
Orchestra of Opera North
David Greed – director
Nicholas Watts – tenor
David Cowan – piano
Mendelssohn – Octet
Schubert – Songs from Die schöne Müllerin
Mozart – Symphony No 29
Programme duration approximately 75 mins. Please note there will be no interval.
A milestone for the city’s return from lockdown and the resumption of performance nationwide, the first concert of live music at Leeds Town Hall will be a programme of Mendelssohn, Schubert and Mozart, performed by the Orchestra of Opera North and tenor Nicholas Watts.
Leeds Arts, Events & Venues’ first pilot indoor concert will be a crucial stage in the process of helping live music performances return safely for both artists and audiences following the coronavirus lockdown.
Measures to ensure the safety and comfort of the audience at Leeds Town Hall will include the recording of contact details for NHS Test and Trace; a reduced venue capacity with socially distanced seating arrangements and toilet facilities; a one-way system; and hand sanitising stations on entry and around the venue. Anyone attending will be expected to wear a face covering, unless excused for reasons of age, health or disability.
‘Everything is new and strange', wrote Fanny Mendelssohn of her sixteen year-old brother's Octet, 'yet at the same time utterly persuasive and enchanting'. Scored for a chamber ensemble but played, at its young composer's insistence, 'by all the instruments in symphonic orchestral style', it's a fitting curtain-raiser for both venue and ensemble after five months of lockdown.
Tenor and former Opera North Chorister Nicholas Watts was most recently seen on the Opera North stage as Peter Quint in Benjamin Britten's The Turn of the Screw, an acclaimed production that was enjoyed by thousands more on YouTube after the company's tour was cut short by lockdown. He will be joined by Opera North's Head of Music David Cowan at the piano for a selection of Schubert's songs.
To close the concert, Mozart's brilliantly inventive 29th Symphony is an opportunity for the violas, cellos and basses to get reacquainted, followed by a socially distanced outing for the wind and brass sections.
Image credit: Justin Slee.
Sun 24 - Wed 27 January