Philharmonia Orchestra, Jac Van Steen

Tchaikovsky Eugene Onegin (excerpts)
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Tchaikovsky Swan Lake (excerpts)
Tchaikovsky The Nutcracker (excerpts)

On a Russian summer night, a teenage girl pours out her young heart to a handsome stranger. In an enchanted realm, a dashing young prince falls in love with a maiden in the form of a swan. And on the Christmas Eve of everyone’s dreams, a Nutcracker prince hosts a party in the Kingdom of Sweets.

Tchaikovsky may have been one of Russia’s greatest masters of the symphony, but his true home was the theatre, and this evening-long celebration with the Philharmonia – “the UK’s national orchestra” – features some of the best-loved highlights of Swan Lake and The Nutcracker, from the Waltz of the Flowers to the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy.

First, though, Jac van Steen conducts former Cardiff Singer of the World Tommi Hakala and soprano Veronika Dzhioeva in extracts from Eugene Onegin: the heartfelt tale of young love and loss that’s as close as Tchaikovsky ever got to writing an autobiography.