Details
From Mon 23 Jun – Oct 2014, there will be no access to Warwick Arts Centre or parking facilities via Gibbet Hill Road. Please leave plenty of time for your journey and aim to arrive at least 30mins before the event start time. Click here for more information on the road works.
Henry Purcell – Dido and Aeneas
Giovanni Battista Pergolesi – Stabat Mater
Soprano – Elin Manahan Thomas
Countertenor – William Towers
Director – Christopher Monks
Sung in English
Whilst Henry Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas is the only complete opera written during his short life, it has become a work at the heart of British musical heritage. One of the world’s leading Baroque voices performs the title role in this stunning and dramatic concert performance of the first masterpiece in English opera. The epic tragedy of a queen, a soldier and an illicit love is told through a spectacularly rich array of music, culminating in the one of the most moving arias ever written, Dido’s heart-wrenchingly stoical lament: ‘When I am lain in earth’.
From the short life of one composer to another – Giovanni Battista Pergolesi was an Italian court composer who died at the age of just 26. Written in the final weeks of his life, his Stabat Mater is a deeply moving piece, widely recognised as the definitive setting of the spiritual text, and has been described as ‘the master work of Latin music’.
80mins (including interval)
“Thrilling…heartbreaking.” The Independent (on Let the Bright Seraphim with Elin Manahan Thomas)
★★★★★ The Times (on Supersize Polyphony)