PRESS RELEASE 24 May 2017 Countertenor Iestyn Davies announces his 2017-18 Season Highlights include: Iestyn Davies performs to role of Oberon in a new production of Britten s A Midsummer Night s Dream at the Aldeburgh Festival 2017 Iestyn Davies to perform in the Broadway transfer of hit play Farinelli and the King alongside Mark Rylance Metropolitan Opera opening of Thomas Adès The Exterminating Angel Iestyn Davies performs Schubert s song cycle Die Schöne Müllerin for the first time Bach Cantatas at the Edinburgh Festival with the Academy of Ancient Music Iestyn Davies sings in the European premiere of James MacMillan s A European Requiem at the BBC Proms Revival of Handel s Saul at Glyndebourne 2018 Iestyn Davies, one world s most prominent countertenors on the international concert and opera stage, today announces his 2017-18 season. The season follows an enormously successful 2016-17, which included plaudits for performances in George Benjamin s Written on Skin and Thomas Adès The Exterminating Angel at the Royal Opera House, the release of a critically acclaimed disc of Bach cantatas, and which also saw Davies awarded the MBE in the 2017 New Year Honour s list for services to music. Iestyn Davies comments: Life and music continue to throw up surprises and none more so than a 3 month stint on Broadway working alongside the inspirational Mark Rylance. To be part of this wonderful play, Farinelli & The King, will be the closest I get to straight theatre, a chance to peep over the fence and see what life is like on the other side. I am constantly in awe of the way actors manage to play night after night and keep everything they do fresh and spontaneous. I love it and am eternally grateful for this opportunity and thankful for being allowed to join their world for a time. I look forward to sharing the incredible world of the baroque with a new audience throughout the run. Britten s A Midsummer Night s Dream at the Aldeburgh Festival Davies performs the role of Oberon in a new production of Britten s A Midsummer Night s Dream, which opens the Aldeburgh Festival 2017 on 9 June, directed and designed by Netia Jones and conducted by Ryan Wigglesworth. The role of Oberon was composed for the legendary countertenor Alfred Deller and is widely acknowledged for putting the countertenor back on the map in the contemporary era. Britten chose his opera to celebrate the newly opened Snape Maltings Concert Hall at the 1967 festival, and this production has been commissioned to celebrate the hall s 50 th anniversary. The production runs for four performances until 14 June and also features Sophie Bevan as Tytania and Matthew Rose as Bottom. Thomas Adès The Exterminating Angel at the Metropolitan Opera
From 26 October until 21 November 2017, Iestyn Davies reprises the role of Francesco in the US premiere of Thomas Adès eagerly anticipated new opera The Exterminating Angel. The opera received its world premiere at the Salzburg Festival in 2016 and a run at the Royal Opera House in spring 2017 to ecstatic reviews. Directed by Tom Cairns, who co-wrote the libretto with Thomas Adès (who also conducts), the opera and is based on Luis Buñuel s 1962 surrealist film El ángel exterminador. Full of eerie, comic absurdity the story centres on a group of high-society friends who are invited to a mansion for dinner and inexplicably find themselves unable to leave. The stellar ensemble cast includes Sally Matthews, Sophie Bevan, Alice Coote and John Tomlinson, and the 18 November performance will be screened in cinemas worldwide as part of The Met: Live in HD season. Farinelli and the King on Broadway From 5 December 2017 until 24 March 2018 at New York s Belasco Theatre, Davies reprises the singing role of Farinelli in the Broadway transfer of Claire van Kampen s Oliver Award-nominated play Farinelli and the King. The production enjoyed sell-out runs at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse at Shakespeare s Globe and the West End in 2015, and stars Mark Rylance as King Philippe V of Spain. Davies performs the singing role of Farinelli alongside actor Sam Crane, who plays the part of the legendary castrato. Davies will perform for the majority of the run and his performance schedule can be found at www.farinelliandthekingbroadway.com Revival of Saul at Glyndebourne 2018 Davies reprises the role of David the revival of Barrie Kosky s 2015production of Handel s Saul at Glyndebourne 2018, for 13 performances from 19 July to 25 August. Davies performed the role to critical acclaim at Glyndebourne 2015. The production is conducted by Laurence Cummings and also features the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and cast members including Markus Brück as Saul, Allan Clayton as Jonathan and Karina Gauvin as Merab. UK Highlights On 10 July 2017 at London s atmospheric Middle Temple Hall, Davies (an alumnus of the Temple Church Choir) performs Schubert s song cycle Die Schöne Müllerin one of the most famous examples of Lieder - for the first time in his career, with pianist Julius Drake. Davies returns to the BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall on 30 July 2017 for the European premiere of James MacMillan s A European Requiem, under conductor Xian Zhang with the BBC National Orchestra and Chorus of Wales, the CBSO Chorus and soloists including Erin Wall and Simon O Neill. The concert will be broadcast live on BBC Radio 3 and televised on BBC Four the same evening. Davies performs two recitals of Bach solo cantatas for countertenor at the 2017 Edinburgh International Festival with the Academy of Ancient Music and Richard Egarr. The concerts, on 22 and 24 August at The Queen s Hall, will both be broadcast live on BBC Radio 3. On 13 March 2018 at the Barbican, Davies sings the title role in a concert performance of Handel s Rinaldo with The English Concert, directed by Harry Bicket. Davies returns to the Barbican later that month on 30 March for a performance of Bach s St John Passion with the Academy of Ancient Music, directed by Bernard Labadie. International Highlights Davies teams up with regular collaborator, lutenist Thomas Dunford, for two festival performances in 2017. At the Festival Saint Denis outside Paris on 17 June they perform a programme of English music of the seventeenth century entitled The Art of Melancholy, and on 13 August at the Kilkenny Arts Festival in Ireland, they perform a late-night recital Behold a Wonder Here: Dowland Songs and Airs, featuring works by Dowland and the Irish premiere of Nico Muhly s song sequence Old Bones, which was composed by Muhly
for Davies. On 11 August Davies also sings the title role in the opening night gala of the festival in Handel s Julius Caesar in Egypt, with the Early Opera Company directed by Christian Curnyn. Other European dates include 21 June 2017 where Davies performs Handel Arias with the Moscow Chamber Orchestra at Moscow s Tchaikovsky Concert Hall, directed by Laurence Cummings, and on 1 September Davies and the Dunedin Consort, directed by John Butt, perform Bach cantatas at the Thuringia Bach Festival (Thüringer Bachwochen) in Germany. Recitals in the United States include two dates at Carnegie Hall. In the first, on 15 October 2017, Davies is part of a quartet of singers in Zankel Hall from Thomas Adès newest opera: soprano Sally Matthews, mezzo-soprano Alice Coote, and tenor Joseph Kaiser for a programme of the composers own works and music by others. The second date is Handel s Rinaldo in concert with The English Concert on 25 March 2018. He also performs Bach cantatas in a programme entitled Divine Ecstasy with the Cleveland Orchestra at Cleveland s Severance Hall on 28 April 2018, conducted by Franz Welser-Möst. On 5 and 6 May 2018 at Cincinnati s newly-renovated Music Hall, Davies performs Handel arias in a Baroque Masterworks programme with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, directed by Harry Bicket. For further press information and interview requests please contact: Rebecca Driver Media Relations Tel: 020 7247 1894 Email: nasarene@rdmr.co.uk rebecca@rdmr.co.uk www.rdmr.co.uk Further details on biography and discography at www.iestyndavies.com Listings Britten A Midsummer Night s Dream Oberon Aldeburgh Festival Snape Maltings 9, 11, 12, 14 July 2017 Handel Arias Tchaikovsky Concert Hall Moscow 21 June 2017 The Art of Melancholy (w/thomas Dunford) Salle de La Legion d'honneur Festival Saint Denis 17 June 2017 Schubert Die Schöne Müllerin Middle Temple Hall 10 July 2017 James MacMillan A European Requiem BBC Proms Royal Albert Hall 30 July 2017 Behold a Wonder Here: Dowland Songs and Airs (w/thomas Dunford) St John s Priory Kilkenny Arts Festival 13 August 2017 Handel Julius Caesar in Egypt Julius Caesar St Canice s Cathedral Kilkenny Arts Festival 11 August 2017 Iestyn Davies Sings Bach 1 22 August 2017 Iestyn Davies Sings Bach 2 24 August 2017 The Queen s Hall Edinburgh International Festival
22 August 2017 Bach Cantatas (w/dunedin Consort) Thüringer Bachwochen Walterhausen Stadtkirche 1 September 2017 Thomas Adès The Exterminating Angel (US premiere) Francesco Metropolitan Opera 26 October 21 November 2017 Thomas Adès and Friends Zankel Hall 15 October 2017 Handel Rinaldo Rinaldo Barbican Hall, London 13 March 2018 Carnegie Hall, New York 25 March 2018 Divine Ecstasy (Bach Cantatas) Severance Hall Cleveland, USA 28 April 2018 Farinelli and the King Farinelli (singing role) By Claire van Kampen / Director: John Dove Belasco Theatre, New York 5 December 2017-24 March 2018 JS Bach St John Passion Barbican Hall 30 March 2018 Baroque Masterworks Cincinnati Music Hall, USA 5 & 6 May 2018 Handel Saul David Glyndebourne 2018 19 July 25 August 2018