A cornucopia of great music from the annals of opera – performed by four excellent singers and an equally adept pianist. A gift for all who come to Frue Plads on this summer afternoon.

The programme for this concert is a very varied feast for the senses, from Verdi's Rigoletto to Bernstein's West Side Story. However, the main emphasis is on arias and duets from comic operas: Music which expresses humour and sensuality in such an irresistable way that audiences will find it difficult to maintain a serious or melancholy stance.

No-one knows how to express comedy in music better than Rossini, not least in his most famous opera, The Barber of Seville. But when Donizetti took time off from the tragic heroines that made him famous, he too mastered the art of comedy in Don Pasquale. Apart from generous helpings of highlights from these two operas, there is more musical wit from the Danish national opera Mascerade by Carl Nielsen, and much more besides.

Music Director of Tivoli Henrik Engelbrecht will act as an entertaining master of ceremonies and raconteur of operatic anecdotes, while the singers Andrea Pellegrini, Sofie Elkjær Jensen, Bo Kristian Jensen and Joachim Knop will give us an unforgettable experience in the midst of Copenhagen.

CAST:
Andrea Pellegrini, Sofie Elkjær Jensen, Bo Kristian Jensen, Joachim Knop, Søren Rastogi, Henrik Engelbrecht.

The scene is set for an enjoyable tour of the canals of Copenhagen as opera singers Sofie Elkjær Jensen and Simon Duus and pianist Jacob Beck set out to provide us with a delicious musical entertainment in the Operetta Boat. Come on board and enjoy the sights of Copenhagen as seen from the water while the singers entertain you from the bows with selections from famous operettas.

For this alternative tour of the canals, several of the songs have an appropiate maritime touch. This is certainly true of the excerpts from Gilbert and Sullivan's H.M.S. Pinafore and The Pirates of Penzance.

But we will also get a chance to hear non-maritime highlights from Die Fledermaus by the Waltz King Johann Strauss and The Merry Widow by Franz Lehár – the two greatest classics of the Austro-German operetta tradition.

For years, the operetta genre was sneered at by critics – such cheerfulness simply wasn't allowed. In later years, however, this champagne-like music full of exuberant spirits and unrestrained eroticism has gained in popularity, in spite of those world-weary and blasé critics. Listen for yourself!

canaltours@canaltours.dk

CAST:
Sofie Elkjær Jensen, Simon Duus, Jacob Beck.

Café Momus is no longer situated in Paris but on Islands Brygge. After the success of last year's opera café, the regular haunt of the Parisian Bohemians in Puccini's La Boheme reopens on the address which normally belongs to the Mogens Dahl Concert Hall.

The eminent Mogens Dahl Chamber Choir is graced with visiting guest soloists Sine Bundgaard and David Danholt and the pianist Søren Rastogi. Together they perform sensual arias, duets and choruses.

On top of this, you can even complement the musical experience with culinary delicacies in the Michelin league from renowned chef Daniel Letz.

The music often touches on the theme of the love potion. From the comedy of Donizetti's L'Elisir d'amore where Nemorino is conned into buying a fake love potion which works after all beacuse of the placebo effect – to the tragedy of Gounod's Romeo and Juliet where the potion that was meant to save the lovers causes their death. Finally there is the love potion which everyone knows: Wine – which is praised in the drinking song from Verdi's La Traviata so that you'll become intoxicated just by listening to it.

À bientôt – at the Café Momus at the heart of the Latin Quarter on Islands Brygge!

CAST:
Sine Bundgaard, David Danholt, Søren Rastogi, Mogens Dahl, Mogens Dahl Kammerkor.

Liar on the Loose – a children's opera with music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) and a libretto by Anne Brodin and Rasmus Hansen.

Grown-ups cannot go on keeping Mozart to themselves. Now the time has come for children to experience some of the greatest music ever written. The company Opera on Wheels has converted their unbridled joy and enthusiasm for the music of the great Austrian into a show that gives children an immediate experience of the beautiful sounds of Mozart.

The well-known arias from Mozart operas have been given a new Danish text – and are now part of a completely new story: We are in an all-night shop, run by a grumpy lady who also happens to be the pianist of the show. She has an angry little dog which she loves more than anything. A diverse group of customers, played by one female and one male singer, visit the shop. Many things happen here, including a theft which must be detected. For how could the thief get past the angry dog and into the shop?

This is surely not Mozart as we know him. But at the same time, it is Mozart as he would like people to listen to his music – not as elite culture, gathering dust on a pedestal, but as music which is alive, entertaining and vital for all people. And once you start listening you have to agree with the scientists who claim that the music of Mozart stimulates and charge the creative and motivating areas of the brain.

Liar on the Loose is opera speaking directly to children – a joyous experience especially for children aged 4 to 8.

CAST:
Nina Bols Lundgren, Jacob Heide Madsen, Louise Schrøder, Den Rullende Opera.

Production designer: Frank Holldack
Director: Ib Nyholm

CInderella on Location - an adaption of Gioachino Antonio Rossini's La Cenerentola (Cinderella)

Rossini's fairy tale opera La Cenerentola is especially well-suited for performance in a castle – and this is what the Øresundsoperan will be doing when they revive last year's great success Opera on Location.

Imagine that you arrive in the castle yard and are met by the Swedish Baron Magnifico and his three daughters: Cinderella, Tisbe and Clorinda. They run a small pub in the corner of the yard to earn a crust. Suddenly a mysterious man sings about a prince who is on his way to find the bride of his choice – the drama is well underway, and the daughters get busy dressing themselves, each of them hoping that they will be the one who will marry the prince. The music and the story take us to various rooms in the castle where we'll meet the prince and maybe even get the chance to dance as the wedding is celebrated in the big, beautiful ballroom.

The music has everything that we have come to expect fom Rossini – it is exceptionally tuneful and expresses an unbridled joie de vivre and an irresistible sense of humour. Featuring soloists that represent the elite of Swedish and Danish singers, the stage director Lars Knutzon and the Danish costume designer Piyannah Ørnbak present a lavish production which is bound to captivate audiences.

CAST:
Josefine Andersson, Merete Sveistrup, Ulrika Precht, Sune Hjerrild, Teit Kanstrup, Carl Christian Rasmussen, Per Arne Wahlgren, Øresundsoperan.

A bar in what used to be a chapel , a piano, a handful of opera singers, and an emcee who provides the links – thee are the elements of Stand Up Opera.

For ten seasons, the young ensemble has successfully presented their humourous take on the great operatic traditions, so that even those who thought they didn't like opera had to surrender. Fans of Stand Up Opera are eagerly awaiting the advent of the new show in August.

Literaturhaus is the name of the atmospheric and beautiful former congregation assembly room of a small church which is now a cultural venue at the heart of Nørrebro where Stand Up Opera present their shows. The singers perform a mixture of popular opera arias, musical numbers and classical music – laced with their unique brand of humour and self-irony.

The whole thing takes place in a relaxed and intimate atmosphere where audiences are enjoying the music while sitting at café tables and having a drink.
So take thine ease, my soul, and listen, drink and be merry!

CAST:
Hetna Regitze Bruun, Rasmus Gravers Knive, Sofie Elkjær Jensen, Simon Duus, Peter Møllerhøj, Steffen Bruun.

Frederiksberg Castle will act as operatic scenery for scenes from some of the most popular operas which will be performed in the beautiful castle yard.

The castle concert is tailor-made for Frederiksberg Castle and inspired by the historic events and personalities associated with the castle. The emcee is theatre historian Alette Scavenius who will tell us about both the castle and the music and in this way link the operatic scenes with local history.

The Swedish-Danish opera society ØresundsOperan presents some of the most sensual and enticing moments from the 19th century operaratic repertoire. Stories of tragic love of mythological dimensions were in vogue at the time, and both Gounod and Bellini set Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet to music while Ambroise Thomas transformed Hamlet into a love story.

In almost all these operas, the heroine meets a tragic fate. Julie dies with her Romeo, Ophelia becomes insane and kills herself. Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor also becomes insane and dies, while the Asian heroines of Madama Butterfly and Lakmé both kill themselves for the sake of unrequited love. In Debussy's gothic tale Pelléas et Mélisande from 1902, the heroine is stabbed in the arms of her lover. But how beautiful their singing is as they meet their fate. What would be unbearable in real life, is transformed into pure pleasure in the mysterious world of opera.

However, if the audience should after all want something to cheer them up, the ØresundsOperan provides this as well in the form of treats from Rossini's The Barber of Seville and Donizetti's L'Elisir d'amore – comic operas in which all lovers are happily united in the end.

CAST:
Ulrika Precht, Isabel Piganiol, Josefine Andersson, Merete Sveistrup, Sune Hjerrild, Teit Kanstrup, Øresundsoperan.

The heroine's prayer is an emotional climax in several of the greatest operas – and when the soprano Gitta-Maria Sjöberg lends her voice to the prayers, we can be sure of a divine experience. The Chamber Choir Camerata and the trumpet and organ duo Dorthe Zielke and Søren Johannsen provide more of the heavenly goods.

Verdi's Desdemona, Puccini's Tosca and the slave girl Liù from Turandot – they are all three victims of persecution who face cruel deaths. But before their dreadful ends they all get to sing their intense prayers – ominous moments before catastrophe strikes and Desdemona is smothered by her misguided beloved Otello, Tosca jumps to her death from the Castel Sant' Angelo, and Liù stabs herself to escape the cruelty of Turandot.

There are more intense moments as the heroines of Purcell's British Baroque opera Dido and Aeneas and Wagner's Tristan and Isolde sing themselves to death – both of these mythological women die from love. Isolde's ecstatic Liebestod (literally: Lovedeath) will be performed in a setting quite different from what we are used to – for trumpet and organ.

Inbetween the fiery passions, the Camerata Chamber Choir will ease the mind with a different kind of musical prayers – peaceful and meditative music from Arvo Pärt, Matti Borg, Niels la Cour, Peter Bruun and Knut Nystedt with inspiration from Johann Sebastian Bach.

Before the concert, Nils Holger Petersen talks about prayer in the history of music. As a theologian and composer and author of books such as Christianity in Music, Handel's Messiah and Mozart's Requiem, Petersen is perfectly suited to entertain us on this subject.

At 7:00pm Nils Holger Petersen talks about the prayer in music in the patio of Christians Kirken. Admission is free.

CAST:
Gitta-Maria Sjöberg, Dorthe Zielke, Søren Johannsen, Kammerkoret Camerata.

The Russian conductor Alexander Polianichko leads the Tivoli Symphony Orchestra in an all-Tchaikovsky programme offering the fifth symphony and highlights from his opera Eugen Onegin, with two of Norway’s most talented young singers as the ill-fated lovers Tatiana and Eugen Onegin.

Eugen Onegin tells the story of the world-weary cad Eugen who rejects the love of Tatiana and kills his best friend Lensky in a duel. In the end he repents what he has done and begs in vain for Tatiana's love. Tchaikovsky based his 1879 opera on Pushkin's epic poem with the same title, regarded as a national treasure in Russia.

The Fifth Symphony, premiered in 1888, is full of Romantic yearning and unforgettable tunes as only Tchaikovsky could have written them – the second movement horn solo inspired several pop songs including Moon Love, sung by Frank Sinatra and countless others. However, the motto theme that unites the four movements of the symphony is derived from a theme by Glinka, regarded as the founder of Russian music.

CAST:
Christel Elisabeth Smith, Audun Iversen, Tivolis Symfoniorkester.

An opera about escape by composer Andy Pape and the entertainer, film director and erstwhile busker Erik Clausen.

Houdini the Great is an opera which is true to its subject matter, the famous escapologist and magician and his colourful and extraordinary life story. 85 years after his passing, Harry Houdini is still the most legendary entertainer of his kind and with a biograpy that reads like the most dramatic and imaginative of opera librettos. So when Erik Clausen and the Danish-American composer Andy Pape looked for a subject for their projected chamber opera, the story of Houdini was a natural choice.

Houdini the Great is an opera full of humour and poetry and tuneful music – freely based on the life of Houdini and interspersed with some of his most famous escapologist tricks. The opera was premiered in 1988 and have been performed all over the world, including Broadway, New York.

CAST:
Kiki Brandt, Ulla Kudsk Jensen, Magnus Vigilius, Jesper Buhl, Den Fynske Opera.

Music from the Baroque era is flourishing these days – enjoying a huge popularity in Tivoli also, where now we get the chance to hear one of the world's leading singers specializing in the Baroque repertoire, the American mezzo-soprano Vivica Genaux.

As Vivica Genaux's CD Arias for Farinelli amply demonstrated, her towering virtuosity and sheer beauty of sound stand comparison with the legendary male soprano Farinelli, the greatest singer of the age of Baroque.

At this concert, Vivica Genaux is accompanied by the elite period ensemble from Cologne, Concerto Köln, in opera arias by Handel and Johann Adolph Hasse.

CAST:
Vivica Genaux, Concerto Köln.

To celebrate the centenary of the birth of the legendary Swedish tenor Jussi Björling – and the 80th anniversary on this very day of the concert in Tivoli that shot him to international fame – we present an evening where his high, expressive and forceful voice will once again sound in the old Tivoli Gardens he loved so dearly.

Tivoli Music Director and leading musicologist Henrik Engelbrecht gives an entertaining multi-media talk with plenty of musical examples on the singer who is considered by many to be the greatest tenor of the 20th century.

CAST:
Henrik Engelbrecht.

Concerto Copenhagen and their star soloists shine in Baroque works brimming with magic. The internationally acclaimed Danish period ensemble Concerto Copenhagen and their charismatic leader Lars Ulrik Mortensen join three young, Scandinavian soloists in an evening of operatic highlights from the Baroque period – an exciting journey into a world of supernatural beings and magic moments.

We will be hearing excerpts from three operatic masterpieces which have never been performed in Denmark: Henry Purcell's The Fairy Queen after Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, Jean-Philippe Rameau's Platée and Georg Friedrich Handel's Alcina.

For more than 20 years, he has been in a class of his own as an interpreter of both the Italian and the French operatic repertoire.

Experience one of the leading singers in the world today when the French-Italian tenor Roberto Algana appears at the concert hall in Tivoli.

Roberto Alagna made his professional debut in 1988 and has since then performed on the world’s most prestigious stages: Covent Garden, the Vienna Staatsoper, Opéra-Bastille in Paris, New York’s Metropolitan Opera, the Liceu in Barcelona and La Scala in Milan. He has issued numerous recitals and complete operas on CD and DVD.

CAST:
Roberto Alagna, Tivolis Symfoniorkester.

OperaJam is a new and exciting concept at this years' festival.

Singers from the Copenhagen Opera Festival invite the buzzing multi-cultural musical environment of Blågårds Plads in Copenhagen to explore the musical melting pot in the course of three evenings.

Experience the magic that occurs when people of different nationalities and musical traditions meet each other for the first time and create sparkling new music in free-spirited jam sessions.

Satisfy your curiousity for new musical experiences as the Afghan storyteller improvises a verse with the tuba player from the Klezmer band, while an opera singer, a rapper and a DJ from Uruguay join forces to make the chorus.

The first two evenings are open jam sessions, and on the third day the best and the most original constellations get together for a final concert which is bound to be a musical feast

OperaJam is three days of warm and inspiring musical meetings, directed with a loving hand by by jam master and artist Peter Rønn.
Come to the OperaJam and have a glass of wine, or enter the stage with your song, your instrument or the lyrics that you carry around in your backpocket ...

Project Manager and Creative Director at OperaJam: Peter Rønn
Production coordinator: Katrine Michala Lehmann
Coordinator: Camilla Sehestedt Juul

Program_og_medvirkende_i_OperaJam1.pdf

OperaJam on the radio (P4 Denmark). Listen here

CAST:
Aftryk - unge asylansøgere, Alain Apaloo, Alex Mendez, Ali Sufi, Anders Honoré, Asif Jawadi, BazarMusicShop, Jesper Buhl, Bilal Irshed, Carrie Becker, Morten Ankarfeldt, Rasmus Kjærsgaard, Kristin Mulders, Tamni, Djengis, TJL Electronica, Nappion, OperaImproGroup Houdini, Ole Omkvæd, Niclas Knudsen, Dynamix, Mimi Terris, Emil Ritter, Ingeborg Børch, Fresco.

As a luxurious gift to all lovers of opera, Copenhagen Opera Festival in collaboration with the Royal Danish Opera now has the opportunity to add this concert to our already abundant programme.

The Danish Royal Opera present an opera concert at the open air stage Ofelia Beach next to Skuespilhuset (the Royal Theatre's new building), featuring some of the greatest soloists of the royal ensemble. Anne-Margrethe Dahl, Elisabeth Halling, Niels Jørgen Riis and Bo Kristian Jensen sing some of the most popular opera arias of all time, from Mozart to Benjamin Britten, and tell us about memorable episodes from their work. With a view across the water to the new Royal Danish Opera House, the setting is perfect and the stage is set for an unforgetable night at the opera.

CAST:
Anne-Margrethe Dahl, Elisabeth Halling, Bo Kristian Jensen, Niels Jørgen Riis, Orsolya Fajger.