Elegance and wit are on ample display in Pär Isberg's new Pinocchio for Hong Kong Ballet, with a score by Respighi, arranged by maestro Benjamin Pope and vibrantly delivered by the Hong Kong Sinfonietta.
The opening dance programme of this year’s Hong Kong Arts Festival was Giselle, performed by La Scala Ballet, who made a welcome return to Hong Kong after seven years. Reviewed by Kevin Ng at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre.
Thursday December 22nd, 1808 was a bitterly cold day in Vienna. Beethoven took the stage in what was to be his last public performance as soloist with orchestra. The crammed programme lasted some four hours. Due to lack of rehearsal time, the evening didn’t go smoothly, with the final Choral Fantasy having to be stopped and started again.
Benjamin Britten’s Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge is not a work often heard in concert halls but deserves to be performed more often, Hong Kong Sinfonietta conductor Yip Wing-sie said at the start of the concert last night at the City Hall. The orchestra’s rendering of this moving musical tribute vindicated her statement.
Jacques Offenbach’s Tales of Hoffmann is a fine example of how the ridiculous can indeed be sublime. Three E.T.A. Hoffmann stories about otherworldly love affairs with defective femmes fatales, one of whom turns out to be a mechanical doll, connected only by the author’s gullible alter-ego as protagonist, scale the heights of the phantasmagorical.
Over the years, the Hong Kong Sinfonietta has made laudable efforts in bringing classical music to the masses and recruiting new audiences. Of necessity, it sticks to a well-trodden repertoire of evergreens which challenges musicians to bring a fresh perspective.The first half of programme on Wednesday evening was devoted to Mozart.
To mark the 15th anniversary of Hong Kong’s handover to China, the Hong Kong Sinfonietta was invited to kick-start the Koerner Hall’s chamber music series as part of their debut tour in North American. Despite competing concerts held downtown that very same evening, those who supported the HKS were rewarded by their fine performances.
“Music from three centuries comes together in tonight’s concert,” declare the programme notes to the Hong Kong Sinfonietta performance at the Hong Kong City Hall Concert Hall. Indeed it surveyed the best and most famous in the classical canon. What caught my attention, however, was the opening work: Frates by Estonian composer Arvo Pärt.
