World Premiere

Performance by the Odense Symphony Orchestra
Conductor: Christopher Lichtenstein

Tickets Available at Odense Symfoni

Again this year, we invite our audience to experience first performances from four centuries. It is a completely unique way of experiencing the music and its history, where each piece can be heard as new, and where the Odense Symphony Orchestra shows the breadth of their musical reach. Impressive baroque overtures by Handel, a classical symphony by Mendelssohn – the lesser-known 1st Symphony – a cornucopia of orchestral sound by Richard Strauss from the 20th century and a premiere performance by the world-famous Danish composer Poul Ruders.

Poul Ruders and Paul Bentley based on Margaret Atwood (with German and English subtitles)
Tickets available at Theatre Freiburg

Production Team
Musical direction: Ektoras Tartanis
Direction: Peter Carp
Set Kaspar Zwimpfer
Costumes Gabriele Rupprecht
Light design Diego Leetz
Choir director Norbert Kleinschmidt
Dramaturgy Tatjana Beyer, Charlotte Maskelony

Cast
Inga Schäfer (Offred)
Katerina Hebelková (Serena Joy)
Margarita Vilsone (Aunt Lydia)
Jin Seok Lee (The Commander)
Theresa Bertrand (Offred-Double)
Junbum Lee (Luke)
Glen Cunningham (Nick)
Anja Jung (Offred's Mother)
Lila Chrisp (Ofglen / New Ofglen)
Natasha Sallès (Moira)
Cassandra Wright (Janine - Ofwarren)
Roberto Gionfriddo (Doctor / Commander X)
Melissa Serluco (Rita)
Karen Job (Moira's Aunt)
Freiburg Philharmonic Orchestra
Freiburg Theater Opera Choir
Freiburg Theater Extras

Poul Ruders and Paul Bentley based on Margaret Atwood (with German and English subtitles)
Tickets available at Theatre Freiburg

Production Team
Musical direction: Ektoras Tartanis
Direction: Peter Carp
Set Kaspar Zwimpfer
Costumes Gabriele Rupprecht
Light design Diego Leetz
Choir director Norbert Kleinschmidt
Dramaturgy Tatjana Beyer, Charlotte Maskelony

Cast
Inga Schäfer (Offred)
Katerina Hebelková (Serena Joy)
Margarita Vilsone (Aunt Lydia)
Jin Seok Lee (The Commander)
Theresa Bertrand (Offred-Double)
Junbum Lee (Luke)
Glen Cunningham (Nick)
Anja Jung (Offred's Mother)
Lila Chrisp (Ofglen / New Ofglen)
Natasha Sallès (Moira)
Cassandra Wright (Janine - Ofwarren)
Roberto Gionfriddo (Doctor / Commander X)
Melissa Serluco (Rita)
Karen Job (Moira's Aunt)
Freiburg Philharmonic Orchestra
Freiburg Theater Opera Choir
Freiburg Theater Extras

German Premiere

Poul Ruders and Paul Bentley based on Margaret Atwood (with German and English subtitles)
Tickets available at Theatre Freiburg

Production Team
Musical direction: Ektoras Tartanis
Direction: Peter Carp
Set Kaspar Zwimpfer
Costumes Gabriele Rupprecht
Light design Diego Leetz
Choir director Norbert Kleinschmidt
Dramaturgy Tatjana Beyer, Charlotte Maskelony

Cast
Inga Schäfer (Offred)
Katerina Hebelková (Serena Joy)
Margarita Vilsone (Aunt Lydia)
Jin Seok Lee (The Commander)
Theresa Bertrand (Offred-Double)
Junbum Lee (Luke)
Glen Cunningham (Nick)
Anja Jung (Offred's Mother)
Lila Chrisp (Ofglen / New Ofglen)
Natasha Sallès (Moira)
Cassandra Wright (Janine - Ofwarren)
Roberto Gionfriddo (Doctor / Commander X)
Melissa Serluco (Rita)
Karen Job (Moira's Aunt)
Freiburg Philharmonic Orchestra
Freiburg Theater Opera Choir
Freiburg Theater Extras

World Premiere

Peter Navarro-Alonso, Organ soloist

Location site: vorfrelserskirke.dk
Ticket link and additional details coming soon

Tickets available at the Sorø International Music Festival

Here is the chance to experience the BIRTHDAY CONCERT played by Rudersdal Kammersolister. You will be presented with two of Ruder's most important chamber works, the piano quartet and the clarinet quintet. In addition, he himself has chosen works by classical composers Carl Nielsen and Schumann, who mean something special to him. Jonas Frølund plays the cadenza from Carl Nielsen's clarinet concerto, which he released on a critically acclaimed solo CD. Manuel Esperilla and the four strings have thrown themselves into Schumann's grand piano quintet of symphonic dimensions.

Rudersdal Chamber Soloists:
Jonas Frølund, clarinet
Christine Pryn, violin
Amalie Kjældgaard Kristensen, violin
Marie Stockmarr Becker, viola
John Ehde, cello
Manuel Esperilla, piano

German Premier

Inga Schäfer as Offred
Tickets Available at Theater Freiburg

Based on Margaret Atwood's successful dystopian novel THE HANDMAID'S TALE, the 1998 opera by Danish composer Poul Ruders tells the story of the maid Offred in the fictional, strictly patriarchal, Christian fundamentalist theocracy of Gilead.

In this military dictatorship, women are largely without rights. Many are enslaved and abused as handmaids to bear children to the ruling class of commanders and their infertile wives. The explosive material was filmed by Volker Schlöndorff and in a very successful series from 2017. The impressive opera is now being staged as a German premiere in Freiburg.

Don’t miss this exceptional chance to see the first workshop presentation of this seminal Canadian dystopian classic about a woman’s struggles in a totalitarian society in a new chamber version commissioned by Banff Centre. Witness the early stages of an opera production before it premieres on stages near and far in the coming years.

Interplay is supported by the David Spencer Emerging Vocalists Endowment, the Yolande Freeze Master Artists in Music Fund, and the Music in PyeongChang and Banff Centre Partnership.

Free tickets are available at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity.

Mahan Esfahani In Recital on Harpsichord
Tickets Available at StanfordLiveTickets.org

Esfahani combines 'ancient' with 'modern' 20th-century Japanese Toru Takemitsu dreams melancholically in his atmospheric Rain Dreaming. Poul Ruders is very up-to-date with Quick Step Rag, completed in 2023... He wrote it especially for Esfahani, who plays a pair of Bach pieces by father and son. As clear, structured, and beautifully organized as father Johann Sebastian composed, son Carl Philipp Emanuel is loose and imaginative. The latter thus reacted somewhat to his father's 'learnedness' without losing respect for him, by the way. J.S.'s suites may be called 'English', but Bach was guided more by the French harpsichord style and also that of the French lute players.
— excerpt from Muziekgebouw Eindhoven

Performed by the Rudersdal Chamber Players
Tickets Available on TicketMaster: ticketmaster.dk

Poul Ruders enjoys life in the countryside outside Næstved with his wife and dog Buller and writes his music in an isolated shed in the garden. However, the quiet surroundings have given way to the world's big stages when his music is played in New York, London and Berlin, etc.

Rudersdal Chamber Soloists have toured with Poul Ruders' chamber music with concerts in e.g. Stockholm and Saint Petersburg. In 2022, they released it on an album that received distinguished reviews worldwide, incl. the coveted 5 stars in BBC Music Magazine.