A press conference was held by the HCMC Ballet, Symphony Orchestra and Ballet (HBSO) on February 26 to introduce the artistic program for the year 2019.

HBSO's press conference at the Saigon Opera House on February 26 - PHOTO: COURTESY OF HBSO

The HBSO’s director, Tran Vuong Thach, spoke at length about the hopes and achievements of the organization.

In particular, it was announced that the former programming schedule whereby performances were staged on the 9th, 19th and 29th of each month had been replaced by a system of scheduling performances at weekends. This would clearly suit hard-working audience members, and probably increase ticket sales – clearly a beneficial change for all concerned.

Tran Vuong Thach highlighted the 2019 Arts Festival “Autumn Melodies”, held every two years, and in particular the participation this year of Canadian-Vietnamese pianist Dang Thai Son who in 1980 won First Prize and Gold Medal at the International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw, the first artist of Asian origin ever to do so.

The festival will also include the violinist Chuong Vu, who took Saigon by storm with his performance in Sheherazade last October.

Also picked out for special mention were several other items from the 2019 program. Among these were Igor Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, also to be included in the Autumn Melodies festival, Beethoven’s Triple Concerto featuring soloists Emma Savouret (cello), Nguyen Huu Nguyen (violin) and Ho Dac Thuy Hoang (piano) which will be played on August 3, plus “A Night of Tchaikovsky and Shostakovich” (two Russian composers) which will include the former’s Symphony Number Five and the latter’s Concerto for Piano, Trumpet and String Orchestra, with Igor Chystokletov and Tormod Asgard on piano and trumpet respectively (July 27).

In addition, violinist Stephane Tran Ngoc will appear in a concert of violin masterpieces on July 17. Prior to that, Vietnamese composer Tran Manh Hung’s The Flow, consisting of 21 folk songs from different regions of the country, will be performed in the opening concert of the season on March 2.

Several major ballet successes will be repeated, notably Cinderella in April, Carmen, Depaysement and Falling Angels in July, and The Nutcracker in December, this last one for three performances.

Later, several questions were asked about composer Vu Viet Anh’s Diary of a Cricket, to be performed in a more fully-staged version than previously at some date in the future. The concert version will be repeated on June 23.

However, it is noted that there is the absence of Italian operas in the scheduling. Of the perhaps 26 greatest operas worldwide, half are in Italian. Instead of these we had been offered operas, some of them little-known, written in German.

A senior member of the HBSO steering committee told me privately that the company benefitted from the availability of a German opera director (David Hermann), and that its singers had become trained in performing in the German language.

SGT