1 Staatskapelle Berlin
Daniel Barenboim has become an annual visitor to the Proms. The orchestra that he conducts in Berlin appears regularly with him at the Albert Hall, too, and it’s the Staatskapelle that dominates the first weekend of the new summer season with a pair of concerts in which Barenboim conducts the two Elgar symphonies. In the first of them, Symphony No 1 is prefaced by Sibelius’s Violin Concerto, with Lisa Batiashvili as the soloist; while before the second symphony we get the UK premiere of Harrison Birtwistle’s Deep Time, which Barenboim and his magnificent band performed for the first time last month.
Royal Albert Hall, SW7, 15-16 July
2 Zazà
Opera Holland Park has carved out a real niche for itself with its revivals of some of the lesser-known verismo works of Puccini’s Italian contemporaries. Every season seems to include another example, and this time it is Leoncavallo’s sentimental comedy, Zazà. The title character is a music hall star, and the opera depicts her life on the boards.
Opera Holland Park, W8, 18-29 July
3 Outscape
We hear less than we should about the music of Pascal Dusapin, now France’s leading living composer. There’s plenty of it to explore, including no less than 10 concertante works, the latest of which receives its UK premiere as the centrepiece of the BBC Symphony Orchestra’s prom. Outscape is a rather introspective single-movement cello concerto lasting almost half an hour; it was co-commissioned by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and first performed last year with Alisa Weilerstein as the soloist. She plays it here too, with her brother Joshua Weilerstein conducting.
Royal Albert Hall, SW7, 19 July
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