Opera Holland Park is delighted to introduce Opera in Song: three programmes of Czech, English, Italian, Russian, German, French and Spanish music, designed by Julien Van Mellaerts in collaboration with Dylan Perez, to complement and illuminate the operas in the company’s 2021 Season.
Winner of the Wigmore Hall/Kohn Foundation International Song Competition, the Kathleen Ferrier Award, and the Maureen Forrester Prize and German Lied Award at the 2018 Concours Musical International de Montréal, Van Mellaerts is currently singing the role of Count Almaviva in Opera Holland Park’s new production of The Marriage of Figaro.
Van Mellaerts’s series at Opera Holland Park closes the traditional gap between opera and song recitals in collaboration with pianists Perez, Ella O’Neill and Simon Lepper, and singers Fleur Barron, Nicky Spence, Anush Hovhannisyan, Nardus Williams and three of the 2021 OHP Young Artists, with an innovative focus on storytelling.
The recitals are inspired by the current Opera Holland Park productions of The Marriage of Figaro, The Cunning Little Vixen and La traviata, and the postponed 2020 production of Eugene Onegin, in which Hovannisyan and Spence were due to sing the roles of Tatyana and Lensky.
In the first programme on Sunday 25 July at 7.30pm, Janáček’s The Diary of One Who Disappeared is complemented by the composer’s Moravian Folk Songs and by Dvorák’s Gypsy Songs. Spence is joined by OHP Young Artists Charlotte Badham, Charlotte Bowden and Isabelle Peters as the nymphs and Fleur Barron as the Gypsy.
The second programme (Monday 26 July at 7.30pm) contrasts Armenian folksongs and scenes from La traviata and Eugene Onegin in newly arranged four-hand piano transcriptions, while the third concert in the series (Tuesday 27 July at 4pm) explores the marriage between Mozart’s Count and Countess Almaviva in music by Strauss, Mahler, Duparc, Brahms, and English and Spanish songs and duets.
Tickets will be priced from £20-£50, with discounts for OHP Members and £10 tickets for Under 30s. All concerts will take place at Opera Holland Park Theatre.
Public booking opens on Friday 11 June at 12pm.
The series is supported by the Kiri Te Kanawa Foundation, The Sickle Foundation, a syndicate of private donors and Steinway Pianos.
For more information visit www.operahollandpark.com/productions/opera-in-song
Opera in Song: The Diary of One Who Disappeared
Sunday 25 July, 7.30pm
Music by Janáček and Dvořák
Nicky Spence, Fleur Barron, Charlotte Badham, Charlotte Bowden, Isabelle Peters, Dylan Perez
Opera in Song: Violetta and Tatyana
Monday 26 July, 7.30pm
Music by Verdi and Tchaikovsky
Anush Hovhannisyan, Julien Van Mellaerts, Dylan Perez, Ella O’Neill
Opera in Song: The Marriage of Figaro
Tuesday 27 July, 4pmMusic by Strauss, Mahler, Duparc, Brahms and othersNardus Williams, Julien Van Mellaerts, Simon Lepper
ABOVE: Julien Van Mellaerts