Opera Tickets Italy

The highly regarded conductor and accomplished pianist, Cornelius Meister, graces the stage of Venice's Gran Teatro La Fenice in a concert featuring the opera house's esteemed orchestra. The bill features works by Richard Strauss, Antonín Dvořák and Johannes Brahms in a programme of superb music designed to provide top-quality musical entertainment. German-born, Meister began working as the Music Director of the Staatsoper und Staatsorchester in Stuttgart in 2018. Considered a master of the modern repertoire, the skilful maestro has also conducted numerous world premieres and a string of lesser-known works.

The programme commences with a rendition of Strauss' Don Juan, Op. 20. This is a symphonic poem that the German composer wrote at the relatively young age of 24. It premiered in Weimar on 11 November 1889, where Strauss was Court Kapellmeister, after he had turned 25 years of age. The composer himself conducted the work's debut, noted for its modernism at the time, with the orchestra of the Weimar Opera performing. This work retells the tragic story of Don Juan through music with all of the despair that tale - so well-known from Mozart's opera, Don Giovanni, of course – includes.

Although the first public performance of Dvořák's The Noon Witch (Polednice), Op. 108, B196, took place on 21 November 1896 in London, it had been heard earlier, in Prague. A so-called public rehearsal of the piece by the Prague Conservatory Orchestra took place on 3 June 1896. The work is one of four symphonic poems which the Czech composer wrote to describe themes he had taken from a collection of poems, known as Bouquet, by the poet and folk song collector, Karel Jaromír Erben. Polednice is a demon, known as the Noon Witch or Lady Midday, drawn from Slavic mythology. Dvořák's music uses instrumentation to represent different characters from the poem's story throughout the work.

The concert concludes with Brahms' Symphony No. 2 in D major, Op. 73. This four-movement piece has a cheerful and pastoral mood which has led to some comparisons with Beethoven's Sixth Symphony. Nevertheless, the symphony touches on many melancholic themes, as the composer himself admitted to his publisher. The opening and closing movements of Brahms' Second Symphony are both in the same key, D major, while the second and third are in B major and G major respectively. Whether or not the symphony, which premiered on 30 December 1877 at the Musikverein in Vienna, is as sad as Brahms claimed, will be up to audience members to decide.

Under Meister's baton, these three varied yet fascinating late nineteenth-century works will ensure all attendees experience an uplifting time during the performance.