English Touring Opera – Lyric Solitude 4 – Shostakovich’s Poems of Marina Tsvetaeva/The Holy Sonnets of John Donne. Charm of Lullabies by Britten

The drama of living in a state of war runs through this programme, featuring responses in movement made to the music and poetry. Mezzo soprano Katie Stevenson is the soloist in Shostakovich’s tribute to Russian poet Marina Tsvetaeva, an utterly unique voice in the maelstrom of the inter war and war years. Choreographer Rahel Vonmoos has devised a response in movement. Stevenson is also the soloist in Britten’s bizarre Charm of Lullabies, composed on poems by William Blake, Robert Burns, Robert Greene, Thomas Randolph and John Phillip – maybe not the kind of thing to sing you to sleep. Iglich sets Britten’s eloquent, searing response to what he saw at the concentration camp at Belsen at the end of the war in The Holy Sonnets of John Donne. Donne’s sonnets ravish and twist, and call out for love and understanding. They are sung by tenor Richard Dowling.