Part of Lammermuir Festival

Revitalising British opera over his four-decade career, Benjamin Britten’s lifelong fascination with the human voice yielded several outstanding works for solo voice and orchestra, rivalling anything he wrote for the stage with their drama, sophistication, and emotional impact. They explore everything from the pacifism that profoundly shaped his life to complex moral ambiguities that are as unsettling and captivating now as they were at their premieres.

On the day of Britten’s death in 1976, Arvo Pärt was moved to write his Cantus in memoriam Benjamin Britten in mourning for his hero. There is no better way to begin this concert, marking 50 years since that day.

Britten’s ‘symphonic cycle’ Our Hunting Fathers employs fiercely emotional poetry collated by W H Auden around the theme of hunting to condemn the horror of war and appeal for peace. It remains relevant and revelatory 90 years on.

At the end of his career, his health failing, Britten felt compelled to write his last major piece for solo voice, Phaedra, upon hearing Dame Janet Baker in recital. Phaedra puts a modern psychological spin on classic mythology and the tortured, tragic passions of Theseus’ queen. 

Les Illuminations is vivid, intense, and almost hallucinatory. Britten was 25 and in love, exploring passion through the ten contrasting movements and the poetry of Arthur Rimbaud. Here it is performed as originally intended by a soprano – 2026/27 Emerging Artist Charlotte Jane Kennedy. Charlotte is joined by two fellow Emerging Artists singers, Avery Lafrentz and Charlotte Clapperton, conducted by Douglas Boyd in the beautiful surroundings of St Mary’s Kirk, Haddington.

Kindly supported by Friends of Scottish Opera
Part of Scottish Opera's 2026/27 Season
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