Prom 69: Smetana, Shostakovich & Tchaikovsky

The dancing rhythms and swirling colours of Smetana’s opera The Bartered Bride launch a concert of big musical gestures and even bigger emotions.
First love blazes hot in the Letter Scene from Tchaikovsky’s opera Eugene Onegin, as Tatyana (sung here by soprano Elena Stikhina) pours out her heart in music as romantic as anything the composer ever wrote.
War, not love, drives the pulsing heartbeat of Shostakovich’s Eighth Symphony – the most personal and direct of the composer’s many attempts ‘to express the terrible tragedy of war’.

Programme

Smetana The Bartered Bride – overture and Three Dances
Tchaikovsky Eugene Onegin – Letter Scene

Interval

Shostakovich Symphony No. 8 in C minor

Performers

Elena Stikhina soprano
Czech Philharmonic
Semyon Bychkov conductor