THE MALAYSIAN Philharmonic Orchestra (MPO) will present a programme called Mozart’s Opera Arias that is devoted to numerous operatic works composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart this Saturday at 8.30pm, and Sunday at 3pm at Dewan Filharmonik Petronas (DFP).
The arias chosen for this programme are taken from three of Mozart’s famed operas: The Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni and The Magic Flute.
The Marriage of Figaro premiered in Vienna in 1786. While it took a while for it to become popular, there is great depth in beauty and characters in the opera that we can relate to.
Don Giovanni is about an amazingly inept lover, refashioned from the legendary Don Juan. The opera premiered in Prague to huge success in 1787.
The Magic Flute, which premiered in Vienna in 1791, seems farcical and trivial on the surface, but is in fact sublime and serious underneath.
The opera was such a success that within a year, it had been performed 100 times.
The MPO will devote the second half of the concerts with a single large-scale work by Denmark’s most famous composer, Carl Nielsen.
His third symphony, nicknamed Sinfonia espansiva, also bears reference to the human condition and abstract psychological states that the composer seeks to express.
MPO resident conductor Naohisa Furusawa will conduct the concerts, which will also feature bass baritone Mak Chi Hoe and soprano Ang Mei Foong.
For more, visit the MPO website.
