• Willa Lentza

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• 26-04-2024, Friday, at 7:00 pm - Ticketed event

Our Friday chamber music concert (on 26th April 2024) at the Lentz Villa is titled MOZART DA CAMERA, which means ‘for the chamber or room’ in Italian, as such music was originally performed in private chambers. In 1530 French king Francis I of the House of Valois began to employ singers who entertained him in private in his free time. In the treatise L'antica musica ridotta alla moderna prattica (1555), the highly regarded music theorist Nicola Vicentino called this form of music making da camera, that is, CHAMBER MUSIC.

With time, the term came to designate vocal and instrumental music performed in private venues as opposed to the church, the theatre, or the opera.

This, then, is also the character of our concert of Mozart’s songs for high voice and pieces for the piano, for which the splendid interiors of the Lentz Villa provide an excellent venue.

The programme consists of the following works by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791):

Das Lied der Trennung, KV 519

Als Luise die Briefe, KV 520

Abendempfindung, KV 523

An Chloe, KV 524

Des kleinen Friedrichs Geburtstag in F Major, KV 529

Sehnsucht nach dem Frühling in F Major, KV 596

Sei du mein Trost, KV 391

Ah, vous dirai-je Maman, KV 265 (12 variations on the French folksong)

Oiseaux, si tous les ans, KV 307

Dans un bois solitaire et sombre, KV 308

Der Zauberer, KV 472

Die Verschweigung, KV 518

Das Veilchen, KV 476

Die betrogene Welt, KV 474

THE PERFORMERS

ALEKSANDRA BORKIEWICZ-CŁAPIŃSKA – coloratura soprano

Łódź-born soloist of that city’s Grand Theatre, specializing in Mozart and the Italian bel canto. She graduated with honours from the class of Prof. Urszula Kryger, DMus, Habil. and Bernadetta Grabias, DMus, Habil. at the Voice and Acting Institute of the Grażyna and Kiejstut Bacewicz Academy (now University) of Music in Łódź.

She made her debut at Łódź Grand Theatre as Solange in the world premiere of Marta Ptaszyńska’s opera The Lovers of Valldemossa Monastery (2010). On the same stage she has appeared in Rossini’s The Barber of Seville, Verdi’s Aida, Don Carlos, and Rigoletto, Donizetti’s Don Pasquale and Viva la mamma, Mozart’s Cosi fan tutte, Don Giovanni, and The Marriage of Figaro, Moniuszko’s Halka and The Haunted Manor, Bizet’s Carmen, Johann Strauss’ A Night in Venice, The Bat, and The Gypsy Baron, Frederick Loewe’s My Fair Lady, Rafał Janiak’s The Man from the Manufacture, Giacomo Orefice’s Chopin, Puccini’s Madama Butterfly, Bernstein’s Trouble in Tahiti, and Penderecki’s Paradise Lost. At the Teatr Wielki – Polish National Opera she debuted as Basia in Jan Stefani’s The Supposed Miracle or Cracovians and Highlanders (2015), at Wrocław Opera – as Papagena in Mozart’s The Magic Flute (2016). She later returned to Wrocław as Zerlina in Mozart’s Don Giovanni (2023).

At the 4th Festival of Baroque Operas (2017) she was Sidonie in Lully’s Armide (a Warsaw Chamber Opera debut and the first Polish performance, recorded for TVP Kultura and co-produced with the Innsbrucker Festwochen der Alten Musik, Music Festival Potsdam Sanssouci, and Centre de Musique Baroque in Versailles). She has also appeared with Warsaw Chamber Opera in Mozart’s Don Giovanni (Zerlina), Donizetti’s Il giovedì grasso (Stefanina), Sondheim’s April, and Menotti’s The Telephone / The Medium (Lucy / Mrs Gobineau). In 2020 she first performed at the Baltic Opera as Rosina in Rossini’s The Barber of Seville. Her achievements also include the soprano part in Orff’s stage cantata Carmina Burana (with the Poznań Nightingales choir) and numerous appearances with symphony orchestras, for instance, in Mozart’s motet Exsultate jubilate (cond. Marcin Wolniewski, 2015) and Rossini’s Stabat Mater (Lower Silesian Philharmonic Orchestra, cond. Ruben Silva, 2019).

The artist’s numerous accolades include an honourable mention for the best performance of a Polish song and special award for an outstanding performance of a contemporary work at the 16th and 18th Ada Sari International Vocal Artistry Competition, a Voice Prize in the ‘Music in the Vineyards’ International Competition (Serbia 2019), reaching the semifinals of the prestigious 4th Grand Prix de l'Opéra International Voice Competition in Bucharest, special award for the best coloratura in the 12th ‘Golden Voices’ International Voice Competition, an honourable mention in the Concours International Leopold Bellan in Paris, the 2nd prize in the category of female voices in the King’s Peak International Music Competition, USA (2021). She is the only Pole to have reached the finals of Turin’s prestigious ‘Voci dal Mondo’ vocal contest (directed by Maestra Renata Scotto).

Twice scholarship holder of the Minister of Culture and National Heritage, the artist also won that Minister’s awards for outstanding artistic achievements (2015, 2016).

PAWEŁ CŁAPIŃSKI

He graduated from Prof. Katarzyna Popowa-Zydroń’s piano class at the Feliks Nowowiejski Academy of Music in Bydgoszcz. He later completed postgraduate studies with Prof. Ewa Pobłocka and developed his abilities with Tomasz Bartoszek, DMus, Habil., at the Grażyna and Kiejstut Bacewicz Academy (now University) of Music in Łódź

In 2016-2018 he was a participant of the Opera Academy young talents development programme at Warsaw’s Teatr Wielki – Polish National Opera (piano class of Eytan Pessen). He has also taken part in piano masterclasses taught by Dang Thai Son, Robert McDonald, Einar Steen-Nokleberg, Ilja Scheps, Mikhail Voskresensky, and Wojciech Świtała.

Cłapiński has won major prizes in national and international piano competitions, incl. the 1st prize in the 4th Concorso musicale ‘Un ricetto in musica’ (Candelo, Italy), the 1st prize and special award for the best performance of a solo piece by Franz Liszt in the Fryderyk Chopin National Piano Competition organised by NIFC, as well as an honourable mention (with violinist Maja Syrnicka) in the National Competition for Duos with Piano in Warsaw. He has also won many awards for best song accompanist in, among others, the 4th Grand Prix de l'Opéra International Voice Competition in Bucharest, the 5th Ignacy Jan Paderewski National Vocal Competition in Bydgoszcz, and the 4th Katarzyna Jamróz National Vocal Competition in Busko-Zdrój. The artist has received scholarships from the Marshal of the Łódzkie Province (2012), the President of the City of Bydgoszcz (2012), and the Minister of Culture and National Heritage (2011).

At present Cłapiński is a faculty member at his alma mater in Łódź (vocal class of Prof. Urszula Kryger).