ENO premieres a musical theatre version of Polish composer Henryk Górecki’s “Symphony No. 3”.
Symphony No. 3. Op. 36 (Symphony of Sorrowful Songs), the most popular work by the Polish composer Henryk Górecki (Czernica, 1933-Katowice, 2010), premieres tomorrow, Thursday 27 April, at the English National Opera’s (ENO) London Coliseum, in a musical theatre version conducted by Lydiya Yankovskaya, musical director of the Chicago Opera Theater, and directed and designed by Isabella Bywater, with American soprano Nicole Chevalier as soloist. Only six performances are scheduled: in addition to tomorrow’s premiere, there will be two performances on 29 April (at 16:00 and 19:00), and one each on 3 and 5 May (at 19:30), ending on Saturday 6 May at 16:00.
Composed in 1976, Symphony No. 3 was situated between the rawness of Górecki’s early atonal works and the more tonal harmony of his later years, those called of Holy Minimalism. In 1991 the American label Nonesuch Records issued a recording of the London Sinfonietta with soprano Dawn Upshaw as soloist, which became very popular thanks to its broadcast on the newly created British radio station Classic FM, and immediately became an absolute success. The symphony remained in the top forty best-selling albums in the UK for eleven weeks, becoming one of the most commercial pieces of classical music of the modern era, of which numerous versions have been made.