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| Lawrence Brownlee |
Tenor Lawrence Brownlee is on of the premier bel canto tenors round in the mean time. And he is rightly busy, his season included a last-minute step-in as Elvino in Bellini’s La sonnambula on the Met, the place he not too long ago opened in Donizetti’s La fille du régiment, alongside Erin Morley, and additional forward there he stars in a brand new manufacturing of Bellini’s I Puritani – the Met’s first in practically fifty years.
The excellent news is that Brownlee is making a London look on 22 November 2025 in recital at Wigmore Corridor with pianist Iain Burnside. Their programme is an enchanting showcase of music by Italian and American composers with nary an operatic aria in sight.
As a substitute, Brownless and Burnside open with a number of songs by Donizetti earlier than transferring onto Respighi. Then they transfer on to Liszt’s Tre sonetti di Petrarca within the virtuosic first model. Arias in all however title, that is music impressed by Liszt’s sojurn in Italy within the 1830s and we are able to virtually hear distant hints of Bellini within the vocal line, which makes it all of the extra fascinating having them sung by a bel canto tenor.
The second half of the programme displays Brownlee’s engagement with more moderen music. First there may be Dominick Argento’s Six Elizabethan Music and songs from Ricky Ian Gordon’s Genuis Baby.
Argento’s songs have been written within the late Nineteen Fifties for the tenor Nicholas Di Virgilio. The composer stated of them, “The songs are known as ‘Elizabethan’ as a result of the lyrics are drawn from that wealthy interval in literature, whereas the music is within the spirit (if not the way) of the nice English composer- singer-lutenist, John Dowland. The principle concern is the paramount significance of the poetry and the primacy of the vocal line over a comparatively easy and supportive accompaniment.“
Ricky Ian Gordon’s Genuis Baby is a cycle of ten songs written in 1993 for soprano Harolyn Blackwell. They set poems by Langston Hughes and the songs have been described as “one of many freshest English language track cycles to come back alongside in latest reminiscence”.
Brownlee’s mission Rising, commissioned six of in the present day’s main African-American composers to set poetry from the Harlem Renaissance to track. Brownlee recorded their cycles alongside alternatives by Margaret Bonds and Robert Owens.
And on the live performance Brownlee will probably be singing Robert Owens’ Want, settings of 4 poems by Langston Hughes. Robert Owens (1925-2017) was born in Texas and studied in Europe after the Warfare, returning to Germany within the late Nineteen Fifties the place he developed a profession as a movie and stage actor, composer, and pianist.
Brownlee may also be performing songs by Jasmine Barnes and Joel Thompson from his Rising mission.
Full particulars from the Wigmore Corridor web site.
