Opening Concert "Ewig!"
- 13/09/2026, from 18:00 to 20:30
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Opening Concert “Ewig!” (Eternal) at Oper Graz
With his Symphony No. 5, Franz Schubert created a mature work at the age of just 19. The unusually small orchestration, without clarinets, trumpets and timpani, recalls the music of his famous predecessor Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart – as do certain motifs and harmonies.
Under the musical direction of the internationally successful conductor Giedrė Šlekytė, who studied conducting, among other places, at the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz, the Graz Philharmonic will devote the second part of the concert to the symphonic song cycle Das Lied von der Erde (The Song of the Earth), which Gustav Mahler composed only three years before his early death. Mahler wrote the six movements based on texts from the poetry collection Die chinesische Flöte (The Chinese Flute) by Hans Bethge. The final movement in particular, “Der Abschied” (The Farewell), lasting almost 30 minutes and fading away with the words “for ever … for ever …”, continues to resonate long after it has ended. In a letter to Anton Webern, Mahler’s fellow composer Alban Berg wrote: “It is like the passing of life, or rather of life as it has been lived, before the soul of the dying. The work of art condenses; reality evaporates, the idea remains; that is what these songs are like.”
Musical Direction: Giedrė Šlekytė
Grazer Philharmoniker
Dshamilja Kaiser
Attilio Glaser
Public transport: Tram 1, 7 I Stop: Kaiser-Josef Platz/Opera
