Internationally acclaimed conductor Honna Tetsuji will lead a concert featuring the music of Mozart at the HCM City Opera House on Saturday.  Photo courtesy of HBSO

HCM CITY – Internationally acclaimed conductor Honna Tetsuji will lead a concert featuring the music of Mozart at the HCM City Opera House on Saturday (June 8).

The concert will open with the Overture from the three-act opera Die Entführung aus dem Serail (The Abduction from the Seraglio).

Mozart wrote the opera to a German libretto by Gottlieb Stephanie, based on Christoph Friedrich Bretzner's Belmont und Constanze, oder Die Entführung aus dem Serail (Belmonte and Konstanze, The Abduction from the Seraglio).

The play is about the attempt of hero Belmonte to rescue his beloved Konstanze from the seraglio (sequestered living quarters used by wives and concubines in an Ottoman household) of Pasha Selim.

It premiered in July 1782 at the Vienna Burgtheater, with the composer as the conductor.

The performance will feature the HCM City Opera Symphony Orchestra and Ballet’s (HBSO) symphony orchestra.

The night will continue with the three-movement Sinfonia Concertante for Violin, Viola and Orchestra composed in 1779.

The work will be played by violinist Nguyễn Công Thắng and violist Phạm Vũ Thiên Bảo.

Thắng graduated from the Việt Nam Academy of Music and later studied at the Hong Kong Music Academy.

He has performed with the Hong Kong Music Academy Orchestra in Austria, France, Itay, the UK and Thailand.

Bảo holds a master's degree in viola performance from the Paris National Conservatory of Music.

He has worked with many renowned musicians and orchestras, and performed at many music festivals in France.

In 2015, Bảo returned to Việt Nam and launched his musical projects to develop classical music in the country.

The programme will include Symphony No. 35, which is also called the Haffner Symphony.

Mozart wrote the symphony in 1782 to mark the birthday of a member of the Haffners, a prominent family in Salzburg, Austria. It premiered in 1983 at the Vienna Burgtheater.

The four-movement work will be performed by HBSO.

Conductor Tetsuji studied at the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam and the London Sinfonietta, an English contemporary chamber orchestra.

He has won several top prizes at international competitions, including the Tokyo International Competition, Arturo Toscanini International Conductor Competition, and Budapest International Conductor Competition.

He has conducted numerous orchestras including La Scala Philharmonic Orchestra of Italy, the Hungarian State Symphony Orchestra and the Việt Nam National Symphony Orchestra.

He was appointed music advisor and conductor of the Vietnam National Symphony Orchestra (VNSO) from 2001-2009, and as the orchestra's director from 2011.

He took the VNSO to perform at New York's Carnegie Hall and Boston Symphony Hall in the US in 2011, the Teatro La Fenice Venice opera house, Capella Paolina chapel and Italian Presidential Palace in Italy in 2013, and the Grand Hall of the Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatory and Grand Hall of the Saint Petersburg Philharmonic in Russia in 2014.

The concert will begin at 8pm at 7 Lam Sơn square in District 1. Tickets are available at the venue. – VNS