NSOI Summer Lunchtime

Agata Zając, conductor
​​​​​​​National Symphony Orchestra Ireland
Ami Hewitt, soprano
Presented by Liz Nolan, RTÉ lyric fm

Suppé Poet and Peasant Overture
Johann Strauss II ‘Mein Herr Marquis’ (The Laughing Song) from Die Fledermaus
Johann Strauss II Éljen a Magyar!
Kálmán ‘Ich sing mein Lied im Regen und Schnee’ (Das Veilchen von Montmartre)
Lehár Ballsirenen (on themes from The Merry Widow)
Johann Strauss II Frühlingsstimmen (Voices of Spring)
Johann Strauss II Thunder and Lightning Polka

Two exciting young talents – Irish soprano Ami Hewitt and Polish conductor Agata Zając – bring youthful vitality and verve to a sparkling programme of Viennese and Hungarian operetta.

Suppé’s vibrant Poet and Peasant Overture sets the tone with its noble brass chorale, lyrical cello romance and whirlwind finale. Waltz King Johann Strauss II’s Éljen a Magyar! salutes Hungarian high spirits in a whirlwind polka, his Frühlingsstimmen and Thunder and Lightning Polka providing a sugar-rush of waltz-swept lyricism and crackling rhythmic energy, Lehár’s glamorous waltz-rhapsody Ballsirenen revels in melodies from The Merry Widow.

All knowing wit and effervescent laughter, Strauss’s Adele twinkles with dazzling coloratura in ‘Mein Herr Marquis’ from Die Fledermaus, while Kálmán’s ‘Ich sing mein Lied im Regen und Schnee’ adds bittersweet, cabaret-tinged nostalgia.

Presented by NCH