Masabane Cecilia Rangwanasha, Dame Sarah Connolly, Allan Clayton, Gerald Finley, London Symphony Orchestra & Sir Antonio Pappano
Biography Masabane Cecilia Rangwanasha, Dame Sarah Connolly, Allan Clayton, Gerald Finley, London Symphony Orchestra & Sir Antonio Pappano
Masabane Cecilia Rangwanasha
won the Song Prize at the 2021 BBC Cardiff Singer of the World Competition and is a current BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist. Last season, the South African received critical acclaim for her return to the Royal Opera House Covent Garden as Liù in »Turandot« and to Theater Bern as Mathilde in »Guillaume Tell« and in the title role of »Iphigénie en Tauride«. On the concert stage, Rangwanasha made her US debut with the Washington National Symphony Orchestra in Samuel Barber's »Knoxville: Summer of 1915«, performing the work again with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. The soprano also sang Mendelssohn's Symphony No. 2 with the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia. In the same year, she gave her debut at the Edinburgh Festival performing Michael Tippett's »A Child of Our Time« with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and returned to the BBC Proms to perform Strauss's »Vier letzte Lieder« with the National Youth Orchestra. This season she will make debuts with the London Symphony Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, at the Washington National Opera and the Hamburg State Opera as Liù, a role she will also perform with the Royal Opera House Covent Garden on tour in Japan.
Dame Sarah Connolly
Born in County Durham, Sarah Connolly studied piano and singing at the Royal College of Music, of which she is now a Fellow. She was made a DBE in the 2017 Birthday Honours, having previously been made a CBE in the 2010 New Year’s Honours. In 2011 she was honoured by the Incorporated Society of Musicians and presented with the Distinguished Musician Award. She is the recipient of the Royal Philharmonic Society’s 2012 Singer Award.
Highlights in her 2017/18 season include her debut at the Wiener Staatsoper in a new production of Ariodante, the title role in Giulio Cesare at the Glyndebourne Festival and Brangäne Tristan und Isolde for the Gran Teatro del Liceu.
Past highlights have included Fricka (Covent Garden & Bayreuther Festspiele) Brangäne Tristan und Isolde (Covent Garden & Festspielhaus Baden-Baden); Komponist Ariadne auf Naxos and Clairon Capriccio (Metropolitan Opera); the title role in Giulio Cesare, Brangäne and Gertrude in the world premiere of Brett Dean's Hamlet (Glyndebourne Festival); the title role in Ariodante and Sesto La clemenza di Tito (Festival d’Aix-en-Provence); Purcell’s Dido (Teatro alla Scala & Covent Garden); Jocaste in Enescu's Œdipe (Covent Garden); Gluck’s Orfeo and the title role in The Rape of Lucretia (Bayerische Staatsoper); Phèdre Hippolyte et Aricie (Opéra national de Paris) and the title role in Agrippina and Nerone L’Incoronazione di Poppea (Gran Teatro del Liceu).
She has also sung the title role in Maria Stuarda and Roméo I Capuleti e i Montecchi (Opera North); Komponist (Welsh National Opera) and Octavian Der Rosenkavalier (Scottish Opera). A favorite at the English National Opera, her many roles for the company have included Geschwitz Lulu; Octavian; the title roles in Charpentier’s Medée and Handel's Agrippina, Xerxes, Ariodante and Ruggiero Alcina; the title role in The Rape of Lucretia; Didon Les Troyens; Roméo, Susie The Silver Tassie and Sesto - for which she was nominated for an Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in Opera.
The future sees her return to the Metropolitan Opera, Covent Garden, the Opéra national de Paris and make her debut at the Teatro Réal in Madrid.
Her many concert engagements include appearances at the Lucerne, Salzburg, Tanglewood and Three Choirs Festivals and at the BBC Proms where, in 2009, she was a memorable guest soloist at The Last Night. Other notable engagements have included The Dream of Gerontius (Boston Symphony Orchestra/Sir Colin Davis & Mozarteumorchester Salzburg/Bolton); Mahler’s Symphony No. 3 at the BBC Proms (LSO/Haitink); A Child of our Time and Brangäne (Berliner Philharmoniker/Rattle); Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 (Leipzig Gewandhausorchester/Chailly, Boston Symphony Orchestra/von Dohnanyi & Philadelphia Orchestra/Nézet-Séguin); Das Lied von der Erde (Concertgebouworkest/Harding, Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra/Nézet-Séguin & LPO/Jurowski); Des Knaben Wunderhorn (L’Orchestre des Champs-Elysées/Herreweghe) and La mort de Cléopâtre (Hallé/Elder, CBSO/Gardner & BBC Symphony Orchestra/Sir Andrew Davis).
She has appeared in recital in London, New York, Boston, Paris, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, San Francisco, Atlanta, Stuttgart; at the Incontri in Terra di Siena La Foce and the Schubertiada Vilabertran and at the Aldeburgh, Cheltenham, Edinburgh and Oxford Lieder Festivals.
Committed to promoting new music, her world premiere performances include two re-discovered songs by Benjamin Britten (BBC Proms 2018) with Joseph Middleton; Sir john Tavener's Gnosis, (BBC Proms); songs by Mark Anthony Turnage, Sally Beamish and Dame Judith Weir, Jonathan Harvey.
Allan Clayton
The breadth of Allan Clayton’s vocal and dramatic range is demonstrated by his acclaimed performances in title roles ranging from Britten’s Albert Herring and Brett Dean’s Hamlet to Berlioz’s La Damnation de Faust and Bernstein’s Candide.
Highlights of the 2020/21 season inlclude his debut as Peter Grimes at the Teatro Real Madrid in a new production by Deborah Warner.
He has worked at leading opera houses around the world, appearing as David (Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg) at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, and the Bavarian State Opera, Ferdinand (Miranda) at the Opéra Comique in Paris and in several of Barrie Kosky’s productions at the Komische Oper in Berlin, including Tamino (Die Zauberflöte), Castor (Castor et Pollux), Jupiter (Semele) and the title role in Candide.
Allan Clayton has appeared at the BBC Proms several times since his debut in 2008, including in Britten’s War Requiem, Berlioz’s L’Enfance du Christ and the title roles in Handel’s Jephtha and Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex. His world premiere performance of Gerald Barry’s Canada from 2017 was shown as part of the revised 2020 BBC Proms, when he also sang Britten’s Nocturne in a live broadcast.
He performs regularly at Wigmore Hall, including as part of a recent Britten Series he curated, and has given song recitals worldwide. Several composers have written song cycles with his voice in mind, including Mark-Anthony Turnage’s Refugee and Josephine Stephenson’s Une Saison en enfer. An advocate of contemporary music, he appeared in the world premieres of George Benjamin’s Written on Skin, Jonathan Dove’s The Adventures of Pinocchio and Gerald Barry’s Alice’s Adventures Under Ground.
Recent concert appearances with the London Symphony Orchestra include Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius under Mark Elder and Britten’s Spring Symphony under Simon Rattle, as well as Mendelssohn’s Elijah with BBC Symphony Orchestra and Sakari Oramo.
His discography includes Handel’s Messiah, Joshua, Acis and Galatea and Belshazzar, Britten’s Saint Nicolas and Serenade for tenor, horn and strings, the album Songs to the Moon with the Myrthen Ensemble, Mozart’s Zaide and Die Schuldigkeit des ersten Gebots as well as the world premiere recording of Benjamin’s Written on Skin.
Allan Clayton won the WhatsOnStage Award for excellence in opera and the Royal Philharmonic Society’s singer award in 2018. He is an associate of the Royal Academy of Music, where he studied after St John’s College, Cambridge.
Sir Antonio Pappano
One of today’s most sought-after conductors, acclaimed for his charismatic leadership and inspirational performances in both symphonic and operatic repertoire, Sir Antonio Pappano is Chief Conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra and was Music Director of the Royal Opera House Covent Garden from 2002 until 2024. He is Music Director Emeritus of the Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome, having served as Music Director from 2005-2023. Nurtured as a pianist, repetiteur and assistant conductor at many of the most important opera houses of Europe and North America, including at the Lyric Opera of Chicago and several seasons at the Bayreuth Festival as musical assistant to Daniel Barenboim, Pappano was appointed Music Director of Oslo’s Den Norske Opera in 1990, and from 1992-2002 served as Music Director of the Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie in Brussels. From 1997-1999 he was Principal Guest Conductor of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra.
Pappano is in demand as an opera conductor at the highest international level, including with the Metropolitan Opera New York, the State Operas of Vienna and Berlin, the Bayreuth and Salzburg Festivals, Lyric Opera of Chicago and the Teatro alla Scala, and has appeared as a guest conductor with many of the world’s most prestigious orchestras, including the Berlin and Vienna Philharmonic Orchestras, the Staatskapelle Dresden, the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, the Bavarian Radio, the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, the Orchestre de Paris and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, as well as the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, Chicago and Boston Symphonies, the Philadelphia and Cleveland Orchestras. He maintains a particularly strong relationship with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe.
Highlights of the 2024/25 season and beyond include return visits to Boston Symphony, the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig and a new production of Die Walkure at the Royal Opera House. In his first season as Chief Conductor of the London Symphony, Pappano takes the orchestra on a wide-ranging touring to the USA, including Carnegie Hall, Japan, Korea, China and across major European capitals and festivals. This collaboration also includes flagship concerts at London’s Barbican Centre with concertante performances of Puccini’s La rondine and Strauss’ opera Salome, and symphonic repertoire including Mahler’s and Walton’s first symphonies, Holst’s Planets, Strauss’ Ein Heldenleben, Tippett’s A Child Of Our Time and Vaughan Williams’ first and ninth symphonies in the continuation of Pappano’s Vaughan Williams recording cycle for LSO Live.
