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Melbourne Symphony Orchestra: Opening Gala – Zenith of Life
February 24, 2023 @ 7:30 pm - 9:30 pm
The Ryman Healthcare Season Opening Gala: Zenith of Life
MSO Chief Conductor Jaime Martín and superstar soprano Siobhan Stagg open Season 2023 with a new commission by MSO Composer in Residence Mary Finsterer and some of the most achingly beautiful music ever written.
Inspired by the renaissance-style motet, Mary Finsterer’s MYSTERIUM I explores an interweaving of polyphonic musical structures within a serene and majestic setting.
Posthumously titled Four Last Songs after his death in 1948, Strauss’s sublime pieces farewell a life and world once-known, but irrevocably altered by two world wars. 2023 Soloist in Residence and darling of the international stage, Mildura-born Siobhan Stagg, imbues these complex works with nostalgia, naïveté, and gentle, world-weary heartache.
Written almost fifty years before Strauss’s songs and before the shadow of war, Mahler’s Fifth Symphony is a musical journey from tragedy to triumph: a story of life, death, and love. The lush lyricism of Mahler’s night-time storms, exuberant brass calls, and musical love letters draws us into a mysterious world beyond time and space.