About the concert programme

Come dal ciel precipita (from Macbeth) in which Banquo voices unaccountable gloomy fears that assail him as he takes leave of his son, just before he is murdered by assassins sent by Macbeth.
• Sul fil d’un soffio etesio (from Falstaff)in which Nanetta, disguised as the Fairy Queen, invokes the magic of the night.

Giacomo Rossini — The Barber of Seville

• La colunnia è un venticello (”Calumny is a little breeze”) in which Don Basilio advises Bartolo that the Count be put out of the way by creating false rumours about him.

Modest Mussorgsky — The song of the flea

• >The song of Mephistopheles in Auerbach's cellar

Giacomo Meyerbeer — Les Huguenots

The plot of The Huguenots concerns the political intrigues that surround the a real historical event in France, the St Bartholomew massacre when, on 23 August 1572, three thousand protestants were slaughtered.

• Nobles Seigneurs, salut! (Urbain) in which, in spite of the grisly background story, Urbain, the page of Marguerite de Valois, sings a charming song of salutation to members of The Court.

Charles Gounod — Romeo et Juliette

>The first half of the programme ended with two excerpts from another opera based on a play by Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet. It and Faust have remained Gounod’s two most popular operas, and with good reason, as both contain a wealth of memorable melodies.

• Que fais-tu, blanche tourterelle?in which we meet another page: Stephano, Romeo’s page. This charming song is calculated to bring the Capulets Into the street, allowing Romeo to escape.
• Je veux vivre a brilliant waltz song in which we meet the young Juilette at a ball in the grand hall of the Capulet?s palace.

INTERVAL

Two French songs

• À Chloris is by Reynaldo Hahn (1875–1947) who, though born in Caracas, Venezuela, lived from childhood in Paris and was naturalized French. Composer, conductor, music critic and diarist, he is best known for his songs. He wrote in the French classical tradition of the mélodie; the fine craftsmanship, beauty, and originality of his works capture the insouciance of la belle époque.
• Fantoches: Scaramouche et Pulcinella is a song by Claude Debussy(1862?1918) with a text from poet Paul Verlaine. A fantoche is literally a marionette, now used to refer to a “puppet” in a metaphorical sense. Scaramouche (“skirmish”) and Pulcinella (“Punch”) are characters from the Commedia dell’Arte.

Samuel Barber

• Must the winter come so soon? from Barber’s opera Vanessa which had its premiere at the Metropolitan Opera (New York) in 1958. Full of dark drama, it is one of the few American operas to have gained a place in the repertory. Erika, Vanessa’s niece, sings this simple ballad at the beginning of the opera.
• Sure on this shining night is song No.3 from Barber’s Opus 13. Its text is from Descriptions of Elysium by James Agee.

A traditional English song

• The foggy, foggy dew

George Gershwin — Porgy and Bess

The libretto of Gershwin’s most famous and successful venture into opera Porgy and Bess was by DuBose Heyward.

• Bess, you is my woman

Songs from the musicals

• Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered from Pal Joey by Richard Rodgers & Lorenz Hart
• Bill and Ol’ Man River are from Show Boat by Jerome Kern & Oscar Hammerstein II. The lyrics of Bill were co-written by Hammerstein and P. G. Wodehouse.
• The song My Dearest Dear is from The Dancing Years by Ivor Novello & Christopher Hassall.

A modern English comic song

• The Hippopotamus Song by Michael Flanders and Donald Swann.

Ah, Vienna!

• Vienna, city of my dreams is the best known song written in 1914 by Rudolf Sieczynski (1879–1952), an Austrian composer of Polish ancestry; indeed, on this song alone his fame chiefly rests. The song was featured in the soundtrack of the Stanley Kubrick film Eyes Wide Shut.

The Twelve Days of Christmas

The singers led the audience in singing the famous song about the extravagant series of gifts beginning with the Partridge in the Pear Tree.