The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra's 2018 season continues next month with internationally renowned tenor Simon O’Neill returning home to perform a special series of concerts a concert featuring works by Richard Wagner and Anton Bruckner. The Christchurch concert will take place on Wednesday 13 June at the Isaac Theatre Royal.
An Evening with Simon O’Neill will be the singer’s debut orchestral performance of Richard Wagner’s famous song cycle the Wesendonck Lieder.
Wagner wrote the five songs to poems by his muse and lover Mathilde Wesendonck, while he was also working on his great romantic opera Tristan und Isolde.
Hailed by critics as “the Wagnerian tenor of his generation”, O’Neill has recorded Wesendonck Lieder with New Zealand pianist Terence Dennis, but has never sung the song cycle with an orchestra.
This performance will also see the NZSO perform Wagner contemporary Anton Bruckner’s Symphony No. 4. Known as the ‘Romantic Symphony’, it is one of Bruckner’s most popular works and his first symphony to achieve significant public acclaim.
The NZSO will be led by acclaimed Dutch conductor Lawrence Renes, who has a long association with O’Neill and NZSO Music Director Edo de Waart. When O’Neill first performed with the San Francisco Opera in 2012 in John Adams’ Nixon in China, Renes was the conductor.
We have 2 double passes to give away to library members. All you need to do is tell us what the name of the new central library is in the entry form below. Entries close at 5pm on Tuesday, 5 June and winners will be announced on Wednesday 6 June.
Find out more
- Find recordings of Wagner's Wesendonck Lieder
- Find recordings of Bruckner’s Symphony No. 4
- Find recordings by Simon O'Neill
- About NZSO's An Evening with Simon O'Neill concert
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