19.03.2025

ELEANOR LYONS on tour with Beethoven's Ninth Symphony

Following a European tour with Missa Solemnis in December 2022 and her successful role and house debut as Leonore at the Dresden Semperoper, Australian soprano Eleanor Lyons will once again be devoting herself to Beethoven's work, which is so central to her, in the coming weeks and will once again be touring Europe with the Orchestre des Champs-Elysées and the Collegium Vocale Gent under the direction of Philippe Herreweghe, this time with Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. However, Philippe Herreweghe and his two ensembles present more than an ‘ode to joy’, a ‘hymn for peace’: With Hanns Eisler's pacifist oratorio ‘Against the War’, which he completed on the eve of his mobilisation for the First World War, and Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, the premiere of which celebrated its 200th anniversary in 2024, music reasserts its unifying power in such disturbing times as these. Both a warning and a glimmer of hope speak from this programme, which ultimately sends out a ‘Be embraced millions!’ into the world.

Cast

Eleanor Lyons, soprano
Sophie Harmsen, mezzo-soprano
Benjamin Hulett / Ilker Arcayürek, tenor
Johannes Kammler, baritone

Philippe Herreweghe, conductor
Orchestre des Champs-Élysées
Collegium Vocale Gent