Cosmos | Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment & Magdalena Kožená: Love & Duty

When your heart's desire is forbidden by culture and convention, what wins – love or duty?

The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment (OAE), the orchestra that for three decades now has shocked, changed and mesmerized the music world, comes to SNFCC to perform songs of the heart with mezzo soprano Magdalena Kožená, under the guidance of conductor Giovanni Antonini. 

OAE was formed as a self-governing ensemble in 1986. It is the UK's top period instrument ensemble, a resident orchestra of the Southbank Centre in London and associate orchestra at Glyndebourne Festival Opera.

OAE will present for the first time in Greece with Kožená a series of sublime opera arias by Mozart and Gluck

Sweet songs from The Marriage of Figaro meet bittersweet tales from Mozart's epic swansong, La clemenza di Tito, including Haydn's Scena di Berenice and arias from Gluck's Paride ed Elena and Il Parnaso Confuso. It's all tied together by Mozart's dramatic, emotive Symphony no. 40.

Kožená has worked with many of the world's leading conductors as well as distinguished recital partners performing at such prestigious venues as Carnegie Hall, Wigmore Hall, Alice Tully Hall, the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, as well as at the Aldeburgh, Edinburgh and Salzburg festivals.

She is also in demand as a soloist with the Berlin, Vienna and Czech Philharmonics and the Cleveland, Philadelphia and Royal Concertgebouw Orchestras.

Her operatic roles include Zerlina in Don Giovanni at the Salzburger Festspiele in 2002, returning in 2013 as Idamante, a role she has also sung for the Glyndebourne Festival and in Berlin and Lucerne. Magdalena made her first appearance at New York's Metropolitan Opera in 2003 as Cherubino in Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro and has since been a regular guest, including the title role in Jonathan Miller's production of Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande in 2010/11. Other opera credits also include Oktavian in Richard Strauss's Der Rosenkavalier (Staatsoper Berlin 2009 and Osterfestspiele Baden Baden 2015), the title role in Bizet's Carmen (Osterfestspiele and Sommerfestspiele Salzburg 2012), Charpentier's Médée (Theater Basel 2015) and Martinů's Juliette (Staatsoper Berlin 2016).

Program:

• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Symphony No. 40 in G minor KV 550 I: Molto allegro
• Christoph Willibald Gluck: O del mio dolce ardor from Paride ed Elena
• Christoph Willibald Gluck: Dance of the Furies from Orphée et Eurydice
• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Giunse alfin il momento… Deh vieni, non tardar / Al desio di chi t'adora from Le nozze di Figaro
• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Symphony No. 40 in G minor KV 550 II: Andante
• Joseph Haydn: Recitativo: Berenice, che fai? From Scena di Berenice, Hob XXIVa
• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Symphony No. 40 in G minor KV 550 III: Menuetto. Allegretto
• Christoph Willibald Gluck: Di questa cetra from Il Parnaso confuse
• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Den perquesto istante solo from La clemenza di Tito
• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Symphony No. 40 in G minor KV 550 IV: Finale. Allegro assai
• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Parto, parto from La clemenza di Tito