New Year’s Recital 2021
A tour through four centuries of Italian song
UPDATE: If you have missed the livestream on New Year’s Day, you can now enjoy the performance on our Youtube channel ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbl2LpWAppo )
Date: Friday, 1 January 2021
Time: 4.00pm – 5:00pm (HK time)
Venue: Online (check below)
Organized by: Italian Cultural Institute
In collaboration with: Haw Par Music / Heritage X Music Festival
Streamed live on Facebook and Youtube:
Italian Cultural Institute Facebook Page: facebook.com/istituto.dicultura
Haw Par Music Youtube Page: youtu.be/AeoV6P19le4
Sing in the New Year with solos and duets from opera, song and film with this approximately one-hour programme featuring works from the 17th to the 20th centuries by Scarlatti, Caccini, Bellini, Donizetti, Tosti, Morricone, Rota and Piovani.
Soprano: Etta Fung
Mezzo-soprano: Samantha Chong
Piano: Wei-en Hsu
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The New Year’s Day Concert, or Concerto di Capodanno as it is called in Italian, is a long-running tradition throughout Italy, given in opera houses and recital halls large and small, from the Teatro Massimo in Palermo, Sicily to the Teatro la Fenice in Venice.
Featuring some of the best-known and best-loved examples of music old and new, they are meant to lift the spirits of the community to start off the New Year. It’s not just the music, but also the beautiful venues that have served as the centres of cultural life in each city and town for decades and centuries.
So, if we wanted to emulate this feeling, what better place to do it from than Hong Kong’s iconic Haw Par Mansion? This beautiful room conveys the same sense of both elegance and roots in the community.
The programme is a tour through four centuries of Italian song. We start with examples of 17th century arie antiche, or “ancient songs”, from Allesandro Scarlatti and Giulio Caccini. Then three works from the bel canto composer Vincenzo Bellini, two of his best-known songs and a duet from his most famous opera Norma. Two songs by Paolo Tosti followed by three pieces from post-War Italian film, by the composers Nino Rota, Enrico Morricone and Nicola Piovani. And we finish with an aria from our production of Gaetano Donizetti’s “Rita”, filmed in November 2020 in the same venue.
We’re also very pleased to highlight local musical talent. Soprano Etta Fung should be now be well-known to audiences of Italian Cultural Institute productions: she sang the role of “Rita” in our recent production of Donizetti’s opera of the same name and created the role of Serpina in last year’s “Waitress on Top”. She is joined by award-winning mezzo-soprano Samatha Chong who is also a regular in Hong Kong opera and recitals. Guiding them through the recital is our regular pianist Wei-En Hsu.
The host of the programme will be Marco Iannelli, composer, musician and musicologist, who will lead you through this afternoon’s recital.