Celebrating our return to full-scale live performance and seeing out a difficult year with high hopes for the next, the Orchestra of Opera North will be joined by Italian-Turkish conductor Nil Venditti and Irish soprano Máire Flavin for Viennese Whirl concerts in Huddersfield Town Hall (30 December) and Hull City Hall (31 December).
Nil, who makes her Opera North debut at the concerts, conducted the Netherlands Philharmonic’s streamed New Year celebrations from an empty Concertgebouw last year, which she describes as “absolutely surreal”. For her, there’s no substitute for performing to a full hall: “it feels more real and you can really enjoy the energy that comes from the audience!” Máire agrees: “There’s been a chasm in my life that couldn’t be filled with anything else but live performance”.
As they looked forward to sharing our New Year celebrations with audiences in person, our two guest artists picked out some personal highlights from this year’s Viennese Whirl: