Wagner and The World of Yesterday

Soprano Christina Nilsson has in recent years established herself as one of Sweden’s most internationally acclaimed opera singers. Following her debut at the Metropolitan Opera in Aida, New York Classical Review wrote that “the Swedish soprano’s voice is lyrical, but with an edge of Nordic steel”.

Since then, successes have followed in quick succession, and her appearances at Konserthuset Stockholm have dazzled audiences. Here, we hear her together with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra in Wagner’s Wesendonck Lieder – music of burning longing, heavenly beauty and passionate desire.

The concert opens, fittingly, with Carl Nielsen’s Helios Overture, one of the Danish composer’s most beloved orchestral works. Inspired by the rising and setting of the sun over the Aegean Sea, Nielsen allows the orchestra to paint a grand sonic image of the magic of light and the movement of water.

There is something truly special about a world premiere. We experience this as the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra’s commissioned work, The World of Yesterday – Symphony by B Tommy Andersson, meets an audience for the first time. The title alludes to the famous book The World of Yesterday by the Austrian writer Stefan Zweig.