Their themes are power, intrigue, betrayal, war and peace, faith and love – 18th-century operas fascinate, touch and move the audience, conjuring up strong feelings. Particularly because gifted composers had the ability to illuminate, intensify and heighten the protagonists’ emotions with their music. The Russian soprano Julia Lezhneva, who debuted with the Berliner Philharmoniker in October 2019 with works by Joseph Haydn and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, is now returning in the Vokal concert series to present a programme in the Chamber Music Hall consisting of arias by the leading opera composers of the 18th century: Georg Friedrich Händel, the towering opera genius of his time; Nicola Porpora, who was not only a composer but also a singing teacher and who therefore knew how to deploy the human voice effectively; Carl Heinrich Graun, also a singer himself; and finally Antonio Vivaldi, whom we may know today primarily as an instrumental composer, but who composed more than 50 operas. With her clear, flexible, brilliant voice, very capable in coloratura, Julia Lezhneva has the ideal prerequisites to trace the emotions of the Baroque stage characters in all their facets.

The soprano will be accompanied by the group La Voce Strumentale, with whom the singer has successfully collaborated for many years. The string ensemble, made up of prizewinners of various international music competitions and specialised in music of the Baroque and classical eras, as well as contemporary music will round off the programme on this evening with instrumental compositions by Georg Philipp Telemann, Antonio Vivaldi and Johann Adolf Hasse. With Dmitry Sinkovsky, who founded the ensemble in 2011, a multi-talent will be conducting the orchestra: the native Russian knows how to captivate his audience equally as conductor, violinist and countertenor.