On 9 July as part of the Year of Music of Great Britain and Russia the Concert Hall of the Mariinsky Theatre will host the Russian premiere of contemporary British composer George Benjamin's opera Lessons in Love and Violence (concert performance). Guest soloists and the London Chamber Orchestra – Great Britain's oldest chamber music ensemble – will be led by Oliver Zeffman, a young conductor famed for his active support of contemporary music. The vocal roles will be performed by Mark Stone (the King), Susanna Hurrell (Isabel), Ross Ramgobin (Gaveston / the Stranger), Toby Spence (Mortimer), James Way (the Boy / the Young King), Sheva Tehoval (a Witness / a Singer), Angela Simkin (a Witness / a Singer) and Barnaby Rea (the Madman). Stage Director: Jack Furness.
Lessons in Love and Violence, written in 2018 together with playwright Martin Crimp, is George Benjamin's third opera. The libretto is based on the play Edward II by Christopher Marlowe, a predecessor of William Shakespeare. The story tells of the relationship between Edward II and the English courtier Piers Gaveston, whom the King elevated to his Court. The musical structure of the opera is rich in the sounds of instruments that are unusual for an orchestra – the Iranian tombak, the African "speaking" drum and the Hungarian cymbals.
George Benjamin's previous opus Written on Skin (2012), composed for the Aix en Provence Festival, was staged by Kate Mitchell and has become one of the most successful contemporary operas. In 2017 it was brought to Russia, where after its premiere at the Bolshoi Theatre there was a concert performance at the Mariinsky Theatre. The production of Lessons in Love and Violence was also staged by Kate Mitchell, winning praise from London critics and audiences, and it is to St Petersburg – for the first time in Russia – that the production team have brought their new work (concert performance). The opera Lessons in Love and Violence is a shared project between the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, the Staatsoper in Hamburg, the Opéra de Lyon, the Chicago Lyric Opera, the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona and Madrid's Teatro Real.
George Benjamin began writing music at the age of seven, and at the age of sixteen he became a pupil of Olivier Messiaen. In 1980 an orchestral piece by the twenty-year-old composer was performed at the BBC Proms. Despite that success, the composer's first opera – the forty-minute Into the Little Hill – only appeared in 2006. That event occurred one year after the composer met his now constant collaborator, the librettist and playwright Martin Crimp.
"As a passionate admirer of Russian art, literature, film and (in particular) music, I am indescribably happy to be coming to St Petersburg for the first time in my life. I dream of seeing the city where many of my favourite composers once lived and worked. For me it is a great honour that the Russian premiere of my new opera will take place during the Stars of the White Nights festival," says George Benjamin.
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