Performer: Stig Andersen

Accompanied by an ebulliant Netherlands Radio Philharmonic, a fine Danish cast popped open the comedic bubbly at a concert performance of Nielsen’s Maskarade at the Concertgebouw. 

Few live events could offer a more intense, visceral, grotesque experience than witnessing a performance of Oscar Wilde’s play Salome translated and adapted for the opera stage by Hermann Lachmann and set to music by Richard Strauss.

The Hallé Orchestra, led by Sir Mark Elder, followed their award-winning 2009 Götterdämmerung with a concert performance of Die Walküre over two nights, prefaced by Gerard McBurney’s new work, The Madness of an Extraordinary Plan. With an array of famed soloists, Elder masterminded a triumph, with the magnificent Hallé showing their quality on the concert stage.