Sir Mark Elder – a conductor’s legacy
Conductor’s UK schedule includes the British premiere of Bizet’s incidental music to L’Arlésienne in its original theatrical context
Engagements include the Manchester premiere of Sir James MacMillan’s Christmas Oratorio and celebratory birthday concerts with the Hallé
Britain’s musical life has long been enriched by Sir Mark Elder’s compelling artistry. His 2026-27 season includes the UK premiere of Georges Bizet’s complete incidental music to L’Arlésienne, staged at London’s Queen Elizabeth Hall in October. He will preface his 8oth birthday on 2 June 2027 with celebratory concerts with the Hallé next April and a return to the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra for Verdi’s Requiem in May.
Maestro Elder’s overseas engagements include Wagner’s Lohengrin and Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra at Valencia’s Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia, where he has been Music Director since 2025; Mascagni’s Cavalleria rusticana and Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius for his final season as Principal Guest Conductor of the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra; a debut with the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra; and a return to the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra.
Opportunities to hear Bizet’s incidental music to L’Arlésienne in its original context of Alphonse Daudet’s play remain vanishingly rare. Elder and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment will present the work’s first British staging at the Queen Elizabeth Hall on Friday 9 and Saturday 10 October, in a production freshly translated and directed by Jeremy Sams.
L’Arlésienne was first staged at the Théâtre du Vaudeville in Paris in 1872. The theatre’s impresario commissioned Daudet to adapt his eponymous short story, inspired by real events, about a young man’s love for ‘the girl from Arles’, her infidelity, and his suicide. Bizet wrote twenty-seven numbers, some lasting less than thirty seconds, for an ensemble of twenty-six musicians. Though the first run closed after just twenty-one performances, the 1885 Théâtre de l’Odéon revival proved a box-office hit.
‘Bizet’s orchestra had to fit into the limited space of the Vaudeville Theatre, which is why we’ve chosen to do it in the relatively small Queen Elizabeth Hall,’ says Mark Elder. ‘The music is scored for four first violins, three seconds, one viola, five cellos, and two basses, a few wind instruments, including a saxophone, and a tambourin provençal, [a double-headed drum from Provence]. I got to know L’Arlésienne from the orchestral suites. But Bizet wrote many other wonderful tunes, which hardly anyone knows.’
Mark Elder, whose relationship with the Hallé began in the early 1980s, led the orchestra to commanding artistic heights during his twenty-four years as Music Director (2000-2024). He returns as their Conductor Emeritus on Saturday 14 November for Manchester’s first performance of Sir James MacMillan’s Christmas Oratorio, whose UK premiere he gave with the London Philharmonic Orchestra in 2021. He will join the Hallé again next year for 80th-birthday concerts at Manchester’s Bridgewater Hall (Friday 23 April 2027) and The Glasshouse, Gateshead (Saturday 24 April), to perform Debussy’s Nocturnes, MacMillan’s Timotheus, Bacchus and Cecilia and Richard Strauss’s Ein Heldenleben.
‘If you want to celebrate a major birthday with a concert, then Heldenleben is a very fine piece for it,’ notes Mark Elder. ‘I’ve done it many times around the world, including at the Proms with the Hallé, and have never grown tired of it. I thought it might be something with which we could all have fun ahead of my birthday. It’s a great orchestral showpiece, very demanding and rewarding to play. I feel a deep connection with the public in Manchester and Gateshead, so I’m delighted that we’ll reach them with this birthday celebration. Doing a special concert for a major birthday doesn’t signal the end of anything, especially when one is, as ever, full of beans. I’m so lucky to have music in my life. It keeps me young!’
Elder’s 80th-birthday season in the UK includes a return to the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra for Verdi’s Requiem at Symphony Hall (Wednesday 5 May). Soprano Masabane Cecilia Rangwanasha and mezzo-soprano Alice Coote will be joined by rising-star tenor Thomas Atkins and bass William Thomas, winner of the 2018 Kathleen Ferrier Award. ‘When I became Music Director of the Hallé, it effectively ended my long association with the CBSO,’ the conductor reflects. ‘I was delighted to return in 2024 after an absence of around twenty-seven years. I greatly look forward to performing Verdi’s wonderful masterpiece with them again.’
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