7.30pm, Thursday 14th April 2016

St John’s Smith Square

The London Mozart Players present the British premiere of Stephen Oliver’s completion of Mozart’s unfinished opera The Goose of Cairo (L’oca del Cairo).

Mozart’s Unfinished Opera

The Goose of Cairo was started and abandoned by Mozart in 1783 and then later completed by the British composer Stephen Oliver in 1990.

L’oca del Cairo tells the story of a Spanish Marquis, an avid collector of rarities, who keeps his only daughter locked up in a tower, and the attempts by her true love to stop her being given away to the man who can offer her father the fabled golden goose of Cleopatra. This masterpiece has been newly translated for this performance, so will mark the first time it has ever been performed in English.

This concert is the 3rd concert in the LMP’s Mozart Explored: 1783 series at St John’s Smith Square, a concert series exploring the Mozart’s musical and personal influences in the year of 1783.

Stephen Oliver

In his forty two years of life, Stephen wrote more than forty operas and many other works both large and small. When he was still a schoolboy, he wrote a trumpet concerto, a film score, three major cantatas, a number of ensemble and choral works, and three operas; when he submitted compositions for the Chester Music Festival under an assumed name, he won several years running, often against adults with published work to their names.

L’oca del Cairo was Stephen Oliver’s last real dramatic work before his death in 1992. It is with exceptional skill and wit that Oliver expanded Mozart’s existing libretto and wove his own modern composition style into the original music to present a complete 90 minute work, which will be performed as a semi-staged concert.

Latest news about this project

Win tickets to Mozart Explored, a 4 star hotel stay and lunch with Classic FM

Wednesday, 14 September, 2016

Mozart Explored preview 'An enthralling insight, and definitely one of the most civilised ways to take a lunchtime break'

Thursday, 21 July, 2016

'A glorious revival of the opera Mozart abandoned' The Telegraph

Thursday, 21 April, 2016

#LMPGoose travels up to London

Tuesday, 12 April, 2016

Jonathan Dove on Stephen Oliver's operatic works

Monday, 4 April, 2016

Name the Golden Goose Competition

Thursday, 24 March, 2016

The Goose Takes Flight

Tuesday, 22 March, 2016

The Making of the Golden Goose

Thursday, 17 March, 2016

The Plot is Laid

Wednesday, 9 March, 2016

David Parry

Conductor

David Parry is acknowledged as an inspirational champion of operatic, concert and symphonic repertoire across a vast range. He is known both for the re-appraisal of important lesser-known compositions and for a consistently fresh approach to established repertoire.

Significant credits include the world premiere of Jonathan Dove’s The Adventures of Pinocchio (in separate productions for Opera North and Staatstheater Stuttgart), Der Fliegender Holländer (for Portland Opera), Madama Butterfly (in Anthony Minghella’s production for ENO which earned him an Olivier Award), Cosí fan tutte and the premiere of Dove’s Flight (both for Glyndebourne Festival Opera) and Maria Stuarda (for Stockholm Royal Opera).

Much in demand from ensembles both in the UK and further afield, David Parry is regularly at the helm of orchestras including the London Philharmonic, Philharmonia, Royal Philharmonic, City of Birmingham, Halle, Academy of St Martin in the Fields and English Chamber Orchestra.

David Parry conducted the first ever performance of Stephen Oliver’s completion of L’oca del Cairo at the Batignano Opera Festival in 1991.

Soloists

QUIRIJN DE LANG Don Pippo

Baritone

Born in the Netherlands, he graduated from the Department of Biology at the University of Amsterdam, and then studied at the Milanese Scuola di Musica and the Curtis Institute, Philadelphia, where he performed GOBINEAU Menotti’s The Medium, DEMETRIUS A Midsummer Night’s Dream and PELLÉAS Pelléas et Mélisande Curtis Opera Theatre. Quirijn’s most recent highlights include PANTALONE The Love for Three Oranges De Nederlandse Opera and Deutsche Oper Berlin, LASKI Chabrier’s Le roi malgré lii and PONCHEL Silent Night Wexford Festival.

FFLUR WYN Celidora

Soprano

Having already gained wide acclaim for her performances on the operatic stage as well as the concert platform, Welsh soprano Fflur Wyn is quickly establishing herself as one of the country’s foremost young singers. She was recently elected an Associate of the Royal Academy of Music (ARAM) in recognition of her distinguished contribution to the music profession so far. Her operatic performances include Jemmy Guillaume Tell, Iphis Jephtha and Blonde Die Entführung aus dem Serail (WNO); Pamina The Magic Flute and the title role in Lakmé (Opera Holland Park); Barbarina Le nozze di Figaro and La Plus Jeune Fille Au Monde (La Monnaie); Sophie Werther, Marzelline Fidelio, amongst many others.

SORAYA MAFI Lavina

Soprano

Lancashire-born soprano Soraya Mafi won the National Junior English Song Prize in 2004 and studied at the Royal Northern College of Music. Soraya continued her studies at the Royal College of Music International Opera School, supported by the Help Musicians UK Sybil Tutton Award. She is a Van der Beugel scholar, supported by a Douglas and Hilda Simmons Award. Soraya’s many prizes include the Maggie Teyte Prize in 2014, for which she performed a recital of French song at the Crush Room of Royal Opera House, and 2^nd Prize in the 2015 Kathleen Ferrier Awards. Soraya studies with renowned soprano Janis Kelly and repertoire coach John Fraser.

ROBERT MURRAY Biondello

Tenor

Robert Murray studied at the Royal College of Music and the National Opera Studio. He was a Jette Parker Young Artist at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden. Recent highlights include a tour of Messiah with the Academy of Ancient Music, Haydn’s ‘Creation’ with the Simon Bolivar Orchestra conducted by Gustavo Dudamel and with the LSO under Edward Gardner. Engagements this season and beyond include a return to the Handel Haydn Society under Harry Christophers, Frederic in Luxembourg and Caen, A Child of our Time with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Edward Gardner, Written on Skin on tour in Europe with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, the St Matthew Passion with the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, Dream of Gerontius with Edward Gardner conducting the Seattle Symphony, Grande Messe de Mort at the Konzerthaus Berlin with Paul McCreesh.

ELLIE LAUGHARNE Auretta

Soprano

Ellie Laugharne studied at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and was a Jerwood Young Artist at Glyndebourne where she sang Lucia in Rape of Lucretia and Susanna in Le Nozze di Figaro on tour. Recent operatic engagements have included Governess Turn of the Screw and Tina in Jonathan Dove’s Flight, (both Opera Holland Park), Barbarina Le Nozze di Figaro (English National Opera and Opera North), Frasquita Carmen (Scottish Opera) and Despina Cosi fan tutte (ON). Ellie goes on to sing Zerlina Don Giovanni for Classical Opera.

DIANA MONTAGUE Donna Pantea

Mezzo

Outstanding British mezzo-soprano Diana Montague has been enjoying one of the most distinguished and prolific careers in leading opera houses, concert venues and recording studios. Engagements have led her to the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden; the Metropolitan Opera, New York; La Monnaie, Brussels; Opéra de Paris; Rome Opera; and the Bayreuth, Glyndebourne and Salzburg Festivals, to name a few.

CHRISTOPHER DIFFEY Calandrino

Tenor

Christopher Diffey was born in Melbourne, and trained at the Royal Academy of Music. Awards include the English Touring Opera Young Artist bursary. He has performed many operatic roles, both in Australia and Europe, including Odoardo/Ariodante (Dutch National Opera, Festival d’Aix-en-Provence), Erisso/Maometto Secondo (Volkstheater Rostock), Soppy Hat/Swanhunter (Opera North), Laerte/Mignon (New Sussex Opera), Condulmiero/Maometto Secondo (Garsington Opera) & Triplet 1/Clemency and Mercury/Orpheus in the Underworld (Scottish Opera).

ALEXANDER ROBIN BAKER Chichibio

Baritone

Winner of Second Prize at the 2008 Kathleen Ferrier Competition, Alexander Robin Baker has appeared with Bergen National Opera, English National Opera, Glyndebourne Festival Opera, Glyndebourne On Tour, Iford Arts, Nevill Holt Opera and the Nederlandse Reisopera as well as in concert throughout the UK.

Current engagements include Starveling A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Lorenzo/Capuleti e i Montecchi for Bergen National Opera, Starveling at the Hyogo Performing Center, Japan, the B Minor Mass with the Royal Northern Sinfonia, Vaughan Williams Fantasia on Christmas Carols with the Ten Tors Orchestra and the première of Kernal Yusuf’s Cain with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra at the Norfolk & Norwich Festival.

This is his debut with the London Mozart Players.

Tickets

£15, £25, £32, £40

Tickets for this concert can be booked through the St John’s Smith Square Box Office, or by visiting their website.

Box Office: 020 7222 1061 | St John’s Smith Square, London SW1P 3HA

Book online: www.sjss.org.uk | Booking fees per transaction: £2.00 by phone or £1.50 online

Buy Tickets