Schwetzingen SWR Festival: The Dream of Perfect Happiness

Singer Lea Desandre and lutenist Thomas Dunford with pastoral miniatures. Everything is so beautiful here! An idyll. Rural life, idealized landscapes, blissful harmony. Mezzo-soprano Lea Desandre and lutenist Thomas Dunford present music to dream to: pieces that celebrate nature, contemplative pastorals and forest scenes, resonant places of longing. Those who close their eyes during this program can imagine a procession of sheep and shepherds, can be carried away by Erik Satie's swaying triple rhythms into the realms of the blissfully slumbering, and finally find perfect happiness in Reynaldo Hahn's so cleverly simple song À Chloris. One should not think that this could ever end – of course, that would be unthinkable. Mélisande also avoids this when she lets her long hair hang down from the tower in Claude Debussy's opera, just like Rapunzel once did. Only when her beloved Pelléas ties it to a branch to bind Mélisande to him does the idyll begin to waver a little. But in Mes longs cheveux descendent, the world remains outside. And with the beautiful Helena, everything is sunny anyway, at least in Jacques Offenbach's operetta: Venus, Adonis, may they live, and what greater happiness could there be than fulfilled love? Following this: Graduation Ceremony A separate ticket must be purchased in advance for the graduation ceremony. Further information will be available shortly here on our website.