DingDing

《伊甸》 'EDEN' - Joyce DiDonato 音樂會

2024年6月3日(星期一) 7:30 pm

香港大會堂音樂廳

繼2019年迅速售罄的《戰爭與和平》演出，歌劇界巨星狄杜娜朵（Joyce DiDonato）將携新作《伊甸》再度訪港在亞洲首演。

《伊甸》是一場完美結合音樂、劇場和舞蹈的作品，當中選奏跨越四個世紀的樂曲，從格魯克（Gluck）、韓德爾（Handel）利到馬勒（Mahler）、艾菲斯（Ives），以及奧斯卡獲獎作曲家麗珍．波特曼（Rachel Portman）的全新作品。《伊甸》弘揚希望，歌頌自然，借助音樂的力量來重新建立人與人之間的連繫。

狄杜娜朵將與她長期合作的金蘋果古樂團（il Pomo d’Oro）和指揮Zefira Valova攜手演出。他們共同將這部深刻的作品帶給香港觀眾。在動盪的時代中，讓我們一起慶祝人類精神的韌性。

杜娜朵願景是在巡演的每個城市都聘用當地的教學藝術家,與他們合作,放大年輕人和其他人對EDEN的體驗,利用他們的聲音和創意項目,更深入地理解自然及其在這個世界中的直接影響。當地的兒童合唱團也將有機會在EDEN的演出中與迪多納托同台演出。 今次一起演出的德望中學的合唱團•

節目

《伊甸》

EDEN是迪多納托最新的多面向計劃,她將在未來四年中投入大量時間,通過音樂、戲劇和教育來探討我們與大自然的個人聯繫。這個計劃包括2022-2024年在五大洲45多個場地巡演,一張Erato唱片,開創性的教育項目,以及多個合作夥伴,將產生深遠的影響和遺產。 

The EDEN project:

EDEN is DiDonato’s latest multi-faceted initiative, one that she will dedicate much of her time over the next four years to, uniting music, drama, and education to confront questions of our individual connection to Nature. Comprised of a tour of over 45 venues across five continents between 2022-24, an Erato album, ground-breaking education programme, and multiple partnerships, EDEN’s long-term impact and legacy will be far reaching.

DiDonato’s passionate belief, and the driving force behind EDEN, is that a collective return to our “best selves” is needed to not only address our current climate crisis, but the crisis of heart, as well. By examining our relationship to the natural world and our unique place within it, EDEN invites the listener to explore and search for answers about belonging, purpose, and healing.

“With each passing day,” writes DiDonato, “I trust more and more in the perfect balance, astonishing mystery and guiding force of the natural world around us, how much Mother Nature has to teach us. EDEN is an invitation to return to our roots and to explore whether or not we are connecting as profoundly as we can to the pure essence of our being, to create a new EDEN from within and plant seeds of hope for the future.”

Alongside her long-standing orchestral partners, Il Pomo d’Oro and conductor Maxim Emelyanychev DiDonato will collaborate with stage director Marie Lambert and Academy Award-winning composer Rachel Portman, combining music from different genres with a stage setting designed to connect the audience with the very heart of the natural world around us.

DiDonato describes how, in challenging times, contact with the natural world in conjunction with her musical life makes her “feel connected and sense that I’m an integral part of something bigger. A seed is awakened within me. This is precisely when I seek out the comfort and connection of music: with each passing day I trust more and more in the perfect balance, astonishing mystery, and guiding force of the musical world. Both nature and music are showing us the way – a way dictated by harmony and balance. Will we answer the call?”

The Erato album EDEN is released on February 25th, 2022 and the international tour begins on March 2, 2022 in Brussels. The repertoire for both is richly diverse, pulling from the timeless theme of nature which has captivated composers over the centuries with each track exploring an aspect of humankind’s relationship with nature and will, in DiDonato’s words, “have no boundaries – like a wild garden.”

Ranging from the 17th to the 21st century, and embracing such composers as Handel, Gluck, Wagner, Mahler, Ives, Copland and Oscar-winner Rachel Portman – who DiDonato has commissioned to write a new work specially for EDEN – the programme is at the heart of this visionary project.

Crossing a number of musical genres, EDEN opens with two pieces that pose questions: dating from 1908, Charles Ives’s enigmatic The Unanswered Question, in which DiDonato sings lines usually assigned to a trumpet, and a new commission from the Academy Award winning British composer Rachel Portman. For EDEN, Portman has teamed up with American poet and writer Gene Scheer to compose The First Morning of the World. Scheer, admired for his collaborations with such prominent composers as Jake Heggie (including the song cycle Camille Claudel: Into the fire, written for DiDonato and released on Erato in 2018) acknowledges, through its evocative text, that this is a moment rife with questions, wondering about “the sounds and the songs from the first morning of the world.”

An oratorio aria by Josef Mysliveček is taken from a retelling of the story of Adam and Eve, as the Angel of Justice utters a stern and bitter warning to his people. From the earlier part of the 18th century Handel is represented by his famous “Largo”, a breathtaking ode to the refreshing shade of a plane tree. The early glories of Italian opera are evoked in an aria from Cavalli’s opera of gods and humans, La Calisto. Its story opens on a scorched, arid landscape, but it ends with Calisto, its heroine, ascending to the stars.

Integral to EDEN is a new and industry-defining model that will set a new standard for the local impact artists can have in amplifying the power of their performances. By engaging with multiple international partners, EDEN ensures that its education and community work is central to the project, and that its legacy is real and long-lasting.

As International Teaching Artists Collaborative (ITAC)’s Climate Ambassador, DiDonato has been working with them on the design and delivery of EDEN Engagement—an interdisciplinary music-nature education and community programme for children’s choirs and school groups across the globe, under the guidance of Eric Booth, Co-Founder of ITAC. The vision is to employ local Teaching Artists in every city on the tour, and work with them to amplify young peoples’ and others’ experiences of EDEN, using their voices and creative projects to gain a deeper understanding of nature and their direct impact within the world. Local children’s choirs will also get the opportunity to perform on stage with DiDonato in the EDEN concerts.

Botanic Gardens Conservation International and DiDonato have created The EDEN Sustainability Challenge that poses simple goals which demonstrably bring a more sustainable lifestyle. BGCI are providing native seeds for audience members to plant, bringing a rare and singular opportunity for the classical music community to literally and collectively plant a new “EDEN” across the globe, actively participating in regeneration, awareness and creation.'