Opus Arte

As the first rays of summer warm the English countryside, the outdoor music season emergences from the wings and takes centre stage. Now in its 14th year, Opera Holland Park is gearing up for another season of interesting and eclectic live performance in one of London’s prettiest parks.

©Richard Thomas 2006

© Mark Kamin (Dec, 2006)

11 April 1888 – opening of the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. The inaugural concert featured 120 musicians and 500 choristers, performing works by Beethoven, Bach, Handel and Wagner. The building had been finished in 1886 but a stream of bizarre concerns ranging from the provision of street lighting and the necessity of filling in a small canal delayed the grand opening for almost two years.

7 April 1805 – the first public performance of Beethoven’s third symphony, Eroica, at the Theater-an-der-Wien in Vienna, Austria. Legend has it that Eroica was to be dedicated to Napoleon who Beethoven had very much admired – until he crowned himself Emperor in 1804, inspiring the composer to scratch through the dedication. Beethoven conducted for this performance.

^{© Hermitage Museum, 2010}

29 March 1827 – Beethoven’s funeral procession wove through Vienna. Franz Schubert was one of the pallbearers. Franz Stober painted the scene, in which tens of thousands of people are seen to line the streets. The Austrian drama author Franz Grillparzer wrote the eulogy which contained the line: “we stand weeping over the broken strings of an instrument now stilled”.