30.08.2021

SOPHIE KARTHÄUSER with La Fura dels Baus in a hymn to nature

Beware of the elements! Terrestrial catastrophe is at the heart of the first part of this programme that explores the relationship between man and Nature. Prometheus, symbolising human destiny, opens the long list of climatic disasters with a cataclysmic tempest, followed by a storm described by Anton Reicha, and the floodwaters that sweep through the love story uniting Hero and Leander, in a setting by Julius Rietz and Fanny Hensel. The carnage caused by human hand adds to the elemental fury as war is at the heart of Weber’s cantata Battle and Victory, while the poignant allegretto of Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony sounds like a premise of the long, slow exodus of migrants. In contrast with all this tumult, the prevailing mood of Beethoven’s Sixth Symphony, the Pastoral, forming the second half of the programme, is more appeased a true hymn to nature and peace.

Sophie Karthäuser with her inexhaustible timbres and her unaffected beauty of voice is an ideal interpreter in this repertoire, stressing the importance of this topic that is important today more than ever. Laurence Equilbey provides the necessary musical impetus on this occasion with her splendid Insula Orchestra.

Ludwig van Beethoven: The Creatures of Prometheus, Op.43
Antonín Rejcha: "Lenore" Storm (2nd part) , op. 74
Julius Rietz: Hero and Leander, Ouverture, op.11
Fanny Hensel-Mendelssohn: Hero und Leander
Carl Maria von Weber: Cavatina of Rezia from "Oberon"
Carl Maria von Weber: "Prayer" from Oberon

Sophie Karthäuser, soprano
Insula orchestra
Laurence Equilbey, conductor
Carlus Padrissa – La Fura dels Baus, staging and video
Mihael Milunovic, drawing and scenography