Errollyn Wallen Mighty River
Wagner (orch Henze) Wesendonck-Lieder
DvoÅ™ák Symphony No9 From the New World

James Lowe Conductor
Karen Cargill Mezzo-soprano

Errollyn Wallen’s Mighty River is dedicated to her great-great-great-great-great-great-grandmother, who was likely to have been a slave. ‘It is an innate human instinct to be free,’ she says, ‘just as it is a law of nature that the river should rush headlong to the sea.’ This gripping orchestral work from one of Britain’s most original living composers makes an unforgettable impact. Accompanied by DvoÅ™ák’s stunning New World Symphony and Wagner’s sensuous love songs performed by Scottish mezzo-soprano Karen Cargill.

Please note, this concert has had a change in conductor, guest artist and programme since first advertised.

The story of Dido and Aeneas didn’t end with Dido’s death. Errollyn Wallen takes the story forward, interweaving a full performance of Purcell’s great tragedy with her imaginative new partner-piece.

‘Remember me, but ah! Forget my fate' sings Dido at the end of Purcell’s opera. But life isn’t quite as easy as that, and some memories have a destiny of their own. Set several years after the Carthaginian queen’s death, Dido’s Ghost finds Dido’s sister Anna abandoned on the shores of Aeneas’s new kingdom, igniting a murderous jealously in Aeneas’s wife Lavinia – and as events play out, its characters confront a past that refuses to fade.

Errollyn Wallen’s new opera, based on a tale by Roman poet Ovid, embraces and complements Purcell’s original, which is performed in its entirety as the centrepiece of a drama that is both old and new. Performed by the period instruments of the Dunedin Consort, past blurs into present and memory becomes emotion in this ambitious and poignant new commission.