On the 14th February, Teodor Currentzis will direct the chorus and orchestra musicAeterna together with international soloists in a concert performance of Purcell’s opera Dido and Aeneas, along with Handel’s Dixit Dominus.
Amongst the performers there will be soloists from the Perm Opera and Ballet Theatre (Darya Telyatnikova, Eleni-Lydia Stamellou, Viktor Shapovalov, Valeria Safonova) as well as several guest vocalists. The part of Dido will be played by the German soprano Anna Prokhaska, and Aeneas will be played by the German baritone Tobias Berndt. Other guest stars include the Spanish soprano NuriaRial (Belinda), and Swedish contralto Maria Forsström (Sorceress), who is already known to Perm audiences as Dorabella from the opera Cosi fan tutte and Marcellina in Le nozze di Figaro.
In 2008 Teodor Currentzisand musicAeterna’s recording of Dido and Aeneas was received with high acclaim by critics across Russia and Europe. In 2010, the opera was performed in Baden-Baden, Germany, where it was also very well received.
‘Every note was filled with life. The chorus and musicians worked together with unusual harmony. Dido’s first appearance already anticipates her fatal outcome’. Daniel Rilling, Operapoint
‘People often complain that great performers are a thing of the past, that it’s ever harder to come up with something new, that everything is in crisis…. Then up comes a person like Currentzis, and shows, regardless of what is said — that the best is yet to come. I think that the future is in the hands of those like Currentzis (although there are very few like him, if any at all). For all his zeal, he is broader than the music and understands well its boundaries’. Boris Filanovsky, Openspace
We should remind you that this version of Dido and Aeneas was performed by musicAeterna under the direction of Teodor Currentzisin 2011 in the Organ Concert Hall of The Perm Philharmonic Society. The upcoming performance will mark the start of a European tour for artists from thePerm theatre. On the 16th February, the programme will be performed in the Berlin Philharmonic. Then the tour will continue on toAthens, Paris andLisbon.