Renée Fleming sings “Marietta’s Lied” from Erick Korngold’s Die Tote Stadt

Die Kathrin, op. 28. "Ich soll ihn niemals, niemals mehr sehn" Letter scene of Kathrin, Act 1 It’s Munich’s classic open-air concert: in summer 2019 the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Munich Philharmonic will again thrill some 16,000 fans in their outdoor “Klassik am Odeonsplatz” concert. There’s a special charm in listening to popular melodies from the classical repertoire while sipping wine at sunset against the picturesque backdrop of the Munich Residence, Feldherrnhalle and Theatine Church. On Saturday evening the American conductor Alan Gilbert will head the Bavarian RSO in a programme centring on Tchaikovsky. The pièce de rèsistance is Tchaikovsky’s Fifth, the “Fate Symphony”, hovering between buoyant waltzes and heroic triumph. The star guest in the first half of the concert is soprano Renée Fleming, likewise from the United States. After an introductory polonaise she will sing Tatyana’s famous letter scene from Tchaikovsky’s opera Eugene Onegin after Pushkin. No less touching is Kathrin’s letter scene from the like-named opera by Erich Wolfgang Korngold, a Jewish composer exiled to America. Then comes a pas de deux from Leonard Bernstein’s musical On the Town, after which Mme Fleming will enchant the audience with the Irish ballad about the “last rose of summer” from Friedrich von Flotow’s early 19th-century opera Martha and the immortal anthem “You’ll never walk alone” from Richard Rodger’s musical Carousel – a tune familiar not only to soccer fans from FC Liverpool! Once again this year’s event will be broadcast live on radio and video stream by BR-KLASSIK and on Bavarian Television.