Los Angeles Master Chorale To Open The 2019 Salzburg Festival With LA GRIME DE SAN PIETRO

The prestigious honor of performing the opening concerts of the 2019 Salzburg Festival in Austria on July 20 and 21 will be one highlight of the Los Angeles Master Chorale's Spring/Summer tour of its acclaimed production of Orlando di Lasso's Lagrime di San Pietro directed by Peter Sellars. The tour will feature 21 Master Chorale singers conducted by Grant Gershon, Kiki & David Gindler Artistic Director.

The 2019 Salzburg Festival, the internationally-renowned performing arts festival known for presenting daring and historically important classical music and opera productions, runs July 20 through August 31. The Los Angeles Master Chorale's performances of Lagrime di San Pietro (Tears of St. Peter) will mark the choir and Gershon's debut at the Festival. Peter Sellars - who made his debut in 1992 with Messiaen's Saint François d'Assise - will also direct a new production of Mozart's Indomeneo at this year's Festival.

"An American choir being invited to perform the opening concerts at the Salzburg Festival is a capital-letter Big Deal," says Grant Gershon. "It is extremely gratifying to see that this production, created with such heart by Peter Sellars with our amazing singers, is being recognized worldwide as offering audiences something truly special. We continue to be honored and humbled by the places Orlando di Lasso's music is taking us."

From Salzburg, the company will travel to Ingolstadt in Bavaria for a performance on July 23 at the City Theatre. Prior to Salzburg and Ingolstadt, the production travels to Berkeley for its Bay Area premiere presented by Cal Performances (May 17) before three European engagements at The Barbican Centre in London (May 23), Sage Gateshead in Gateshead, England (May 25), and the Cité de la musique in Paris (May 27). Upon its return to the U.S., the Master Chorale will take the production to the Lensic Performing Arts Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico (May 31).

Previous tour dates have included performances at the Ravinia Festival, Krannert Center for the Performing Arts, the Melbourne International Arts Festival, Festival Internacional Cervantino in Guanajuato, Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City, The Wallis Annenberg Center for Performing Arts, UMS at the University of Michigan, and Carolina Performing Arts.

The Los Angeles Master Chorale's production of Lagrime di San Pietro was first staged in its home venue, Walt Disney Concert Hall, in October 2016. The work is a Renaissance-era 21 madrigal cycle depicting the seven stages of grief that St. Peter experienced after disavowing his knowledge of Jesus Christ on the day of his arrest and prior to his crucifixion. It is set to the poetry of 16th century Italian Renaissance poet Luigi Tansillo. Sellars, working with his frequent collaborator, lighting designer James F. Ingalls, translates Lagrime di San Pietro through a contemporary lens, suggesting a powerful allegory that by taking responsibility and facing our past head-on, we can forge a more resolved and fulfilling future. His staging sees the singers perform the challenging music from memory while also acting and moving throughout the 90-minute piece dressed in muted costumes designed by Danielle Domingue Sumi.

Reviewing the premiere performance for Opera News, Simon Williams said: "If evidence were needed that imaginative staging can provide us with access to difficult works of art, then it was offered in abundance by the Los Angeles Master Chorale in an extraordinary performance of Orlando di Lasso's a cappella masterpiece, Lagrime di San Pietro."

The Lagrime tour dates are in addition to the Los Angeles Master Chorale's own concert season presented in Walt Disney Concert Hall and its engagements with the Los Angeles Philharmonic in Disney Hall and at the Hollywood Bowl. Tour dates for Lagrime continue to be booked into the 2019-20 and 2020-21 seasons. The touring production is represented by David Lieberman Artists' Representatives.

Lagrime di San Pietro is made possible with generous underwriting from The Lovelace Family Trust and is dedicated to the memory of Jon Lovelace in honor of the special friendship he shared with director Peter Sellars.

The touring production of Lagrime di San Pietro is supported by lead sponsors Kiki and David Gindler; patron sponsors Philip A. Swan, and Laney and Tom Techentin; and contributing sponsors Jerrie and Abbott Brown, Cindy and Gary Frischling, Marian H. and John Niles, Frederick J. Ruopp, and Eva and Marc Stern.

To post a comment, you must register and login.