Friday 3 July 2009 – 7.30 pm
King’s School Shirley Hall
(by kind permission of the Headmaster, Bursar & Governors)
Programme to include works by: Mozart, Handel and Haydn
The Classical Opera Company has presented acclaimed performances of Mozart’s Così fan tutte and Le Nozze di Figaro at the Marlowe Theatre in 2006 and 2007, and makes a welcome return to Canterbury on 3 July 2009 for a fundraising recital for the Friends of the Canterbury Festival.
Così fan tutte
Artistic director Ian Page introduces and accompanies a superb line-up of young singers in an entertaining and wide-ranging programme of 18th century opera. In addition to popular highlights and delightful rarities from Mozart’s operatic output, the programme features two composers enjoying major anniversaries in 2009.
Ian Page
Next year is the 250th anniversary of Handel’s death, and after lying in obscurity for many decades his forty or so operas are finally enjoying a widespread popularity not witnessed since the composer’s lifetime.
The sixteen surviving operas of Haydn, who died 200 years ago next year, are still little-known and rarely performed, but they contain some exquisite music.
The Classical Opera Company is emerging as one of Britain’s most exciting and highly regarded young arts organizations. It has attracted considerable critical and public acclaim, not only for the high quality of its performances but also for its imaginative programming and, in particular, its ability to discover and nurture outstanding young singers. Indeed, well over half of the singers from its main opera productions have rapidly gone on to appear at leading international opera houses, and of the company’s four recently graduated Associate Artists, three have already performed major roles at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, despite still being in their mid-twenties. In 2006 the company embarked on the UK’s first complete cycle of Mozart’s operas, which will continue to unfold over the next five or six years, and its debut CD, ‘The A-Z of Mozart Opera’, was released on Sony BMG last year.
'My personal pick for giving this year is the Classical Opera Company's glorious The A-Z of Mozart Opera, which is fresh, diverse, insightful and illuminating (everything that such recital anthologies usually fail to be)” Gramophone Magazine
In 2009 the company has been invited to present a new production of Thomas Arne’s Artaxerxes at the Royal Opera House, the first time the Royal Opera has collaborated with another opera company in this way.
This recital promises to be a memorable event, and we are looking forward to welcoming the Classical Opera Company back to Canterbury.
Tickets :
£20 Gala Tickets (to include champagne and strawberries & cream during the Interval)
£15 (£10 Students and Children under 16)
Available from the Festival Box Office 01227 378188 or email info@canterburyfestival.co.uk
