On the 18th of October Mathieu van Bellen and I presented our take on Puccinis La Boheme at Beethoven-Haus in Bonn. The concert was a part of the final BeBeethoven festival, and the concert was filmed for streaming (check it out here)
This concert included several new additions and changes to the arrangement. We have kept on improving our parts for each concert, and are at this point more than happy with a score that is weird enough and complex enough to represent an orchestra, two choirs and a whole cast of operatic soloists. It was special to feel the weight of performing this piece in the midsts of a pandemic, and what was always one of the more real and relatable operas now hit even closer to home.
A week earlier we premiered our second opera arrangement at PODIUM Festival in Esslingen. After the light and (in an operatic context) abnormaly-devoid-of-evil; La Boheme, we turned to the dark and shockingly bloody Tosca. This score is quite different from Boheme, and presented some new (but quite welcome) challenges. In addition to a vast amount of different church bells, an organ and a huge canon, the opera also features pure evil in the form of the character Scarpia. While the violin takes on the other two leading parts (Tosca and Cavaradossi), the piano has to tackle Scarpia - and to play evil (without the help of making an evil face) is not an easy task. However, it is an extremely satisfying one - and in some weird ways it feels almost therapeutic.