Four Last Songs by Strauss, MacMillan, Von Suppé, Puccini, jue. 27 feb 2025, De (2025/2025), Director Manfred Honeck, Het Concertgebouw, Ámsterdam, Países Bajos

At the end of his long career, Richard Strauss composed the Vier letzte Lieder, a musical embrace in which calm and acceptance prevail. And what better interpreter of such calm after the storm than Renée Fleming, whose warm voice and vocal mastery every listener should be lucky enough to hear live? Over twenty years since his Concertgebouw Orchestra debut, Manfred Honeck has long enjoyed a reputation as one of the world’s leading conductors. In addition to Strauss’s Vier letzte Lieder, the Austrian conductor leads the orchestra in a self-arranged suite of highlights from Puccini’s last opera, Turandot. The music enveloping this cruel tale, sometimes highly lyrical, then exciting and exuberant, is beautifully expressed in an instrumental suite. The concert opens with Franz von Suppé’s overture Dichter und Bauer, and after the interval the orchestra will perform the Scottish composer James MacMillan’s moving Larghetto.