Rost sings Mozart - concert preview

Two concerts coming to the Palace of Arts this week, though very different from each other, should both prove to be excellent. Both feature orchestras and vocal soloists, but they inhabit different sound worlds and musical approaches.

The BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Gianandrea Noseda, will perform works by Liszt, Mozart and Schubert on Saturday, Apr 21.

On Tuesday, Apr 24 the Purcell Chorus and the Orfeo Orchestra, conducted by György Vashegyi, will perform four cantatas by JS Bach.

After Liszt`s symphonic poem, Hamlet, the BBC Philharmonic will perform a selection of arias by Mozart heroines, featuring the world-famous Hungarian soprano Andrea Rost.

In addition to the restrained and regal aria by the Countess in Act III of The Marriage of Figaro, Rost will sing two different roles from Don Giovanni: Zerlina`s charmingly masochistic aria Batti, batti from Act I, and Donna Anna`s Act II aria Crudele?

The orchestra will also play the overture to Don Giovanni and the march from Idomeneo. Rost began her career at the Budapest State Opera in 1989 and joined the Vienna Staatsoper two years later, at which time her international fame began. She has sung Mozart and Verdi roles from the New York Met to La Scala to Covent Garden and all the other leading opera houses besides. She has made numerous recordings for SONY Classical.

The concert concludes with Franz Schubert`s Great C Major Symphony. It`s a long and wandering journey of expansive exploration from the calm opening statement by the horns in the symphony`s moderately paced introduction to its triumphant transformation in the finale`s coda.

In between is music of haunting beauty for the listener and a seriously exhausting workout for the orchestral musician.The BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, based in Manchester, was founded as a small radio ensemble in 1922 and re-established in 1933 after a hiatus. Its conductors have included Raymond Leppard, Sir Charles Mackerras and Sir Georg Solti.

Since 2002 its Principal Conductor has been Milan-born Gianandrea Noseda, who has made a name for himself in the opera world, particularly at St Petersburg`s Mariinsky Theater. The orchestra`s recording of Liszt`s Faust Symphony for Chandos won BBC Music Magazine`s Disc of the Month award.

An orchestra of much smaller proportions, and an entirely different sound, is the Orfeo period-instruments ensemble, founded a year after the Purcell Chorus by conductor György Vashegyi in 1991. These outstanding groups will perform four Bach cantatas written 300 years ago at the beginning of the 22-year-old German master`s career.

Each is in very different styles. Christ lag in Todesbanden is based on a Lutheran Easter chorale. Both Actus tragicus and Aus der Tiefe rufe ich, Herr, zu dir are funerary works, but different in sound.

The latter makes use of more conventional baroque church orchestral forces, while the touching Actus tragicus makes do with two gentle recorders and silvery-toned violas da gamba.

Gott is mein König makes use of the multiple chorus compositional style.

The vocal soloists in these early, but far from naďve or unaccomplished, works will be soprano Mária Zádori, countertenor Péter Bárány, English tenor Julian Podger and bass Raimund Nolte. Vashegyi graduated from the conducting department of the Liszt Academy of Music in 1993. He participated in masterclasses of Sir John Eliot Gardiner and Helmuth Rilling and studied continuo with John Toll in Dresden.

Though much of his work is with his own ensembles, he also conducts Mozart and Verdi operas at the Hungarian State Opera House, and has been a guest conductor with the Hungarian Radio Orchestra, the MATÁV (now Telekom) Symphony Orchestra and others. The present concert is the third in the Oratorio Series, to be followed on May 22 by Handel`s oratorio L`Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato.

Mozart opera arias

BBC Philharmonic Orchestra

Andrea Rost, Noseda

Sat, Apr 21, 7:30pm

Bach cantatas

Purcell Chorus, Orfeo Orchestra

Zádori, Podger, Vashegyi

Tue, Apr 24, 7:30pm

Both at the Palace of Arts

Kevin Shopland
www.budapestsun.com - Wednesday, April 18, 2007