Archived performance
Featuring
Sir Andrew Davis conductor
Program
Ravel Mother Goose Suite
Stravinsky Firebird Suite (1919)
Stravinsky The Rite of Spring
About the performance
Ballet, with its rich trove of stories realised in imaginative form, relies on the unification of movement, visualisation and music. Great ballets are born when the diverse elements attain greatness together, and no company was more successful in this than the famed Ballets Russes of Serge Diaghilev.
In the early decades of the Twentieth Century, Igor Stravinsky responded to Diaghilev’s commissions with a series of ballet scores which are among the greatest ever composed: including the rapturous and exotic Firebird and the visceral and intense Rite of Spring. Telling its tale of the liberation of captive souls from the evil enchantment of Katschei, the Firebird reaches a stirring, jubilant climax. The Rite of Spring delves into a darker, ancient past to create its unique, mesmerising world of barbaric power.
Counterposing these fabulous creations, Ravel’s Mother Goose is an idyllic evocation of childhood. Inspired by the fairy tale creators of the French Baroque, the suite achieves its powerful emotional effect through the simple radiance of its poetic vision.
Together these three towering masterpieces make up one momentous concert.
Running time
1 hour and 50 minutes, including a 20-minute interval.
Pre-concert talk
Join MSO Cybec Assistant Conductor, Tianyi Lu, inside Costa Hall for a Stravinsky-inspired pre-concert discussion beginning at 6.30pm.
