Maltman saves the day!

Christopher Maltman has just returned from Cleveland where he made an auspicious debut with the Cleveland Orchestra under conductor Franz Welser-Möst. Maltman was performing Mahler's 'Das Lied von der Erde' with tenor Jonas Kaufmann. Reviewing his performance, in the Akron Beacon-Journal, Elaine Guregian wrote: 'The English baritone Christopher Maltman made a distinguished Cleveland Orchestra debut. He is an elegant performer who brought the utmost attentiveness to the text. Maltman has sung at venues including the Royal Opera House Covent Garden and the Metropolitan Opera, and is scheduled to sing at the Salzburg Festival. His fastidiousness and beauty of tone matched him well with Cleveland's musicians.'

Originally scheduled to give three performances of the Mahler, the winter weather intervened and a heavy fall of snow made it impossible for all of the orchestral musicians to get to Severance Hall for the final concert. Not all the audience could be contacted however, and a few hardy souls braved the fierce conditions to make it to the hall, as did Maltman and Kaufmann! Not wishing to disappoint the one hundred or so audience members who had managed to get to the hall, the two singers hastily put together a programme of popular opera arias which they performed ad hoc with piano accompaniment! Needless to say, the small audience was thrilled and the concert was saved!

This month, Maltman continues on his busy schedule of concert engagements which, this month, see him appearing in Brussels and Rotterdam with the Orchestre National de Belgique and Walter Weller (Dvorak's 'Requiem'); in Stockholm with the Swedish Radio Orchestra and Daniel Harding (Christus in Bach's 'St Matthew Passion') and in Cologne and Vienna with Klangforum Wien (Tarquinius in Britten's 'The Rape of Lucretia'). In April, he appears in concert in Munich with the Bayerische Rundfunk and Miguel Gomez-Martinez (Malatesta in Donizetti's 'Don Pasquale') and he rounds off the season in London with the LSO and Sir Colin Davis, giving the world premiere of James MacMillan's 'St John Passion'.

17 March, 2008