Elena Langer (born 1974 in
Moscow
Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...
) is a Russian-born British composer of opera and other contemporary classical music. Her work has been performed at the
Royal Opera House
The Royal Opera House (ROH) is a theatre in Covent Garden, central London. The building is often referred to as simply Covent Garden, after a previous use of the site. The ROH is the main home of The Royal Opera, The Royal Ballet, and the Orch ...
,
Zurich Opera
Zurich Opera (Opernhaus Zürich) is a Swiss opera company based in Zurich. The company gives performances in the Zurich Opera House.
History
The first performance at the current theatre occurred on 30 September 1891, with a production of Wagner's ...
,
Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall ( ) is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. It is at 881 Seventh Avenue (Manhattan), Seventh Avenue, occupying the east side of Seventh Avenue between 56th Street (Manhattan), 56th and 57th Street (Manhattan), 57t ...
,
Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts,
,
Shakespeare's Globe
Shakespeare's Globe is a reconstruction of the Globe Theatre, an Elizabethan playhouse first built in 1599 for which William Shakespeare wrote his plays. Like the original, it is located on the south bank of the River Thames, in Southwark, Lon ...
,
Wigmore Hall
The Wigmore Hall is a concert hall at 36 Wigmore Street, in west London. It was designed by Thomas Edward Collcutt and opened in 1901 as the Bechstein Hall; it is considered to have particularly good building acoustics, acoustics. It specialis ...
,
Opera national du Rhin, Strasbourg, and Milton Court,
Barbican Centre
The Barbican Centre is a performing arts centre in the Barbican Estate of the City of London, England, and the largest of its kind in Europe. The centre hosts classical and contemporary music concerts, theatre performances, film screenings a ...
. She studied piano and composition at the
Gnessin State Musical College
The Gnessin State College of Music () and Gnessin Russian Academy of Music () comprise a music school in Moscow.Moisenko, Rena. (1949) ''Realist Music: 25 Soviet Composers,'' London: Meridian Book, Ltd.
History
Originally known as the Gnessi ...
in Moscow and composition at the
Moscow Conservatoire
The Moscow Conservatory, also officially Tchaikovsky Moscow State Conservatory () is a higher musical educational institution located in Moscow, Russia. It grants undergraduate and graduate degrees in musical performance and musical research. Th ...
; in 1999 she moved to London and studied composition at the
Royal College of Music
The Royal College of Music (RCM) is a conservatoire established by royal charter in 1882, located in South Kensington, London, UK. It offers training from the undergraduate to the doctoral level in all aspects of Western Music including pe ...
(1999–2000) with
Julian Anderson
Julian Anderson (born 6 April 1967) is a British composer and teacher of composition.
Biography
Anderson was born in London. He studied at Westminster School, then with John Lambert at the Royal College of Music, with Alexander Goehr at Cambr ...
and the
Royal Academy of Music
The Royal Academy of Music (RAM) in London, England, is one of the oldest music schools in the UK, founded in 1822 by John Fane and Nicolas-Charles Bochsa. It received its royal charter in 1830 from King George IV with the support of the firs ...
(2001–03) with
Simon Bainbridge
Simon Bainbridge (30 August 1952 – 2 April 2021) was a British composer. He was also a professor and head of musical composition, composition at the Royal Academy of Music, London, and visiting professor at the University of Louisville, Kentu ...
.
Career
In 2002 Langer became the first Jerwood Composer in Association at the
Almeida Theatre
The Almeida Theatre is a 325-seat producing house located on Almeida Street off Upper Street in the London Borough of Islington. The theatre opened in 1980, and produces a diverse range of drama. Successful plays are often transferred to West E ...
in London, writing the short operas ''Ariadne'' (premiered at the Almeida Opera Festival in 2002) and ''The Girl of Sand'' (2003), both settings of librettos by poet
Glyn Maxwell
Glyn Maxwell (born 1962) is a British poet, playwright, novelist, librettist, and lecturer.
Early life
Of primarily Welsh heritage — his mother Buddug-Mair Powell (b. 1928) acted in the original stage show of Dylan Thomas's ''Under Milk Wood'' ...
. ''Ariadne'' was further performed at the
Tanglewood Festival
The Tanglewood Music Festival is a music festival held every summer on the Tanglewood estate in Stockbridge and Lenox in the Berkshire Hills in western Massachusetts.
The festival consists of a series of concerts, including symphonic music, cha ...
and the Britten and Strauss Festival in Aldeburgh in 2009, as well as at the Moscow Conservatoire.
In 2009 her song cycle ''Songs at the Well'', based on Russian folk texts, was performed at the
Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall ( ) is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. It is at 881 Seventh Avenue (Manhattan), Seventh Avenue, occupying the east side of Seventh Avenue between 56th Street (Manhattan), 56th and 57th Street (Manhattan), 57t ...
, New York.
Her next collaboration with Maxwell, a short dramatic piece called ''The Present'', won the Audience Prize at the Zurich Opera House's New Opera Festival in January 2009. The work concerned the case of a patient suffering from
Alzheimer's disease
Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative disease and the cause of 60–70% of cases of dementia. The most common early symptom is difficulty in remembering recent events. As the disease advances, symptoms can include problems wit ...
. Langer and Maxwell went on to develop this into the opera ''The Lion's Face'', which enjoyed a successful tour around England and Wales (including 4 performances at the Linbury Studio,
Royal Opera House
The Royal Opera House (ROH) is a theatre in Covent Garden, central London. The building is often referred to as simply Covent Garden, after a previous use of the site. The ROH is the main home of The Royal Opera, The Royal Ballet, and the Orch ...
, Covent Garden) in a production by
John Fulljames for The Opera Group. This work also initiated an ongoing collaboration between The Opera Group and the Institute of Psychiatry, and involved Professor
Simon Lovestone
Sir Simon Lovestone (born February 1961) is professor of translational neuroscience at the University of Oxford. He is a specialist in neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease. He was made a knight bachelor in ...
, director of the institute's Biomedical Research Centre, in a consultant role.
Langer was subsequently commissioned by
Dawn Upshaw
Dawn Upshaw (born July 17, 1960) is an American soprano. She is the recipient of several Grammy Awards and has released a number of Edison Award-winning discs; she performs both opera and art song, and her repertoire spans Baroque to contempo ...
to compose a one-act comic opera for performance at
Bard College
Bard College is a private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York. The campus overlooks the Hudson River and Catskill Mountains within the Hudson River Historic District ...
in upstate New York. The resulting work, ''Four Sisters'', to a libretto by John Lloyd-Davies, was performed in March 2012 at the
Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College.
In December 2012 ''Songs at the Well'', with additional newly composed music, was dramatized by Dmitri Belyanushkin and staged at the
Stanislavski and Nemirovich-Danchenko Music Theatre, in a double-bill with
Lera Auerbach's ''The Blind''.
In 2012–2013, using the surviving vocal score, Langer re-orchestrated
César Cui
César Antonovich Cui (; ; ; 26 March 1918) was a Russian composer and music critic, member of the Belyayev circle and The Five – a group of composers combined by the idea of creating a specifically Russian type of music. As an officer o ...
's 1913 opera ''
Puss in Boots
"Puss in Boots" (; ; ; ) is a European fairy tale about an anthropomorphic cat who uses trickery and deceit to gain power, wealth, and the hand in marriage of a princess for his penniless and low-born master.
The oldest written telling version ...
'' (''Кот в сапогах'') for the
Grand Théâtre de Genève
Grand Théâtre de Genève is an opera house in Geneva, Switzerland.
As with many other opera houses, the Grand Théâtre de Genève is both a venue and an institution. The venue is a majestic building, towering over Place Neuve, officia ...
, for performance in May 2013.
Her song-cycle for soprano, counter-tenor and baroque chamber ensemble, ''Landscape with Three People'', based on poems by
Lee Harwood
Lee Harwood (6 June 1939 – 26 July 2015) was an English poet associated with the British Poetry Revival.
Life
Travers Rafe Lee Harwood was born in Leicester to maths teacher Wilfred Travers Lee-Harwood and Grace Ladkin Harwood, who were then ...
, was performed at Concerts at Cratfield in August 2013.
In 2014
Shakespeare's Globe
Shakespeare's Globe is a reconstruction of the Globe Theatre, an Elizabethan playhouse first built in 1599 for which William Shakespeare wrote his plays. Like the original, it is located on the south bank of the River Thames, in Southwark, Lon ...
commissioned incidental music from Langer for
David Eldridge's play ''Holy Warriors'', about the 12th-century struggle for Jerusalem, during the
Second Crusade
The Second Crusade (1147–1149) was the second major crusade launched from Europe. The Second Crusade was started in response to the fall of the County of Edessa in 1144 to the forces of Zengi. The county had been founded during the First Crus ...
, between
Saladin
Salah ad-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub ( – 4 March 1193), commonly known as Saladin, was the founder of the Ayyubid dynasty. Hailing from a Kurdish family, he was the first sultan of both Egypt and Syria. An important figure of the Third Crusade, h ...
and
Richard the Lionheart
Richard is a male given name. It originates, via Old French, from compound of the words descending from Proto-Germanic language">Proto-Germanic ''*rīk-'' 'ruler, leader, king' and ''*hardu-'' 'strong, brave, hardy', and it therefore means 'st ...
.
In 2015, in response to a commission from the
Britten Sinfonia
Britten Sinfonia is a chamber orchestra ensemble based in Cambridge, UK. It was created in 1992, following an initiative from Eastern Arts and a number of key figures including Nicholas Cleobury, who recognised the need for an orchestra in the ...
for an orchestral piece, Langer wrote ''Story of an Impossible Love'', which was performed in Cambridge and London in 2016, and subsequently in Calgary and Karlsruhe, where it was conducted by Justin Brown.
Welsh National Opera
Welsh National Opera (WNO) () is an opera company based in Cardiff, Wales. WNO gave its first performances in 1946. The company began as a mainly amateur body and transformed into an all-professional ensemble by 1973. In its early days, the ...
commissioned a sequel to ''
The Barber of Seville
''The Barber of Seville, or The Useless Precaution'' ( ) is an ''opera buffa'' (comic opera) in two acts composed by Gioachino Rossini with an Italian libretto by Cesare Sterbini. The libretto was based on Pierre Beaumarchais's French comedy ' ...
'' and ''
The Marriage of Figaro
''The Marriage of Figaro'' (, ), K. 492, is a ''commedia per musica'' (opera buffa) in four acts composed in 1786 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, with an Italian libretto written by Lorenzo Da Ponte. It premiered at the Burgtheater in Vienn ...
'', to be performed together as a trilogy in the company's Spring 2016 programme. The libretto of ''Figaro Gets a Divorce'' was written by
David Pountney
Sir David Willoughby Pountney (born 10 September 1947) is a British-Polish theatre and opera director and libretto, librettist internationally known for his productions of rarely performed operas and new productions of classic works. He has di ...
, and the opera was premiered in Cardiff in February 2016, with designs by
Ralph Koltai
Ralph Koltai Commander of the Order of the British Empire, CBE, Royal Designers for Industry, RDI (31 July 1924 – 15 December 2018), was a German-born, naturalised British stage designer, who worked as associate designer of the Royal Shakespe ...
and conducted by Justin Brown. The main roles were sung by Marie Arnet (Susanna),
Elizabeth Watts
Elizabeth Watts (born 1979) is an English operatic soprano.
Watts was born in Norwich and attended Norwich High School for Girls. She studied archaeology at Sheffield University and graduated with first class honours. Beginning in 2002, she stu ...
(Countess Almaviva),
Mark Stone
Mark Stone (born May 13, 1992) is a Canadian professional ice hockey right winger and captain of the Vegas Golden Knights of the National Hockey League (NHL). He was selected by the Ottawa Senators in the sixth round, 178th overall, of the 201 ...
(Count Almaviva) and
Alan Oke (The Major). The opera subsequently toured around the UK and in 2017 was performed at the
Teatr Wielki in Poznań and at the
Grand Théâtre, Geneva, with a live stream on the Arte Channel in Switzerland. The opera is scheduled for performances at
Theater Magdeburg
Theater Magdeburg is the principal theatre organization in Magdeburg, Germany, the capital of the state Saxony-Anhalt. It was formed in 2004 with the merger of two theatres, the Theater der Landeshauptstadt (Theatre of the state capital) and the ' ...
from 22 January 2022.
In 2016, a CD of small-scale vocal and chamber works, entitled ''Landscape with Three People'', was released by
Harmonia Mundi
Harmonia Mundi is a record label that specializes in classical music, jazz, and world music (on the World Village label). It was founded in France in 1958 and is now a subsidiary of PIAS Entertainment Group, which is itself owned by Universal M ...
. Besides the title track the CD also contains ''Ariadne'', Elena's first collaboration with
Glyn Maxwell
Glyn Maxwell (born 1962) is a British poet, playwright, novelist, librettist, and lecturer.
Early life
Of primarily Welsh heritage — his mother Buddug-Mair Powell (b. 1928) acted in the original stage show of Dylan Thomas's ''Under Milk Wood'' ...
, and the light-hearted ''Cat Songs'', based on the absurdist poetry of
Daniil Kharms
Daniil Ivanovich Kharms (; – 2 February 1942) was a Russian avant-gardist and absurdist poet, writer and dramatist in the early Soviet era.
Early years
Kharms was born as Daniil Yuvachev in Saint Petersburg, then the capital of the Ru ...
.
The 2017 London Piano Festival commissioned a piece for two pianos, to be played by
Charles Owen and Katya Apekisheva. Inspired by
Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin
Kuzma Sergeyevich Petrov-Vodkin, (; November 5, Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates.html" ;"title="nowiki/> O. S. 24 October1878 – February 15, 1939) was a Russian and USSR">Soviet painter. His early iconographic work used special creative effects ...
's 1912 painting
Bathing of a Red Horse', Langer wrote the duet ''RedMare''.
''Rhondda Rips It Up!'', a music-hall/vaudeville about the suffragette
Margaret Haig Thomas. was commissioned by Welsh National Opera and premiered in Newport in May 2018. Starring Madeleine Shaw and
Lesley Garrett
Lesley Garrett, CBE (born 10 April 1955) is an English soprano singer, musician, broadcaster and media personality who is noted for being at home in opera and "crossover music".
Early life
Garrett was born in the town of Thorne, near Doncas ...
, the piece toured to 16 venues around the UK.
In 2018, the
Boston Symphony Orchestra
The Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) is an American orchestra based in Boston. It is the second-oldest of the five major American symphony orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five (orchestras), Big Five". Founded by Henry Lee Higginson in ...
commissioned a piece for a chamber ensemble composed of ten principals the orchestra's sections; the result, ''Five Reflections on Water'', five contrasting pieces thematically linked, was performed in March 2019.
With a libretto by David Pountney, Langer's next piece, ''Beauty and Sadness'', a chamber opera based on the 1964 novel by
Yasunari Kawabata
was a Japanese novelist and short story writer whose spare, lyrical, subtly-shaded prose works won him the 1968 Nobel Prize in Literature, the first Japanese author to receive the award. His works have enjoyed broad international appeal and ...
, was premiered at the Lyric Theatre, Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, in April 2019, directed by Carolyn Choa, designed by Tim Yip and conducted by Gergely Madaras.
Independent Opera commissioned a song cycle to be performed by young prize-winning singers at the company's Scholars' Recital. With lyrics by Glyn Maxwell, ''It's Not You, It's Me'' received its premiere at the
Wigmore Hall
The Wigmore Hall is a concert hall at 36 Wigmore Street, in west London. It was designed by Thomas Edward Collcutt and opened in 1901 as the Bechstein Hall; it is considered to have particularly good building acoustics, acoustics. It specialis ...
in October 2019.
An orchestral suite derived from ''Figaro Gets a Divorce'' was premiered by the
Seattle Symphony Orchestra
The Seattle Symphony is an American orchestra based in Seattle, Washington. Since 1998, the orchestra is resident at Benaroya Hall. The orchestra also serves as the accompanying orchestra for the Seattle Opera.
History
Beginnings
The orchest ...
, conducted by
Maxim Emelyanychev
Maxim Yuryevich Emelyanychev (Максим Юрьевич Емельянычев; born 28 August 1988, Dzerzhinsk, Russia, Dzerzhinsk) is a Russian conductor, pianist, harpsichordist and cornetist.
Biography
From a musical family, Emelyanychev ...
, in January 2020. The suite was premièred in the UK in Glasgow in February 2020, performed by the
BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra
The BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra (BBC SSO) is a Scottish broadcasting symphony orchestra based in Glasgow. One of five full-time orchestras maintained by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), it is the oldest full-time professional rad ...
conducted by Gergely Madaras. The suite will receive its Japanese premiere in September 2021, played by the
Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra
The is a Japanese symphony orchestra administratively based in Tokyo. The orchestra primarily performs concerts in Tokyo at the Suntory Hall, but also gives concerts at the Tokyo Opera City Concert Hall and also performs in Yokohama at the Yokoha ...
at the
Tokyo Metropolitan Theatre
is a centre for the performing arts located in Ikebukuro, Toshima, Tokyo, Japan.
History
The theatre opened in 1990 and is operated by the Tokyo Metropolitan Foundation for History and Culture.
Yoshinobu Ashihara was the architect, with a ...
.
Langer is currently working on a comic opera based on
Nikolai Erdman's 1928 play ''The Suicide''. The opera is scheduled to be performed at the
Stanislavski and Nemirovich-Danchenko Music Theatre in Moscow in 2022.
Selected works
*''Transformations'' for violin and piano, 1996
*''The Prayer'' for violin and Jewish male choir, 1999
*''Havdala'' for Jewish male choir, 1999
*''Triste Voce'' for viola solo, 2001
*''Platch'' for violin and string orchestra, 2001
*''Ariadne'', mono-opera, 2002
*''The Girl of Sand'', opera, 2003
*''Two Cat Songs'' after
Daniil Kharms
Daniil Ivanovich Kharms (; – 2 February 1942) was a Russian avant-gardist and absurdist poet, writer and dramatist in the early Soviet era.
Early years
Kharms was born as Daniil Yuvachev in Saint Petersburg, then the capital of the Ru ...
for soprano, cello and piano, 2006
*''The Evening Flower'' for two guitars, 2006
*''Second Movement'' for oboe, violin and string orchestra, 2008
*''Songs at the Well'', song-cycle for soprano and orchestra, 2009
*''The Lion's Face'', opera, 2010
*''Four Sisters'', opera, 2012
*''Songs at the Well'' (expanded), song cycle for singers and orchestra, 2012
*''Landscape with Three People'', song cycle for soprano, counter-tenor and baroque ensemble, 2013
[Recorded by Anna Dennis, William Towers, and ]Nicholas Daniel
Nicholas Daniel (born 9 January 1962) is a British oboist and conductor. In 2003 he was appointed Artistic Director of the Leicester International Music Festival.
Education
He was educated at Salisbury Cathedral School and the Purcell School. ...
and released on harmonia mundi
Harmonia Mundi is a record label that specializes in classical music, jazz, and world music (on the World Village label). It was founded in France in 1958 and is now a subsidiary of PIAS Entertainment Group, which is itself owned by Universal M ...
February 2016
* ''Story of an Impossible Love'' for orchestra, 2015
* ''Figaro Gets a Divorce'', opera, 2016
* ''RedMare'' for two pianos, 2017
* ''Rhondda Rips It Up!'', cabaret opera, 2018
* ''Five Reflections on Water'' for chamber orchestra, 2019
* ''Beauty and Sadness'', chamber opera, 2019
* Orchestral suite from ''Figaro Gets a Divorce'', 2020
External links
*
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Langer, Elena
1974 births
Living people
British classical composers
British women classical composers
Russian emigrants to the United Kingdom
Moscow Conservatory alumni
Alumni of the Royal College of Music
Alumni of the Royal Academy of Music
Russian women classical composers
21st-century Russian classical composers
21st-century British musicians
21st-century Russian women composers