Season Previews

Season Previews from around the world

Nicola Benedetti’s announces her first Edinburgh International Festival programme

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Festival Director Nicola Benedetti launches the 2023 Edinburgh International Festival – 4-27 AUGUST 2023

Festival Director Nicola Benedetti launches the 2023 Edinburgh International Festival © Mihaela Bodlovic

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General booking for the 2023 International Festival opens on Wednesday 3 May, with tickets currently on-sale to Members and supporters.

New Festival Director Nicola Benedetti’s first Edinburgh International Festival programme is revealed.

Benedetti sets out a vision for the 2023 Festival to deliver the deepest possible experience, with the highest quality performances, to the broadest possible audience.

Following the Festival’s 75th anniversary, under the direction of a new Festival Director, this year’s programme is themed around the question ‘where do we go from here?’.

Comprising 295 separate events from 4-27 August, Edinburgh International Festival 2023 features work from over 2000 local and international artists from across 48 nations.

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The London Philharmonic Orchestra in 2023-2024

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The London Philharmonic Orchestra’s 2023/24 London season

Key highlights:

The Music in You – a festival celebrating the creativity that is in us all and embraces all kinds of artistic expression and art forms including dance, music, theatre and audience participation as well as pieces for mobile phones and metronomes

Tania León’s inaugural season as Composer-in-Residence including a world premiere

Principal Conductor Edward Gardner opens the season with Mahler’s Symphony No.2 (Resurrection) and later in the season conducts Holst’s The Planets and Stravinsky’s Petrushka

Conductor Emeritus Vladimir Jurowski closes the season with the long-awaited conclusion of his Wagner Ring Cycle: Götterdämmerung

Principal Guest Conductor Karina Canellakis conducts Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 8 and Brahms’s Symphony No. 4

We welcome the LPO’s two inaugural Fellow Conductors: Luís Castillo-Briceño and Charlotte Politi

New works by Daniel Kidane and Francisco Coll and UK premieres from Victoria Vita Polevá, Luís Tinoco and John Williams

The LPO welcomes back Anne-Sophie Mutter, Renée Fleming, Robin Ticciati, Paavo Järvi, Christian Tetzlaff and Danielle de Niese, amongst others

Artists making their debut with the Orchestra include conductors Jonathon Heyward, Tianyi Lu and Oksana Lyniv, pianist Julian Joseph, accordionist João Barradas and organist Anna Lapwood

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General booking opens on 13 May for the 2023 BBC Proms (14 July to 9 September)

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BBC Proms – Friday 14 July to Saturday 9 September 2023

84 Proms to feature over 3,000 musicians bring the UK together in celebration of classical music with eight weeks of concerts at the Royal Albert Hall, a new weekend festival at Sage Gateshead and Proms in all four nations

The 2023 Proms features a huge breadth of programming, from Berlioz to Bollywood, large scale symphonic and choral work to intimate chamber concerts and exciting Proms debuts.

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‘We are the Music Makers’: The Elgar Festival 2023 – 30 May to 4 June

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The Elgar Festival 2023: ‘We are the Music Makers’
in Worcester and Malvern, the heart of Elgar Country
30 May to 4 June 2023

Lauded as ‘Critic’s Pick’ in both The Guardian and The Times, The Elgar Festival is an annual live celebration of the life and music of Worcester’s most famous son and Britain’s great composer, Sir Edward Elgar (1857–1934). Set in and around the composer’s home city, the event comprises concerts given by the resident English Symphony Orchestra and their Conductor and Festival Artistic Director, Kenneth Woods, guest artists, and features composers working today as well as those luminaries of the past.

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Berlin’s Staatsoper Unter den Linden in 2023-24

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Highlights in the 2023/24 Season at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden

  • A world premiere and four additional premieres in the main hall (see PREMIERES section).
  • LINDEN 21 format with two world premieres and one revival (see section LINDEN 21).
  • BAROCKTAGE (17 to 26 November 2023), with no less than three different works revolving around the subject of »Medea« In addition to the premiere of Marc-Antoine Charpentier’s late 17th-century French tragédie en musique MÉDÉE (music director: Simon Rattle, stage director: Peter Sellars, stage design: Frank O. Gehry), there will be a reencounter with Luigi Cherubini’s MEDEA directed by Andrea Breth (performed for the first time by an »early music« ensemble), as well as a melodrama by Mozart contemporary Georg Anton Benda. Accompanying Mozart’s MITRIDATE, RE DI PONTO as well as numerous concerts can be experienced.
  • The FESTTAGE (18 March to 1 April 2024) with the revival of Wagner’s RING tetralogy directed by Dmitri Tcherniakov, conducted for the first time by Philippe Jordan at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden, complemented by concerts with the Staatskapelle Berlin and the Opera Children’s Orchestra.
  • 28 opera revivals – including Peter Eötvösʼs SLEEPLESS and Beat Furrer’s VIOLETTER SCHNEE, which together with the premiere of Marc-André Dalbavie’s MELANCHOLIE DES WIDERSTANDS form a »trilogy of world premieres« of recent years.
  • In addition, there will be around 100 concerts in Berlin, including 16 symphony concerts (with eight programs) and other special concerts by the Staatskapelle Berlin. Furthermore, a Canada and USA tour of the Staatskapelle Berlin under the baton of Daniel Barenboim (25 November to 6 December 2023) will take the orchestra to five major music centres.
  • The concert program for the 2023/24 season will focus on the composer Antonín Dvořák in both the symphony and chamber concerts. But several works by Anton Bruckner, whose 200th birthday will be celebrated in 2024, are also represented in the Staatskapelle’s symphony concerts, as are Gustav Mahler’s Symphonies Nos. 1, 5 and 7. Works by the South Korean composer Unsuk Chin, who lives in Berlin, will be heard in two subscription concerts, as will the two violin concertos by Béla Bartók.
  • In total, the Staatsoper Unter den Linden will present more than 320 events in 2023/24, STAATSOPER FÜR ALLE in July 2024 with an open-air concert by the Staatskapelle Berlin, conducted by Christian Thielemann, as well as numerous projects by the Junge Staatsoper, including performances by the Opera Children’s Orchestra and the Children’s Opera House Unter den Linden.
  • We also devote special attention to the topic of sustainability with a special concert project by the Orchester des Wandels (Orchestra of Change) of the Staatskapelle Berlin at Kraftwerk Mitte and the SUSTAINABLE LISTENING series.
  • Conductors who can be experienced for the first time at the Staatsoper and with the Staatskapelle Berlin: Elim Chan, Pierre Dumoussand, Iván Fischer, Marie Jacquot, Nicola Luisotti, Joana Mallwitz, Rafael Payare, Giedré Šlekytė (debut concert), Robin Ticciati, Jaap van Zweden.
  • Directed new productions: Calixto Bieito, Silvia Costa (house debut), Claus Guth, Julia Lwowski (house debut), David Marton (house debut), Kornél Mundruczó, Peter Sellars (house debut).
  • Dani Juris will be the new chorus director of the Staatsoper Unter den Linden from the 2023/24 season.
  • The new season will kick off with an opening celebration on 9 September 2023.

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The Mousetrap continues its 2023 UK tour

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MAJOR NEW TOUR LAUNCHED THE 70TH ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATIONS OF THE MOUSETRAP – THE WORLD’S LONGEST RUNNING PLAY

From the East End to Monkswell Manor, The Mousetrap 70th Anniversary tour will star John Altman, Todd Carty and Gwyneth Strong whilst Agatha Christie’s iconic thriller continues its record-breaking run at London’s St Martin’s Theatre.

Having held its world premiere at Theatre Royal Nottingham in 1952, this 70th Anniversary tour opened there in September 2022 before visiting over 70 theatres throughout the UK and Ireland, including all cities to which it originally played 70 years ago, plus many more.

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