Celebrating the Voice: A Valentine's Day Opera Gala

Featuring selected Celebrating the Voice participants  

Ami Hewitt, soprano; Deirdre Higgins, soprano; Maria Matthews, soprano; Cathal McCabe, tenor
National Symphony Orchestra
Anu Tali, conductor 

Presented by Liz Nolan, RTÉ lyric fm 

Mozart               Le nozze di Figaro Overture
Mozart              ‘Sull’aria… che soave zeffiretto’ (Le nozze di Figaro)
Mozart              ‘Ach, ich liebte, war so glücklich’ (Die Entführung aus dem Serail)
Donizetti           La favorite Overture
Donizetti          ‘Una furtiva lagrima’ (L’elisir d’amore)
Donizetti          ‘Caro elisir! Sei mio!’ (L’elisir d’amore)
Bellini               I Capuleti e I Montecchi Overture
Bellini               ‘Qui la voce sua soave’ (I Puritani)
Bellini               ‘Mira, o Norma’ (Norma)
Dvořák              ‘Song to the Moon’ (Rusalka)
Offenbach        ‘Galop Infernal’ (Orpheus in the Underworld)
Verdi                  ‘Parigi, o cara’ (La traviata)
Rossini              ‘Nacqui all’affanno e al pianto...Non più mesta’ (La Cenerentola) 

Is there anything more thrilling than the operatic voice describing the highs and lows of love? A quartet of young singers from Celebrating the Voice, our professional development programme under the stewardship of Artist-in-Residence, mezzo-soprano Tara Erraught, mark Valentine’s Day with some of opera’s most ravishing arias revelling in the agonies and ecstasies of the heart. 

Love is conjured in all its guises, from the yearning for romance in Dvořák’s ‘Song to the Moon’ (Rusalka) and Donizetti’s ‘Una furtiva lagrima’ (L’elisir d’amore) to the madness it evokes in Bellini’s ‘Qui la voce sua soave’ (I Puritani), all sublime opportunities for the voice to shine. 

Love spurned finds its brokenhearted voice in Mozart’s grieving ‘Ach, ich liebte, war so glücklich’ (Il Seraglio) while redemptive love is treated to coloratura splendour in Bellini’s ‘Nacqui all’affanno e al pianto...Non più mesta’ (La Cenerentola), his ‘Mira, o Norma’ (Norma) offering shared strength in adversity as friendship is forged out of mutual heartache. 

Duets double the pleasure when two voices combine as love declares itself in Donizetti’s effusive ‘Caro elisir! Sei mio’ (L’elisir d’amore) and, laced with foreboding, in Verdi’s ‘Parigi, o cara’ (La traviata). Mozart’s delightfully mischief-making duet ‘Sull’aria… che soave zeffiretto’ (Le nozze di Figaro) finds two women spinning a web to catch a philanderer. 

Presented by NCH