Payare Conducts Schoenberg’s Gurre-Lieder 2024-2025
Joined by renowned soloists and commanding colossal vocal and instrumental means, Rafael Payare conducts a monument of the post-Romantic repertoire: Schoenberg’s Gurre-Lieder.
After performances this past April of Transfigured Night and Pelleas und Melisande, to open the 2024–2025 season, Rafael Payare continues his exploration of Schoenberg’s works with a monument of the post-Romantic repertoire: the Gurre-Lieder. This imposing musical saga narrating the ill-fated romances of King Waldemar at the Gurre Castle, unfolds against a backdrop of jealousy, demise, and damnation, and reaches its apex in the final chorus heralding the dawn of salvation. Schoenberg offers deep insight into human nature, while his music vividly and sensitively highlights the psychology of his characters. Though colossal, the work’s vocal and instrumental scoring is characterized by finesse and poetry. The deeply moving and striking Gurre-Lieder reveal a facet of Schoenberg’s personality well worth discovering.
Artists
Orchestre symphonique de Montréal
Rafael Payare, conductor
Dorothea Röschmann, soprano (Tove)
Clay Hilley, tenor (Waldemar)
Karen Cargill, alto (Wood-Dove)
Stephan Rügamer, tenor (Klaus, the fool)
Thomas E. Bauer, baritone (Peasant)
Ben Heppner, Sprechstimme (Narrator)
Mani Soleymanlou, presenter
OSM Chorus
Andrew Megill, chorus master
The chorusmaster chair is generously sponsored by Mrs. Ann Birks, in loving memory of Barry Drummond Birks.
Programme
Arnold Schoenberg, Gurre-Lieder, for soloists, chorus and orchestra (99 min.)
Concert without intermission