Royal Albert HallKensington Gore, London, Greater London, SW7 2AP, United Kingdom
Dates/times in London time zone
Festival: BBC PromsProgramme
| Smetana, Bedřich (1824-1884) | The Bartered Bride – overture and Three Dances | |
| Tchaikovsky, Pyotr Ilyich (1840-1893) | Eugene Onegin – Letter Scene | |
| Shostakovich, Dmitri (1906-1975) | Symphony No. 8 in C minor |
Performers
| Elena Stikhina | Soprano |
| Czech Philharmonic | |
| Semyon Bychkov | Conductor |
The dancing rhythms and swirling colours of Smetana’s opera The Bartered Bride launch a concert of big musical gestures and even bigger emotions. First love blazes hot in the Letter Scene from Tchaikovsky’s opera Eugene Onegin, as Tatyana (sung here by soprano Elena Stikhina) pours out her heart in music as romantic as anything the composer ever wrote. War, not love, drives the pulsing heartbeat of Shostakovich’s Eighth Symphony – the most personal and direct of the composer’s many attempts ‘to express the terrible tragedy of war’.
