25.02.2015

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Sir Antonio Pappano and the Orchestra of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia give the world premiere of Salvatore Sciarrino’s La Nuova Euridice secondo Rilke in Rome
 
28, 29, 30 March 2015
ROME - AUDITORIUM PARCO DELLA MUSIC – SALA SANTA CECILIA
 
SCIARRINO - La Nuova Euridice secondo Rilke
BACH - Magnificat
 
Orchestra & Chorus of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia
Conductor Sir Antonio Pappano
Soprano Barbara Hannigan (Sciarrino)
Soprano Amanda Forsythe (Bach)
 
Sir Antonio Pappano and his award-winning Roman Orchestra of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia give the world premiere of Sicilian composer Salvatore Sciarrino’s La Nuova Euridice secondo Rilke (The New Eurydice according to Rilke) with renowned soprano Barbara Hannigan on 28, 29 and 30 March, the weekend before Easter.  It is performed alongside Bach’s Magnificat featuring the soprano Amanda Forsythe with the celebrated Chorus of the Accademia di Santa Cecilia.  This continues Antonio Pappano’s ongoing exploration of Bach’s great choral works in previous seasons including the St. Matthew Passion and Mass inB minor.
 
Sciarrino’s new work is part of the Accademia di Santa Cecilia’s yearly commission of new work mostly from Italian composers. It also included the commission of Imolazione by former German composer living outside Rome Hans Werner Henze.
 
Following Pappano’s request to compose a dramatic work without a theatrical stage, Sciarrino has set to music Rilke’s two poems “Orpheus. Eurydice. Hermes” and “To Music”, which he translated from German to Italian.  Sciarrino chose this ancient myth with the desire to go back to the origins of melodrama in Florence before Monteverdi’s Orfeo, and to give a modern response to the tale.  With his unique vocal language, he has reinvented it as the New Eurydice, a tale of doubt, uncertainty and anxiety inherent in the human condition.  Sciarrino chose the form of a cantata for the piece believing that it is not the theatrical stage that creates the drama but the language of the music.
 
A female voice of the creator narrates the tale of Orpheus’ journey out of Hades with his rescued love Euridice, oblivious to the pact he has sworn with the gods.  Not sensing that Euridice is trailing behind him, he doubts her presence and turns to see her slip away and fade back into the underworld.  Sciarrino ends the piece with a Hymn to Music sung by the solo soprano voice, which he describes as “light and translucent like air”:
 
“oh the transformation
of feelings into what?
into audible landscape.
Music, you stranger.  
Passion which
has outgrown us.
Our inner most being, transcending, driven our of us –
holiest of departures…”
To Music by Rilke
 
As Sciarrino explains,
“I chose to place the Hymn to Music not at the beginning which might have made a more conventional opening, but as a thanksgiving and an evocation. My music doesn’t follow established conventions – it is to evoke an atmosphere, an emotional response that inhabits our memory. Memory functions as a transformation of our being.”
 
Sicilian born composer Salvatore Sciarrino (b. Palermo, 1947) is one of Italy’s most prominent composers.  Over the last 45 years, he has composed 15 operas, including Lohengrin and his most often revived Luci mie traditrici.  He has a uniquely personal compositional voice, which is the result of no formal music training at music conservatoire.  Self-taught, he started composing at twelve and held his first public concert in 1962.
 
After studying Classics at his hometown university, the Sicilian composer moved to Rome in 1969 and in 1977 to Milan. Since 1983, he has lived in Città di Castello, in Umbria.  Sciarrino’s extensive discography includes more than 100 CDs.  Apart from being author of the majority of his opera librettos, Sciarrino is prolific essayist – most important of which was his interdisciplinary book about musical form: Le figure della musica, da Beethoven a oggi, Ricordi 1998.
 
Sciarrino has won many awards including: Prince Pierre de Monaco (2003), the prestigious Feltrinelli International Award (Premio Internazionale Feltrinelli) (2003). He is also the first prizewinner of the newly created Salzburg Music Prize (2006) and of the Frontiers of Knowledge Prize in 2011 from the BBVA Foundation.
 
In 2008, Salzburg Festival dedicated a series of 15 sold out concerts.
 
The Orchestra and Chorus of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia: The Accademia di Santa Cecilia is a rare example of an Italian symphony orchestra unattached to an opera house and is unanimously recognised as the country’s finest symphonic orchestra. Since taking over as Music Director nine years ago, Sir Antonio Pappano has revitalised and galvanised the Orchestra with his enthusiastic spirit, positive energy and consummate musicianship.  It has been voted one of the leading orchestras of the world, whilst the Chorus of the Accademia di Santa Cecilia has been described as “one of the world’s great choirs” (The Independent), being in great demand on tour both with the Orchestra and on its own.  In the UK alone, they have won more than 9 music awards over the past 2 years.
 
The Accademia di Santa Cecilia has an impressive heritage. Since its creation in 1908 the Orchestra has collaborated with distinguished composers including Mahler, Debussy, Richard Strauss, Sibelius, Stravinsky, Hindemith, Respighi, Berio and Stockhausen.  They have also worked with conductors including Toscanini, Furtwängler, Karajan, Böhm, Kleiber, Celibidache, Sinopoli, Bernstein, Carlos Kleiber, Sawallisch, De Sabata, Stokowski, Abbado, Muti and Barenboim.  Most recently its Music Directors have been Bernstein, Sinopoli, Gatti and Myung Whun Chung. They have imbuedin the orchestra the great European symphonic tradition from Beethoven to Shostakovich.
 
Sir Antonio Pappano: Born in London, Pappano moved to the USA at the age of 13. He conducted his first performance in 1987 at the Norwegian National Opera, where he was to become Music Director in 1990. At the age of 32 he moved to Brussels, having been appointed to the same office at La Monnaie where he remained from 1992 to 2002. During this period he made his debuts in Vienna, at the Metropolitan Opera, New York, and at the Bayreuth Festival. He became Music Director of The Royal Opera in 2002 (gaining the 2003 Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in Opera) and of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome in October 2005. Recent highlights with The Royal Opera include a new production of Il trittico, a celebration of Plácido Domingo's 40 years performing with The Royal Opera, a tour to Japan (conducting Manon, La Traviata and Handel's Messiah) and the world premiere of Mark-Anthony Turnage's Anna Nicole. In May 2010 he presented a widely acclaimed series, 'Opera Italia', for BBC television, and since then he has made many recordings for EMI, most recently Rossini's Guillaume Tell (released July 2011) and Mahler's Symphony no. 6 (November 2011). Pappano received a knighthood in the Queen's 2012 New Year Honours, and in May of this same year was made a Cavaliere di Gran Croce Dell'Ordine Al Merito della Repubblica Italiana.
 
Recent Discography:
Rossini Overtures October 2014
Britten’s War Requiem, November 2013
Sacred Verdi, August 2013
Dvorak Cello Concerto and Symphony No.9, October 2012
Mahler, Symphony no. 6, November 2011
Rossini, Guillaume Tell, July 2011
Rachmaninov, Symphony no. 2, February 2011
Rossini, Stabat Mater, November 2010
 
Recent Awards:
Antonio Pappano – Echo Klassik 2014 with Ian Bostridge
Antonio Pappano: Male Artist of the Year, Classic Brit Awards (2011)
Verismo with Jonas Kaufmann: Recital Category, Gramophone Award (2011)
Rossini Stabat Mater: Editor’s Choice, Gramophone Award (2011)
Verdi Requiem:
Critics’ Choice, Classical Brit Awards (2010)
Choral category award, BBC Music Magazine Awards (2010)
Choral award, Gramophone Awards (2010)
Madama Butterfly:
Female artist of the year (Angela Gheorghiu), Classic Brit Awards (2010)
Opera Disc Award, Classic FM Gramophone Awards
Colbran, The Muse with Joyce Di Donato:
Recital, Gramophone Awards (2010)