; Messa di Gloria; Le villi
5.45pm pre-concert talk (free to ticket holders)
Conductor – Peter Robinson
Featuring the Chelsea Opera Group Orchestra and Chorus and soloists – Stephen Gadd, Seljan Fermor- Hesketh and Charne Rochford
Chelsea Opera Group perform three of Giacomo Puccini’s early works to mark the centenary of his death (1858-1924). The main item is Le villi, Puccini’s first opera, written to a libretto based on the same legend as the ballet Giselle. Entered in 1883 into a competition for one-act operas and rejected by the judges, Le villi was staged in Milan the following year and brought Puccini to the attention of Ricordi, the influential publisher, setting him on the path to fame.
The programme also includes Puccini’s Capriccio sinfonico of 1883 which he wrote when he graduated from the Milan Conservatory. His mastery of orchestral writing was immediately acclaimed.
The Messa di Gloria completes the programme. Puccini’s only substantial choral piece gave him his first great success when it was performed in 1880. Even so early in his career his gift for melody is obvious.
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Edouard Lalo – Le roi d’Ys – a concert performance in French with English surtitles
Sunday 30th March 2025, Cadogan Hall, London,
Chelsea Opera Group Orchestra and Chorus.
Conductor – Paul Wingfield.
Soloists – to be announced.
Le roi d’Ys is an opera in three acts and five tableaux by the French composer Édouard Lalo, to a libretto by Édouard Blau, based on the old Breton legend of the drowned city of Ys, which was, according to the legend, the capital of the kingdom of Cornouaille. It premiered at the Opéra Comique in Paris on 7 May 1888. In Le roi d’Ys Lalo writes in a chromatic idiom that is more akin to music of Liszt than that of Wagner. Forceful 6/8 meters, a favourite of the composer, underline the most dramatic sections. Some of the choruses suggest an echo of Breton folk songs, which Lalo surely learned from his Bretonese wife (who also may have brought the legend of Ys to her husband’s attention in the first place). Although Le roi d’Ys contains certain characteristics of traditional grand opera, this highly individual work marks a new direction in French music of its time.
Vincenzo Bellini – La Straniera – a concert performance in Italian with English surtitles
Sunday 1st June 2025, Cadogan Hall, London.
Chelsea Opera Group Orchestra and Chorus
Conducted by Stephen Barlow, with Helena Dix as Alaide.
Other soloists to be announced.
La straniera (English: The Stranger Woman) is an opera in two acts by Vincenzo Bellini, from a libretto by Felice Romani, based on L’étrangère (1825) by Charles-Victor Prévot, vicomte d’Arlincourt. It was composed in the autumn of 1828 and premiered in February 1829 in Milan.
At the heart of the plot of this opera is a complicated series of historical events beginning at the end of the twelfth century. Set in Brittany around 1200 it concerns Alaide (La straniera), illegally married to the King of France, who becomes the object of desire of Arturo, despite his betrothal to Isoletta. Arturo, besotted, tells his friend Valdeburgo of his love for the stranger. Valdeburgo turns out to be her brother.
And finally, advance notice of our 75th Anniversary Concert – Verdi’s Macbeth
Autumn 2025 (date TBC) at Cadogan Hall, London.
Conductor – Grant Llewellyn