Watch English National Opera and Max Richter at South Facing Festival

10 May 2021, 12:28 | Updated: 10 May 2021, 12:30

Watch great live music as part of South Facing Festival, a multi-genre series of concerts taking place at Crystal Palace Bowl this August.

English National Opera (ENO) and Max Richter are among the artists performing at South Facing Festival this summer.

Taking place this August (2021), the festival will feature a range of multi-genre open air concerts at Crystal Palace Bowl in London.

ENO will be presenting a semi-staged performance of Puccini’s Tosca, promising to proudly continue a classical music tradition at Crystal Palace that began nearly a century-and-a-half ago. Soprano Natalya Romaniw will star as Floria Tosca, with tenor David Junghoon Kim as Mario Cavaradossi and baritone Roland Wood as Scarpia – conducted by Richard Farnes.

The Max Richter Ensemble will be at the festival, performing its only British show this year, with Richter’s neo-minimalist pieces INFRA and VOICES.

The ensemble will be conducted by Robert Ziegler, and joined by soprano Grace Davidson, violinist Mari Samuelsen and Tenebrae choir.

VOICES is a major work created by Richter and his artistic partner Yulia Mahr, featuring text adapted from the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The piece explores themes of global community, born out of Richter’s career-long view of music as activism and his desire to unite audiences worldwide, and the music has been described by Richter himself as “a place to think”.

Read more: Max Richter releases ‘Voices’ album and ‘Sleep’ meditation app

It opens with a 1949 recording of Eleanor Roosevelt reading the Declaration and includes excerpts read by a global community of 70 voices.

INFRA is Richter’s musical response to the London 07/07 terror attacks, taking dual inspiration from T.S. Eliot’s modernist poem ‘The Waste Land’.

South Facing is a new festival reviving the tradition of music at London’s Crystal Palace Bowl, marking its debut year in 2021. The open air concert series will feature 12 headline performances from a range of artists and genres, including Corinne Bailey Rae, Dizzee Rascal & The Outlook Orchestra, Supergrass and The Streets, as well as the ENO and Max Richter shows detailed above.

South Facing Festival takes place at Crystal Palace Bowl, London, on 5 – 31 August 2021. Visit www.ticketmaster.co.uk/south-facing to book tickets now.