Please note: This concert is in the past and has already taken place.

*** Postponed *** Bampton Classical Opera - Gluck's 'The Crown' ('La corona')

Concert performance

Add to my Calendar 06-11-2020 19:30 06-11-2020 21:30 36 *** Postponed *** Bampton Classical Opera - Gluck's 'The Crown' ('La corona') This concert is postponed. A new date will be arranged based on the corona virus situation. Bampton Classical Opera returns to the Baroque splendour of London’s St John’s Smith Square on November 6 with a concert performance of Gluck’s one-act opera The Crown, the first in the UK since 1987.  The performance will also be filmed and available to watch on demand on the Bampton website from 9 November.    Composed in 1765 The Crown (La corona) glories in the sensuous beauty and virtuosity of the soprano voice.  It was written for four Viennese Archduchesses, daughters of the Holy Roman Emperor Francis I and the formidable Empress Maria Theresa, young singers for whom Gluck had already composed his delectable Il parnaso confuso, performed by Bampton in 2014.  Both works set words by Pietro Metastasio and were destined for imperial family celebrations at the Hapsburg court theatre, although La corona was abandoned due to the Emperor’s death.  In Bampton’s performance the florid arias - as thrilling as anything by Handel – will be sung in Italian, linked by a narration in English.  Early music specialist Robert Howarth conducts, making his Bampton debut, and an outstanding cast includes Lucy Anderson, first prize-winner of the 2019 Bampton Young Singers’ Competition.  The performance adds to Bampton’s noteworthy exploration of rarely-performed operas by Gluck, one of the most significant and melodious of eighteenth-century masters.   Synopsis In his almost countless libretti, which made him the most popular of operatic poets in the first half of the 18th century, Metastasio plundered the classical myths for stories of valour and love.  The Crown, like many others, derives from a story in Ovid’s Metamorphoses.  Meleagro, Prince of Calydonia, gathers a troupe of brave heroes to hunt and slaughter the ferocious wild boar which has been sent by the goddess Diana to devastate his realm.  The opera however is concerned not with masculine prowess and bravery but with the role and ambitions of women.  Atalanta, Climene and Asteria debate whether to join the chase, angry that only men can have the honour of gaining the crown of victory. When they consult Meleagro, he says the task is men’s work and warns that they will endanger themselves. Nevertheless, the girls cannot hold back: Atalanta wounds the boar and Meleagro is able to kill it. Each is reticent to accept the crown: in the end they offer it to the Emperor Francis, in whose honour the opera was commissioned.   Casting Meleagro - Harriet Eyley Atalanta - Samantha Louis-Jean Climene - Lisa Howarth Asteria - Lucy Anderson   Narrator - Rosa French Orchestra - CHROMA Conductor - Robert Howarth   The Crown The opera’s première at Schönbrunn Palace was planned for 4 October 1765 to celebrate the name-day of the Emperor Francis; it was intended as a surprise spectacle, commissioned by his wife.  Unfortunately all the efforts of composition and preparation were to no avail, as the Emperor died unexpectedly on 18 August, and the project was entirely dropped.  Fortunately manuscripts survive and it had a few performances in the later twentieth century.  Bampton’s performance now is the first in this country since 1987.   The Crown opens with a three-movement Overture, followed by six arias of varied colour and character, a duet and a concluding ‘chorus’.   Although Gluck often reused music from his earlier works, all of the music for La corona was composed afresh.  The dynamic Allegro which concludes the overture reappeared in a new guise five years later in the overture for Paris and Helen and as part of the final radiant duet for those love-struck and ill-fated characters.  The concert on 6 November 2020 was originally planned to be a performance of Paris and Helen, marking the 300th anniversary of the Vienna premiere of that larger-scale opera on 3 November 1770, a project sadly prevented – or, at least, postponed - by the strict distancing requirements necessitated by the coronavirus epidemic.  Bampton will perform Paris and Helen in full in 2021. St John's Smith Square, London DD/MM/YYYY

Details

St John's Smith Square
Smith Square
City of Westminster

London
SW1P 3HA
England


Programme

Christoph Willibald GluckLa corona, Wq.35

Performers

Harriet Eyley – soprano
Samantha Louis-Jean – soprano
Lisa Howarth – soprano
Lucy Anderson – soprano
Rosa French – actress
Robert Howarth – Conductor

Chroma

Programme Note

This concert is postponed. A new date will be arranged based on the corona virus situation.

Bampton Classical Opera returns to the Baroque splendour of London’s St John’s Smith Square on November 6 with a concert performance of Gluck’s one-act opera The Crown, the first in the UK since 1987.  The performance will also be filmed and available to watch on demand on the Bampton website from 9 November. 

 

Composed in 1765 The Crown (La corona) glories in the sensuous beauty and virtuosity of the soprano voice.  It was written for four Viennese Archduchesses, daughters of the Holy Roman Emperor Francis I and the formidable Empress Maria Theresa, young singers for whom Gluck had already composed his delectable Il parnaso confuso, performed by Bampton in 2014.  Both works set words by Pietro Metastasio and were destined for imperial family celebrations at the Hapsburg court theatre, although La corona was abandoned due to the Emperor’s death.  In Bampton’s performance the florid arias - as thrilling as anything by Handel – will be sung in Italian, linked by a narration in English.  Early music specialist Robert Howarth conducts, making his Bampton debut, and an outstanding cast includes Lucy Anderson, first prize-winner of the 2019 Bampton Young Singers’ Competition.  The performance adds to Bampton’s noteworthy exploration of rarely-performed operas by Gluck, one of the most significant and melodious of eighteenth-century masters.

 

Synopsis

In his almost countless libretti, which made him the most popular of operatic poets in the first half of the 18th century, Metastasio plundered the classical myths for stories of valour and love.  The Crown, like many others, derives from a story in Ovid’s Metamorphoses.  Meleagro, Prince of Calydonia, gathers a troupe of brave heroes to hunt and slaughter the ferocious wild boar which has been sent by the goddess Diana to devastate his realm.  The opera however is concerned not with masculine prowess and bravery but with the role and ambitions of women.  Atalanta, Climene and Asteria debate whether to join the chase, angry that only men can have the honour of gaining the crown of victory. When they consult Meleagro, he says the task is men’s work and warns that they will endanger themselves. Nevertheless, the girls cannot hold back: Atalanta wounds the boar and Meleagro is able to kill it. Each is reticent to accept the crown: in the end they offer it to the Emperor Francis, in whose honour the opera was commissioned.

 

Casting

Meleagro - Harriet Eyley

Atalanta - Samantha Louis-Jean

Climene - Lisa Howarth

Asteria - Lucy Anderson

 

Narrator - Rosa French

Orchestra - CHROMA

Conductor - Robert Howarth

 

The Crown

The opera’s première at Schönbrunn Palace was planned for 4 October 1765 to celebrate the name-day of the Emperor Francis; it was intended as a surprise spectacle, commissioned by his wife.  Unfortunately all the efforts of composition and preparation were to no avail, as the Emperor died unexpectedly on 18 August, and the project was entirely dropped.  Fortunately manuscripts survive and it had a few performances in the later twentieth century.  Bampton’s performance now is the first in this country since 1987.

 

The Crown opens with a three-movement Overture, followed by six arias of varied colour and character, a duet and a concluding ‘chorus’.

 

Although Gluck often reused music from his earlier works, all of the music for La corona was composed afresh.  The dynamic Allegro which concludes the overture reappeared in a new guise five years later in the overture for Paris and Helen and as part of the final radiant duet for those love-struck and ill-fated characters.  The concert on 6 November 2020 was originally planned to be a performance of Paris and Helen, marking the 300th anniversary of the Vienna premiere of that larger-scale opera on 3 November 1770, a project sadly prevented – or, at least, postponed - by the strict distancing requirements necessitated by the coronavirus epidemic.  Bampton will perform Paris and Helen in full in 2021.

Bampton Classical Opera, The Crown

Get a route map

Your Map

If you have any questions, please contact us using the form below, or send an e-mail to info@classicalevents.co.uk.

All form fields are required.

Please check your details and try again.

Thank you for contacting us. We will contact you regarding your enquiry as soon as possible.