Verdi Year: a tribute
Obviously, the music of the great Italian Romantic composer, Giuseppe Verdi, has little need of anniversary years; its ability to touch the heartstrings with its instinctive musicality and expressiveness has earned it a permanent place in the forefront of the concert scene.
The Athens State Orchestra is staging a concertante performance of Verdi’s celebrated opera, Nabucco, to mark the bi-centenary of the composer’s birth. Verdi’s third opera, and for many his first masterpiece, premiered at La Scala in 1842, winning its composer international fame and recognition.
The celebrated conductor George Petrou leads a group of distinguished Greek opera singers in a performance which conveys the unparalleled magic of Verdi’s music with a rare immediacy. Verdi tells a stirring tale of love, war and religious conflict set against a familiar biblical backdrop with superb arias, stirring choruses and rich orchestral tones.
A fortnight of French music (II)
Two composers, two centuries, two masterpieces. Marc Coppey, a cellist with an international career, performs the introspective Cello Concerto by Henri Dutilleux, one of our greatest living composers. In the second half of the programme, Vassilis Christopoulos conducts Berlioz’ Symphonie Fantastique, a cornerstone of the Romantic repertoire and one of the most stirring symphonic works of all time.
Pre-concert talk, free for ticket holders
A fortnight of French music (I)
Daniel Kawka, a conductor who knows and loves 20th-century music, conducts the Athens State Orchestra in a concert which pays its respects to French music and the organ. The “king of instruments” dominates Saint-Saens’ hugely ambitious Third Symphony and demonstrates its vast sonic range in Thierry Escaich’s fascinating First Organ Concerto, performed by the composer.
Pre-concert talk, free for ticket holders
Dancing on ice
Enescu’s charming and up-beat Romanian Rhapsody is followed by Evangelatos’ virtuosic Piano Concerto, one of the finest Greek works for piano and orchestra, played by the distinguished pianist, Vassilis Varvaresos. Conducted by the celebrated Alexander Murat, the Athens State Orchestra unleash the irresistible power and unaffected lyricism of Tchaikovski’s First Symphony.
Pre-concert talk, free for ticket holders
«¡Espana!» Cycle (III)
An evening of very different but equally popular works by distinguished 20th-century Spanish composers, all of them positively overflowing with energy, dance rhythms, pure passion, delicate humour and nostalgic tenderness. The Athens State Orchestra under Vassilis Christopoulos and the guitarist Elena Papandreou promise an evening of glorious Spanish colour and irresistible musical appeal.
Pre-concert talk, free for ticket holders
A tribute to Polish music
The celebrated Polish conductor, Jacek Kaspszyk, returns to the podium of the Athens State Orchestra to conduct works by Szymanowski and Lutoslawski, two leading representatives of the Polish avant garde. Lutoslawski’s Piano Concerto is played by the distinguished soloist Thodoris Tzovanakis. The concert closes with Dvorak’s Seventh Symphony, which many consider the most perfect and intellectually satisfying symphonic work produced by Czech Romanticism.
Pre-concert talk, free for ticket holders
Beethoven cycle (III)
The Athens State Orchestra joins forces with some superb singers and one of Germany’s finest choirs to bid 2012 farewell and send forth its wishes for a bright and hopeful New Year with Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, the work which all of us associate in our hearts, more than any other, with the quest for Joy, both personal and universal, and with its achievement.
Pre-concert talk, free for ticket holders
Christmas concert, dedicated to the bicentenary of the birth of Charles Dickens
A Christmas Carol, as we all knew it as children from Charles Dickens’ timeless masterpiece, springs back to life to touch our hearts again in this lively and vividly programmatic music by the German composer, Henrik Albrecht. This year’s musical celebration of Christmas also features the timeless melodies of Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite conducted by Andreas Tselikas.
19:45
Pre-concert talk, free for ticket holders
«¡Espana!» Cycle (II)
Moments great and everyday, fleeting images, strolls down narrow streets and through Spanish landscapes as beautiful as a dream are transformed into music by two Spanish and two French composers of the last century. The concert lilts between the intoxicating aromas of the sensuous night and the dawn of a new day which is sometimes a joyous celebration and sometimes a clarion call summoning warriors to battle.
Pre-concert talk, free for ticket holders
Honouring Byron Fidetzis
Byron Fidetzis gives his farewell concert as the principal conductor of the Athens State Orchestra after many years at its helm. An artist whose career has been tightly bound up with the Greek repertoire, he presents important works by Manolis Kalomiris and Spyridon Samaras alongside marvellous songs by Dvorak. The orchestration of all the works in the programme is his own work.
19:15
Pre-concert talk, free for ticket holders