Schwetzinger SWR Festival: Close to Heaven

The soprano Maayan Licht in a duo with Joel von Lerber on the harp. Two dazzling exotics and many rarities: This evening is special in every way. Two men conquer areas that are usually occupied by women: Maayan Licht sings soprano, while Joel von Lerber belongs to the still underrepresented species of male harpists. After all, when do you ever experience singing and harp as a duo art on stage? And that's not all: Licht and von Lerber also play with unusual musical combinations. "Our goal," says Maayan Licht, "is not just to perform beautiful music. We want to illuminate the stories that the works tell, so that the audience can feel the dramas and emotions behind them." Thus, the evening offers a wild course through extreme contrasts, between the familiar and the unknown, the secular and the spiritual, temperament and tenderness. Arias by Georg Friedrich Handel and Antonio Vivaldi will be heard, as well as Reynaldo Hahn's enchanting earworm À Chloris, melodies by Gabriel Fauré, and even the Habanera from Georges Bizet's Carmen. And Bedřich Smetana's Vltava is also allowed to flow a little in between. An evening for laughter, tears – and, above all: for wonder.