Tugan Sokhiev & Siobhan Stagg by Various, De la (2022/2022), Dirijor Tugan Sokhiev, Herkulessaal, Munich, Germany

Tugan Sokhiev, who recently stepped down from his post at Moscow’s Bolshoi Theatre, will make his BRSO début in a programme of impressionist music ranging from sensual eroticism and exotic landscapes to a kaleidoscope of visual imagery. Debussy, in Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune, depicts the fantasies of a faun poised between languid daydreams and lustful desire on a sultry afternoon. Ravel invokes the sensuality of the Orient in his three-piece song cycle Shéhérazade: the tales told by this female storyteller from Arabian Nights are musically brought to life in a strange, beautiful, eerie world full of fascination and terrors in equal measure. Finally, in Pictures at an Exhibition, Mussorgsky produced a work that not only recreates visual impressions in sound, but expands each picture into a unique musical cosmos.