Michael Nagy - Juliane Ruf

Third time lucky - well let's hope so! The recital by the baritone Michael Nagy and pianist Juliane Ruf has been postponed a couple of times due to illness. This season we will endeavour to invite them again because we really want to give you the opportunity to hear this exceptional song duo from Irwin Gage's piano class! In April 2004 they won first prize in the international contest for song duos at the Hugo-Wolf-Akademie in Stuttgart. Since then their career has gone from strength to strength, resulting in a successful debut at the Wigmore Hall in London. In the meantime Michael Nagy has become a rising opera star. Last season he chose Frankfurt Opera over his work at Berlin's Comic Opera; fortunately song recitals remain a priority for this young baritone. The main focus in this recital is Schumann's 'Dichterliebe', which is based on poems from the 'Lyrisches Intermezzo' by Heinrich Heine, probably one of the most realistic collections of love poems ever written. This cycle examines love from all possible sides. It presents quite a challenge for the performers, who have to convincingly portray love's awakening, love's yearning, bitter disappointment and its sarcastic assimilation. Michael Nagy and Juliane Ruf manage to negotiate this with a healthy mix of objectivity and subjectivity.