MONDAY, JUNE I
Baroque arias
Women of the Golden Age
In this concert, entitled Altın Çağın Kadınları (‘Women of the Golden Age’) and one of the events of the 17th International Istanbul Opera and Ballet Festival, singers from the Istanbul State Opera and Ballet Company perform a selection of arias from the Baroque period, many of them depicting mythological events of a romantic or tragic nature involving women. The performers are sopranos Ceren Aydın, Esra Çetiner, Otilia İpek and Ayşe Şener Özmen, and mezzo-sopranos Esen Demirci and Elif Tuğba Tekışık.
20:00
Tickets from Biletinial
Price: 500TL (students 350TL)
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 3
Baroque arias
Suleika ‘Lied Evening’
The German soprano Carolina Ullrich and the Turkish pianist Ahmet Sait Karabulut perform in a recital entitled Suleika Lied Akşamı (‘Suleika ‘Lied Evening’’) that is one of the events of the 17th International Istanbul Opera and Ballet Festival. Suleika, an intelligent young woman, is an iconic character who figures in Goethe’s West-östlicher Divan (‘West-East Divan’), a book of poetry that was published in 1819; the poems in it, inspired by the Persian poet Hafiz, combine Eastern mysticism with Western romanticism. In reality, ‘Suleika’ was Marianne von Willemer, an Austrian actress and dancer whom Goethe met in 1814, and fell in love with. Franz Schubert, Felix Mendelssohn and Fanny Mendelssohn wrote songs around this character, and the recital consists of songs about her that focus on the rhythms of nature, the ecstasy of love and freedom of spirit.
20:00
Tickets from Biletinial
Price: 500TL (students 350TL)
MONDAY, JUNE 8
TUESDAY, JUNE 9
Opera
Mozart’s ‘The Abduction from the Seraglio’
In this, one of the events of the 17th International Istanbul Opera and Ballet Festival, members of the Istanbul State Opera and Ballet Company perform Mozart’s three-act opera ‘The Abduction from the Seraglio’ (Saraydan Kız Kaçırma), K 384, the original title of which was Die Entführung aus dem Serail. The plot concerns the hero Belmonte’s attempt to rescue his beloved Constanze from the palace of Pasha Selim; in this, it loosely refers to the North African Barbary corsairs’ practice of hijacking ships belonging to Christian states, kidnapping the crew and passengers, and demanding ransom. Mozart’s opera was written to be performed by an opera company, set up by the Austrian Emperor Joseph II, that was intended to encourage the composition and performance of operas in the German language at a time when Italian operas were all the rage. In actual fact, Die Entführung aus dem Serail is not actually an opera, but a singspiel, which differs from an opera in that there are no recitatives; instead, the action is carried forward mostly by spoken dialogue. In the performances on June 8 and 9, the conductor is Zdravko Lazarov and the director Caner Akın.
20:00
Tickets for June 8 & 9: sold out.
SUNDAY, JUNE 14
Chamber music
The Berlin Soloists with Iestyn Davies (counter-tenor)
In this, one of the events of the 54th İKSV Istanbul Music Festival, the British counter-tenor Iestyn Davies, named ‘Young Artist of the Year’ by the Royal Philharmonic Society in 2010, is accompanied by four members of the Berlin Soloists – Noah Bendix-Bagley and Hande Küden (violins), Diyang Mei (viola) and Knut Weber (cello) – in works by the late Renaissance/early Baroque composer Claudio Monteverdi (Possente spirto from Act III of his opera L’Orfeo), the young Korean composer Donghoon Shin (his Sonnets to Orpheus), the 20th-century American composer Samuel Barber (his Dover Beach for Voice and String Quartet, Opus 3) and Franz Schubert (his Quartet Movement in C minor, D 703).
The string-players then perform Mendelssohn’s four-movement String Quartet No 2 in A minor, Opus 13, written when the composer was 18 years old. This work was written a few months after the death of Beethoven, and it shows the influence of this latter’s late quartets in that it adopts their cyclic formal organisation. In this, Mendelssohn was unique: he was alone among his contemporaries both in understanding and appreciating the innovations Beethoven had brought about in his late quartets, and in adopting their formal structure. In fact, it was not until it was taken up by César Franck (1822-90) in his late works that the idea of ‘cyclic organisation’ resurfaced in classical music.
20:00
Tickets from Passo
Prices: 1750TL, 2250TL, 2500TL, 3000TL (box)
Eczacıbaşı Youth Ticket: 50TL
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 17
Chamber Music
‘Women Stars of Tomorrow’
This event, one of those of the 54th İKSV Istanbul Music Festival, is intended to showcase the talents of young female musicians who have received scholarships from the Industrial Development Bank of Turkey (Türkiye Sınai Kalkınma Bankası) to study at prestigious institutions abroad. Over the past 8 years, 120 such young women have benefited from this support. The guest musician at the concert on June 17 will be flautist Aslıhan And Say, who teaches at the Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University State Conservatoire.
20:00
Tickets from Passo
Prices: 1500TL, 1750TL, 2000TL (Altın Destek/‘Golden Support’), 2750TL (Platinum Destek/‘Platinum Support’)
Eczacıbaşı Youth Ticket: 50TL
MONDAY, JUNE 22
Arias for mezzo-soprano and tenor
‘A Festival Encounter’
In this recital, one of the events of the 54th İKSV Istanbul Music Festival, the British tenor Ian Bostridge and the Turkish mezzo-soprano Feride Büyükdenktaş are accompanied by the Italian-Dutch pianist Saskia Giorgini. Their programme consists of the following works: Debussy’s 1897 Trois Chansons de Bilitis; three songs by the French lady composer Mélanie (‘Mel’) Bonis (1858-1937) – Désdemone, Op. 101, Mélisande, Op. 109, and Ophélie, Op. 165; three songs by Clara Schumaan (née Wieck) – Liebst du um Schönheit, Op. 12 No. 2, Lorelei, WoO19, and Sie liebten sich beide, Op. 13 No. 2; Robert Schumann’s Fünf Lieder, Op. 40, and his song cycle Liederkreis, Op. 24; Sarı Gelin (a traditional Azerbaijani song) and the American folk song Wildwood Flower (anonymous, with lyrics attributed to Maud Irving, both songs being arranged by Kian Ravaei); and Robert Schumann’s Vier Duette, Op. 78.
20:00
Tickets from Passo
Prices: 1750TL, 2250TL, 2500TL, 3000TL (box)
