Forbidden Love’ – The Sphinx Song Cycle at London Song Festival

London Song Festival 2023

www.londonsongfestival.org/concerts

On Friday 18 August the London Song Festival is proud to present the world premiere of Sir Granville Bantock’s song cycle ‘The Sphinx’, a setting of Oscar Wilde’s poem of the same name. This masterpiece of English song was written in 1941 but has remained unperformed until now.

Granville Bantock was well-known in his day for works such as the Hebridean Symphony and the Festival March, but his music is unfairly forgotten today. For this performance, the songs will be combined with readings of extracts from the transcripts of Oscar Wilde’s trials, from De Profundis, from his letters, and from the words of Ada Leverson (aka The Sphinx), throwing into sharp focus the connections between the songs’ depiction of forbidden love and Oscar Wilde’s own tragic story.

‘The Sphinx’ will be sung by two baritones: Arthur Bruce, a Britten-Pears Young Artist and a Samling Artist, who has sung lead roles with Scottish Opera, Bampton Classical Opera and the Berlin Opera Academy and Edward Jowle, a Samling Scholar, an alumnus of the Verbier Festival Atelier Lyrique and the Accademia Europa dell’Opera, who has given recitals at the Oxford Lieder Festival. The pianist is Nigel Foster, the Director of the London Song Festival, who has performed at Wigmore Hall, the South Bank, on BBC Radio 3 and across Europe and the Americas. The spoken word sections will be read by Simon Butteriss, whose career encompasses acting with the RSC, the Old Vic Company and in West End plays and musicals, numerous film and television appearances, and singing at La Scala Milan and with ENO and other opera companies.

This performance uses a new performing edition of ‘The Sphinx’ prepared by Bantock specialist Dr Andy H King.

Tickets are on sale from the London Song Festival website – please scroll down the page as ‘The Sphinx’ is the third concert listed.

All Oscar Wilde Society members are entitled to the £15 concession-price tickets. Full price (without concession) is £20.