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The two French singers convince in a programme including French late Romantics, Richard Strauss and a Verdi world premiere!

The first edition of the New Life Festival, dedicated to Jewish musicians who fled from or suffered under the National Socialist regime during the Second World War, uncovered some hidden gems.

When one sees the word “Erotica” in connection with classical music, one is usually safe in assuming that it’s a misprint in the title of Beethoven’s Third Symphony. And yet, at the Australian Chamber Orchestra’s concert on Saturday, it was no Freudian slip: Erwin Schulhoff’s Sonata Erotica, which the composer suggestively marked “nur für Herren” (for men only), was on the program.

Two of the world’s most sought-after opera singers giving Lieder recitals on the same night. The kind of painful choice which Viennese musical institutions and their chaotic schedules throw up all too regularly. I went for Nina Stemme over Jonas Kaufmann on the basis that she gives fewer solo recitals, despite harbouring reservations about how her big voice would fare in this repertoire.