Masterclasses, Lectures, and Listening Rooms

28th November 2024 - 5:30PM-7:00PM Red Note Studios

Kennst du das Land 
In 1795 when Goethe wrote his famous novel, Wilhem Meister’s Lehrjahre (Wilhem Meister’s Apprenticeship), as a fictional biography, he embedded through which the alienated waif, heroine Mignon “sang” to explore her own emotional life.

Goethe assumed these “planted” poems would attract composers such as  Reichardt, Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Liszt, Wolf and others took up Goethe’s temptation. Their settings helped set Mignon as a heroine for the Romantic Movement’s emotional self-exploration and appropriation of landscape and the classical past as expressions of longing for what we might term psychological repairment or wholeness. 

5th December 2024 - 5:30-7:00PM Red Note Studios

The Persuasive Voice: Monody and the birth of opera
Today we think of the aria as the emotional heart of opera. Recitative may drive the narrative, but time stands still when a character reveals their hopes, fears or love in a moment of ardent lyricism. But this was not always the case. In opera’s beginnings, it was passionately intoned speech, called monody, that bore that responsibility, a practice that was inextricably linked to the noble art of oratory.

In this presentation, we shall explore the origins of the style and demonstrate, citing examples from Monteverdi’s Orfeo, how the practitioner can harness contemporary practices in order to optimise their delivery of the text.

27th November 2024 - 5:30PM-7:00PM Red Note Studios

Join us for a Listening Room with Sharolyn Kimmorley, who is Artistic Manager to the Dame Nellie Melba Opera Trust.

4th December 2024 - 5:30-7:00PM Red Note Studios

Join us for a Listening Room with Felice Venanzoni, who is now in charge of artistic development of the singers at the Oper Frankfurt Opera Studio.