Page 100 - Aldeburgh Festival 2022 FINAL COVERAGE BOOK
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Bevan with Neal Davies in Wigglesworth’s The Winter’s Tale for English National Opera, 2017
ROBBIE JACK/GETTY IMAGES
“No!” Wigglesworth exclaims. “For me, it’s a psychological thing: going to a different space to
work. I don’t think I could live without that.”
Their next engagement together will be at the Aldeburgh Festival. In one concert Wigglesworth
will conduct the BBC Symphony Orchestra in the premiere of Cleveland Pictures, an unfinished
but substantial orchestral piece by Oliver Knussen. In another he directs the Knussen Chamber
Orchestra, an ensemble of students and professionals set up in memory of the composer, who
was one of Wigglesworth’s most influential mentors. In that concert Bevan will sing
Wigglesworth’s new string-orchestra arrangement of the lament from Monteverdi’s mostly lost
opera L’Arianna, as well as Britten’s cantata Phaedra.
“It will be a lovely occasion because it’s your debut as a mezzo-soprano,” Wigglesworth says
mischievously to Bevan. “Oh, stop it!” she replies. Nevertheless, this turns out to be true. Bevan,
one of Britain’s most celebrated high sopranos, will be billed as a mezzo (indicating a lower-
pitched voice) in the Aldeburgh programme. How come?
