Belshazzar’s Feast; Enigma Variations

Wicked, raucous and outrageously opulent – Brighton Festival Chorus radiate in Walton’s roller-coaster score.

Bring together a large orchestra, two brass bands and a double chorus, a commanding baritone…and the Fall of Babylon can begin, in Walton’s joyous cantata. The triumph of Belshazzar’s Feast is the decadent syncopations; the swooping, full-throttle choir;  and clattering percussion, slippery trombones, wah-wah trumpets and grooving saxophone. Our soloist is the young American baritone Cody Quattlebaum, fresh from San Francisco Opera, Royal Danish Theatre and English National Opera, and one of the brightest talents around.

British conductor Ben Gernon, a regular guest of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony and Czech Philharmonic and a frequent performer at the Proms with the BBC Symphony and BBC Philharmonic, debuted recently with the Vienna Symphony, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic and the Orchestra of St Luke’s in New York. He opens our concert with Elgar’s evergreen Enigma Variations, whose elegiac and vital portraits of Elgar’s friends – including the famous Nimrod – remain at the heart of classical repertoire.

‘Cody Quattlebaum impressed with his virile singing, and magnetic stage presence.’ Opera Today