The Valkyrie
English National Opera, 19th November to 10th December. Bucking the pandemic trend for small-scale, intimate opera, over the next five years ENO will be staging one of the grandest spectacles in the repertoire: Wagner’s Ring cycle. This new production featuring jealous gods and ambitious mortals, love, murder, betrayal and avarice begins with The Valkyrie—the second opera in the quartet. Richard Jones directs a brand-new staging, and ENO’s own music director Martyn Brabbins conducts a star-studded British cast including Matthew Rose, Nicky Spence and Rachel Nicholls.
Pekka Kuusisto: Four Seasons, four seascapes
Royal Festival Hall, 28th November. Who else could get an entire Proms audience singing Finnish folk songs but maverick violinist Pekka Kuusisto? The mesmerising performer directs the Philharmonia Orchestra from the violin in Vivaldi’s Four Seasons and the Four Sea Interludes from Britten’s Peter Grimes. Kuusisto will also be performing a free pre-concert earlier in the evening. The elemental theme from Vivaldi and Britten is reimagined by living composers, including Anna Thorvaldsdottir.
Dies Irae: A Response to Climate Change
Glasgow Royal Concert Hall, 10th November. What can we do about climate change? If you’re a musician, the answer is simple: put on a concert. It’s what the Royal Scottish National Orchestra are doing in Glasgow in this wide-ranging, confrontational programme of works. Expect grief and anger; ugliness as well as beauty. Conceived by Grammy Award-winning violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja, the concert includes music by 16th-century English composer John Dowland and 18th-century Italy’s Antonio Lotti, as well as the experimental music of George Crumb.
