Wiltz Festival: Ute Lemper & Vogler Quartett

PROGRAMME

Friday 28 & Saturday 29 June @ 20:45: Celtic Legends (€65, €55, €35)

Music: Liz Knowles & Kieran O’Hare; Choreography: Ger Hayes. Celtic Legends presents live music and dance in its most traditional and authentic form.

Celtic Legends is the most exciting Irish music and dance show for years. Featuring Ireland’s leading dancers with live music performed by award-winning musicians using traditional instruments, including the Uileann Pipe, the Irish version of the bagpipes that dates back to 1590. With a full cast on stage, Celtic Legends is the original live Irish dance experience.

Sunday 30 June @ 20:45: Ute Lemper & Vogler Quartett (€45, €35, €25)

Ute Lemper joins the Vogler Quartet for Songs of Love and War. Renowned German chanteuse Ute Lemper joins her countrymen the Vogler Quartet and Stefan Malzew for a collection of songs Paris Days, Berlin Nights. Bookended by post-war tales of love and despair from the French songbook by Jacques Brel and Edith Piaf, Paris Days, Berlin Nights hearkens back to the years of the revolutionary and decadent Weimar Republic, rooted in music and stories by Kurt Weill and Berthold Brecht. The Vogler Quartet lends the chansons a sound that is by turns delicate and powerful in thoughtful arrangements by Stefan Malzew, who infuses Lemper’s cunning interpretations with complementary flavourings of piano, clarinet and accordion.

Friday 5 July @ 20:45: Carmen, opera in four acts by Georges Bizet, performed in French by the State Opera Wroclaw, conducted by Ewa Michni (€75, €65, €45)

Carmen is an opera in four acts by the French composer Georges Bizet. The libretto was written by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, based on a novella of the same title by Prosper Mérimée. The opera was first performed at the Opéra-Comique in Paris, on 3 March 1875, and was not at first particularly successful; its initial run extended to 36 performances. Before this run was concluded, Bizet died suddenly, and thus knew nothing of the opera's later celebrity. The opera, written in the genre of opéra comique with musical numbers separated by dialogue, tells the story of the downfall of Don José, a naive soldier who is seduced by the wiles of the fiery gypsy Carmen.

Saturday 6 July @ 20:45: Grands Chœurs d’Opéras, The most famous CHORUSES OF OPERA pefroemed by the State Opera Wroclaw, conducted by Ewa Michni (€75, €65, €45)

The great lyrical masterpieces on stage in original version - 130 artists & 700 costumes

Wednesday 10 July @ 20:00: Concert d'Orgue - in the Eglise décanale in Wiltz-bas  

Thursday 11 July: Jazz Youn Sun Nah Quartet (€35, €25, €15)

Korean singer Youn Sun Nah is a former French literature student who switched tracks to try her hand as a chanteuse in Paris, and climbed the jazz charts there with her debut album Voyage. She's an artist who mimics no obvious models and she's unafraid of working with minimal backing. Her most expressive pieces are low key, but occasionally a raw power erupts into banshee wails. Though Youn Sun Nah visits jazz, pop, chanson and the traditional music of her homeland, she sounds closest to folk traditions throughout much of this session.  

Friday 12 July @ 20:45: The Prague National Theatre Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Jan Schultsz, with soloist Tai Murray (violin) (€40, €30, €20)

C. M. v. Weber : Overture „Der Freischütz“; A. Dvořák : Czech Suite, op. 39; J. Brahms: Concerto for violin and orchestra in D major

The Prague National Theatre Symphony Orchestra was created in 1988 on initiative of the most important instrumentalists of the Opera Orchestra of the Prague National Theatre. Acclaimed as "superb" by The New York Times, violinist Tai Murray is a rising star of her generation, increasingly in demand for both recitals and orchestral engagements. Appreciated for her elegance and effortless ability, she creates a special bond with her public through her mature phrasing and subtle sweetness.  

Saturday 13 July @ 20:45: The Blues Brothers (€65, €55, €35)

The original West End Production. Jake and Elwood Blues are on the road again. This opulently produced show is the original from the London West End, where it celebrated a big success for years. The stage version convinces with a subtle set, a great light show, a fantastic live band and with a stunning cast which brings back the party feeling of the early Eighties. One of the most powerful live shows to be found on the market today. Put on your shades and let’s get ready to rock’n’roll…

Sunday 14 July @ 20:00: Anima Eterna & Jos Van Immerseel - in the Eglise Notre Dame in Wiltz-haut (€30)

C. Ph. E. Bach: Symphonies nrs. 2 & 4; W. A. Mozart: Concerto for piano nr. 8; J. Haydn: Symphony nr. 57

Anima Eterna is under the permanent musical direction of Jos van Immerseel, who has led the orchestra through a carefully guided evolution from small chamber ensemble to full symphony orchestra. In 1985 he brought six string players together to study the works of Bach, and two years later the group was enlarged to a baroque ensemble of seventeen musicians. In 1989 the by now twenty-five musicians began to work on the Viennese classical repertoire. The success was expanding and in 1990 the Amsterdam Concertgebouw included Anima Eterna in its "World famous Baroque Orchestras" series.

Friday 19 & Saturday 20 July @ 20:45: Der Zigeunerbaron (THE GIPSY BARON), operetta by Johann Strauss II, performed in German by the National Academic Operetta Theatre of Kiev (€60, €50, €30)

International company of soloists, ballet, chorus and orchestra

The Gypsy Baron is an operetta in three acts by Johann Strauss II which premiered at the Theater an der Wien on 24 October 1885. Its libretto was by the author Ignaz Schnitzer and in turn was based on Sáffi by Mór Jókai. During the composer's lifetime, the operetta enjoyed great success, second only to the popularity of Die Fledermaus. The scoring and the nature of Strauss's music have also led many music critics to consider this work a comic opera or a lyric opera. Overview: This is the colorful story of the marriage of a landowner (returned from exile) and a gypsy girl who is revealed as the daughter of a Turkish Pasha, and the rightful owner of a hidden treasure. It involves a fortune-telling Romany Queen, an absurdly self-important Mayor, a rascally Commissioner, a Military Governor, a band of Gypsies and a troop of Hussars.

Sunday 21 July @ : « Un Mari Idéal »  (French theatre)  

Thursday 25 & Friday 26 & Saturday 27 July @ 20:45: Les Misérables (original English version) perfromed by the Brno City Theatre (€75, €65, €45)

The Festival de Wiltz asbl, by arrangement with CAMERON MACKINTOSH, presents a new production of BOUBLIL and SCHÖNBERG’S Les Misérables. This production licensed by Josef Weinberger Ltd on behalf of Music Theatre International and CAMERON MACKINTOSH LTD.

Les Misérables is a sung-through musical play based on the novel of the same name by French poet and playwright Victor Hugo. It has music by Claude- Michel Schönberg, original French lyrics by Alain Boublil and Jean-Marc Natel, with an English-language libretto by Herbert Kretzmer. Set in early 19th-century France, it is the story of Jean Valjean, a burly French peasant of abnormal strength and potentially violent nature, and his never ending quest for redemption after serving 20 years in jail for having stolen a loaf of bread for starving relatives. Valjean decides to break his parole and start his life anew after a kindly Bishop inspires him to, but he is relentlessly tracked down by a police inspector named Javert. Along the way, Valjean and a slew of characters he becomes entangled with get swept into a revolutionary period in France, where a group of young idealists make their last stand at a street barricade.

The musical adaptation was originally conceived and produced in France, before its English language adaptation, which opened at the Barbican Centre in London, England, on 8 October 1985, where the production overcame bad notices through word of mouth, launching the beginning of what has turned out to be a global sensation.

Venue: Chateau de Wiltz, Wiltz

Organiser: Wiltz Festival

Price: Season-long ticket: 1st category: €290, or €238 for all except either one of Carmen or Grands Chœurs d’Opéras; 2nd category: €248 (€203); 3rd category: €164 (€133)

Ticketing: Ticket reservations: tel: 958145, email: festival.wiltz@internet.lu

URL: For full details see www.festivalwiltz.lu  

Info Access: covered parking available nearby; "Wiltz Festival Special" train service from Pétange and Luxembourg-gare to and from Wiltz, with shuttle bus from Wiltz-gare to town centre and back again - check http://www.festivalwiltz.lu/TrainsSpeciaux.pdf for details (incl: special €4 parking fee at Luxembourg-gare).

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