A performance at St Mary’s Kirk in Haddington on 11 September will mark the 50th anniversary of the death of famous composer Benjamin Britten.
The concert, part of the Lammermuir Festival, features singers Charlotte Jane Kennedy, Avery Lafrentz, and Charlotte Clapperton from the company’s Emerging Artists programme.
Douglas Boyd conducts The Orchestra of Scottish Opera through works by Britten and Estonian composer Arvo Pärt.
The programme opens with Pärt’s Cantus in memoriam Benjamin Britten, written for string orchestra and a single bell.
Pärt wrote the piece on the day of Britten’s death in 1976, drawing inspiration from Gregorian chant and his own tintinnabulation style.
The performance then moves to three of Britten’s works for solo voice: Our Hunting Fathers, Phaedra, and Les Illuminations.
Written in 1936, Our Hunting Fathers was Britten’s first song cycle for voice and orchestra.
The piece features text by poet WH Auden, who Britten met while composing film music, and carries a pacifist theme condemning war.
Phaedra, a modern psychological take on the Greek myth of the wife of Theseus, was written for mezzo-soprano Dame Janet Baker.
Baker’s career included roles with Scottish Opera such as Dido in The Trojans and Octavian in Der Rosenkavalier.
Les Illuminations, composed when Britten was 25, explores themes of love and passion through the works of French poet Arthur Rimbaud.
First performed in 1940, the cycle will be sung by a soprano as originally intended.
Conductor Douglas Boyd said: “My love of opera started as a teenager in Glasgow going to Scottish Opera when the great Sir Alexander Gibson was the Artistic Director.
“Many years later, opera is still central to my life as Artistic Director of Garsington Opera.
“All the works you will hear by another of my heroes, Britten, are like opera scenes, where text, music, and fantasy combine to produce great art.”
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