Die Walküre Education Day – A guided tour to help audiences make the most of their opera-in-concert experience (16 Jan 2016)
11 JAN 2016
Hong Kong
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Media Contact:
Deborah Hennig
Director of Marketing
Tel: (852) 2721 9035
Email: deborah.hennig@hkphil.org
Becky Lee
Media Relations Manager
Tel: (852) 2721 1585
Email: becky.lee@hkphil.org
Download HERE
[11 January 2016, Hong Kong] Die Walküre, the second instalment of the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra’s four-year project to perform all four operas of Wagner’s The Ringof the Nibelung in concert is just around the corner with performances on 21 & 23 January. To help the audience make the most of the experience, an education day will be held on 16 January (Saturday) at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre.
Open Rehearsal | |
Date: | 16 January 2016 (Saturday) |
Time: | 3:30pm – 4:30pm |
Venue: | Hong Kong Cultural Centre Concert Hall |
Summary: | Audiences will have the chance for a sneak peek on how maestro Jaap van Zweden, an international cast of the world’s greatest singers, and the HK Phil rehearse for one of the most anticipated concerts of the year. |
Registration: | Full |
Foyer Activities | |
Date: | 16 January 2016 (Saturday) |
Time: | 4:30pm – 7:00pm |
Venue: | Hong Kong Cultural Centre 2/F Foyer |
Summary: | - A demonstration of special Wagnerian musical instruments by HK Phil players; |
Registration: | Not required |
Symposium: Inside Die Walküre | |
Date: | 16 January 2016 (Saturday) |
Time: | 7:00pm – 9:30pm |
Venue: | Hong Kong Cultural Centre Concert Hall |
Speakers: | Ms Sue Elliott, Wagner Expert and |
Summary: | With his Ring Cycle, Richard Wagner set out to create a new style of opera that would change the world. The second of the four operas, Die Walküre, is a powerful family drama with breathtaking scenes of love, betrayal and loss. Sue Elliott returns to the stage of the Concert Hall with an entertaining and informative exploration of the opera’s creation, its themes and musical motifs, and its context within the cycle as a whole. Using audio and video examples, this guided journey through the second chapter of Wagner’s magnum opus is designed to help you make the most of your experience in the Concert Hall. |
Registration: | |
Seats are limited; successful registrants will be notified by email.
Die Walküre Opera-in-concert | |
Date: | 21 January 2016 (Thursday) & 23 January 2016 (Saturday) |
Time: | 6pm & 3pm respectively |
Venue: | Hong Kong Cultural Centre Concert Hall |
Artists: | Jaap van Zweden, conductor |
Plot: | The story of Die Walküre centres around the two young lovers – Siegmund and Sieglinde – who are the children of Wotan. Angered at Wotan’s approval of their incestuous relationship, Fricka, the goddess of marriage, demands that he destroy their love and return Sieglinde to her lawful husband. Wotan orders Brünnhilde, one of the nine Valkyries whose task is to retrieve the bodies of heroes slain in battle, to carry out Fricka’s wishes, but instead she rescues Sieglinde, who is pregnant with Siegmund’s child. For her disobedience, Wotan banishes her to eternal sleep on a mountain-top surrounded by fire. |
Tickets: | Tickets priced: HK$880, $680, $480, $280 now available at URBTIX |
For enquiries, please visit our website www.hkphil.org
Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra
Music Director: Jaap van Zweden
The Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra (HK Phil) has recently returned from an extremely successful five-country, seven-city tour of Europe, with concerts in London, Vienna, Zurich, Eindhoven, Birmingham, Berlin and Amsterdam. Most concerts were sold out, there were standing ovations, and the reviews were universally positive. The concert in Vienna’s Musikverein was filmed for broadcast on TV. With a history stretching back to 1895, when it was formed as the Sino-British Orchestra, the HK Phil was re-named in 1957 and became fully professional in 1974.
Thanks to significant subsidy from the Hong Kong Government and long-term funding from Principal Patron Swire, the Hong Kong Jockey Club and other supporters, the HK Phil now boasts a full-time annual schedule of classical music concerts, pops concerts, an extensive education programme, and collaborations for staged opera with Opera Hong Kong and the Hong Kong Arts Festival.
Conductors and soloists who have recently performed with the orchestra include Vladimir Ashkenazy, Ning Feng, Matthias Goerne, Lang Lang, Yu Long, Yundi Li, the late Lorin Maazel, Anne-Sophie Mutter, Yuja Wang and Edo de Waart, the HK Phil’s previous Music Director.
The HK Phil promotes the work of Hong Kong and Chinese composers through an active commissioning programme, and has released recordings featuring Tan Dun and Bright Sheng, each conducting their own compositions, on the Naxos label. Its acclaimed community engagement programme brings music to ten of thousands of children annually. A recording was issued free to schoolchildren throughout Hong Kong of Britten’s The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra, Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf and Leopold Mozart’s Toy Symphony.
This season is Jaap van Zweden’s fourth as Music Director of the HK Phil. With him, the orchestra is undertaking major expansion and new projects, including the first-ever performances by a Hong Kong or mainland Chinese orchestra of Wagner’s The Ring of the Nibelung. The four operas are being performed, one a year, in concert and recorded live for the Naxos label.
The Swire Group has been the Principal Patron of the HK Phil since 2006. Through this sponsorship, which is the largest in the orchestra’s history, Swire also endeavours to promote artistic excellence, foster access to classical music and stimulate cultural participation in Hong Kong, and to enhance Hong Kong’s reputation as one of the great cities of the world.
The Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra is financially supported by the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region
SWIRE is the Principal Patron of the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra
The Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra is a Venue Partner of the Hong Kong Cultural Centre
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