Schwetzingen SWR Festival: Close to heaven

Soprano Maayan Licht in a duo with Joel von Lerber on the harp. Two dazzling exotics and lots of rarities: this evening is special in every way. Two men conquer areas that otherwise belong to women: Maayan Licht sings soprano, Joel von Lerber belongs to the still underrepresented species of male harpists. When do you ever get to experience singing and harp as a duo art form 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 shed light on the stories that the works tell so that the audience can feel the drama and emotions behind them." The evening thus offers a wild journey between extreme contrasts, between the familiar and the unfamiliar, the secular and the spiritual, temperament and tenderness. Arias by George Frideric Handel and Antonio Vivaldi can be heard, as well as Reynaldo Hahn's beguiling earworm *À Chloris*, mélodies by Gabriel Fauré, and even the Habanera from Georges Bizet's *Carmen*. And Bedřich Smetana's Moldau will also flow a little in between. An evening for laughing, crying—and, above all, marveling.