‘Anne Sofie von Otter’

‘Music to hear, why hear’st thou music sadly? Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy.’ (Shakespeare, Sonnet VIII). Originality, inventiveness, and audacity are terms that apply both to the great Shakespeare and the mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie von Otter. In her last Brussels appearance, she created a captivating recital in which American minimalism rubbed shoulders with both Janáček and pop music. She returns with a programme focused on Shakespeare, for which she has assembled a characteristic mix of genres. As in the works of the Bard of Stratford, she offers a fusion of the sublime and the clownish, of melancholy and gaiety. As well as different aesthetics and eras, Anne Sofie von Otter draws on an eclectic range of sources – from Korngold to Rufus Wainwright. ‘If music be the food of love, play on! Give me excess of it!’