Chamber concert:
Amalie
Stalheim
Photo: Nikolaj Lund
Scandinavia’s new star soloist at the Oslo Opera House
Amalie Stalheim, one of Scandinavia’s most promising musicians, is performing her favourite music for the cello and piano on the Second Stage. She is accompanied by Christian Ihle Hadland on the piano.
“Skyrocketing career”, “outstanding” and “Scandinavian’s most promising young cellist”: There has been no lack of praise for Amalie Stalheim in recent years. During this intimate chamber concert, the 28-year-old will be performing five works from her latest album with Christian Ihle Hadland.
Virtuoso and demanding classic
The evening’s performance opens with the virtuoso and demanding work Suite Italienne by Stravinsky. Nowadays, the suite is a must-have in every cellist’s repertoire, but was not actually written as an independent work.
It was originally composed for a ballet that typified Stravinsky’s neoclassical period: Pulcinella (1930). It was a ballet packed with tension between the past and future and between the rhytmic drive of Baroque music and Stravinsky’s modern ideas about grinding to a halt and remaining static.
Stalheim’s cello was made by F. Ruggieri in 1687. In other words, she is playing Stravinsky on a cello 240 years older than the suite itself!
Czech fantasy
The mood is Bohemian and dreamy when Stalheim plunges into Czech and Russian folklore. Pohádka by Janáček is based on the Russian poem The Tale of Tsar Berendyey and was originally an 11-minute opera, a musical hodgepodge of song, dance, poetry and drama. It was written just after Janáček lost his daughter, Olga, and was struggling to achieve recognition as a composer.
When Stalheim performs Pohádka on the Second Stage, it will be the last and most often played version of the work, in which the cello shines alone with the piano.
The programme also includes works by Webern and Poulenc.
Rocket speed
Stalheim has gained great distinction as a cellist in recent years. She is the winner of the Swedish Soloist Prize in 2018 – and the Norwegian one in 2021 – and has been praised for her unusually broad and interesting repertoire for her young age. She is passionate about new works written for the cello, and in 2022, her programme includes no fewer than five premiere performances and recordings.
She has worked with such conductors as Edward Gardner, James Gaffigan, Dalia Stasevska, Christian Reif, Okko Kamu, Anna Maria Helsing, Nuno Coelho and Stanislav Kochanovsk – as well as orchestras like the Oslo Philharmonic, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra and Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, to name a few.
During the 2022–23 season, she will also be guest performing as a soloist during the celebration concert in honour of the Opera’s new music director, Edward Gardner.