Elena Langer (born 1974 in

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...

) is a Russian-born British composer of opera and other contemporary classical music. Her work has been performed at the

Royal Opera House The Royal Opera House (ROH) is an opera house and major performing arts venue in Covent Garden, central London. The large building is often referred to as simply Covent Garden, after a previous use of the site. It is the home of The Royal Op ...

, Zurich Opera,

Carnegie Hall Carnegie Hall ( ) is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City. It is at 881 Seventh Avenue (Manhattan), Seventh Avenue, occupying the east side of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street (Manhattan), 56th and 57th Street (Manhatta ...

, Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts,

Stanislavski and Nemirovich-Danchenko Moscow Academic Music Theatre The Stanislavski and Nemirovich-Danchenko Moscow Academic Music Theatre (russian: Московский академический Музыкальный театр имени народных артистов К. С. Станиславског ...

Shakespeare's Globe Shakespeare's Globe is a reconstruction of the Globe Theatre, an Elizabethan playhouse for which William Shakespeare wrote his plays, in the London Borough of Southwark, on the south bank of the River Thames. The original theatre was built in ...

Wigmore Hall Wigmore Hall is a concert hall located at 36 Wigmore Street, London. Originally called Bechstein Hall, it specialises in performances of chamber music, early music, vocal music and song recitals. It is widely regarded as one of the world's leadin ...

, Opera national du Rhin, Strasbourg, and Milton Court,

Barbican Centre The Barbican Centre is a performing arts centre in the Barbican Estate of the City of London and the largest of its kind in Europe. The centre hosts classical and contemporary music concerts, theatre performances, film screenings and art exhi ...

. She studied piano and composition at the

Gnessin State Musical College The Gnessin State Musical College (russian: link=no, Государственный музыкальный колледж имени Гнесиных) and Gnesins Russian Academy of Music (russian: Российская академия музык� ...

in Moscow and composition at the

Moscow Conservatoire The Moscow Conservatory, also officially Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatory (russian: Московская государственная консерватория им. П. И. Чайковского, link=no) is a musical educational inst ...

; in 1999 she moved to London and studied composition at the

Royal College of Music The Royal College of Music is a music school, conservatoire established by royal charter in 1882, located in South Kensington, London, UK. It offers training from the Undergraduate education, undergraduate to the Doctorate, doctoral level in a ...

(1999–2000) with

Julian Anderson Julian Anderson (born 6 April 1967) is a British composer and teacher of composition. Biography Anderson was born in London. He studied at Westminster School, then with John Lambert at the Royal College of Music, with Alexander Goehr at Cambri ...

and the

Royal Academy of Music The Royal Academy of Music (RAM) in London, England, is the oldest conservatoire in the UK, founded in 1822 by John Fane and Nicolas-Charles Bochsa. It received its royal charter in 1830 from King George IV with the support of the first Duke of ...

(2001–03) with

Simon Bainbridge Simon Bainbridge (30 August 1952 – 2 April 2021) was a British composer. He was also a professor and head of composition at the Royal Academy of Music, London, and visiting professor at the University of Louisville, Kentucky, in the United St ...

Career

In 2002 Langer became the first Jerwood Composer in Association at the

Almeida Theatre The Almeida Theatre, opened in 1980, is a 325-seat producing house with an international reputation, which takes its name from the street on which it is located, off Upper Street, in the London Borough of Islington. The theatre produces a diver ...

in London, writing the short operas ''Ariadne'' (premiered at the Almeida Opera Festival in 2002) and ''The Girl of Sand'' (2003), both settings of librettos by poet

Glyn Maxwell Glyn Maxwell (born 1962) is a British poet, playwright, novelist, librettist, and lecturer. Early life Of primarily Welsh heritage — his mother Buddug-Mair Powell (b. 1928) acted in the original stage show of Dylan Thomas's ''Under Milk Wood'' ...

. ''Ariadne'' was further performed at the

Tanglewood Festival The Tanglewood Music Festival is a music festival held every summer on the Tanglewood estate in Stockbridge and Lenox in the Berkshire Hills in western Massachusetts. The festival consists of a series of concerts, including symphonic music, c ...

and the Britten and Strauss Festival in Aldeburgh in 2009, as well as at the Moscow Conservatoire. In 2009 her song cycle ''Songs at the Well'', based on Russian folk texts, was performed at the

, New York. Her next collaboration with Maxwell, a short dramatic piece called ''The Present'', won the Audience Prize at the Zurich Opera House's New Opera Festival in January 2009. The work concerned the case of a patient suffering from

Alzheimer's disease Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a neurodegeneration, neurodegenerative disease that usually starts slowly and progressively worsens. It is the cause of 60–70% of cases of dementia. The most common early symptom is difficulty in short-term me ...

. Langer and Maxwell went on to develop this into the opera ''The Lion's Face'', which enjoyed a successful tour around England and Wales (including 4 performances at the Linbury Studio,

, Covent Garden) in a production by

John Fulljames John Fulljames (born 1976) is an English opera director who was the director of the Royal Danish Opera from 2017 to 2022. He was Associate Director of Opera at the British Royal Opera from 2011 to 2017. A Cambridge University graduate in Physics, ...

for The Opera Group. This work also initiated an ongoing collaboration between The Opera Group and the Institute of Psychiatry, and involved Professor

Simon Lovestone Sir Simon Lovestone (born February 1961) is professor of translational neuroscience at the University of Oxford. He is a specialist in neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease. He was made a knight bachelor in ...

, director of the institute's Biomedical Research Centre, in a consultant role. Langer was subsequently commissioned by

Dawn Upshaw Dawn Upshaw (born July 17, 1960) is an American soprano. She is the recipient of several Grammy Awards and has released a number of Edison Award-winning discs; she performs both opera and art song, and her repertoire spans Baroque to contempor ...

to compose a one-act comic opera for performance at

Bard College Bard College is a private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York. The campus overlooks the Hudson River and Catskill Mountains, and is within the Hudson River Historic ...

in upstate New York. The resulting work, ''Four Sisters'', to a libretto by John Lloyd-Davies, was performed in March 2012 at the Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College. In December 2012 ''Songs at the Well'', with additional newly composed music, was dramatized by Dmitri Belyanushkin and staged at the Stanislavski and Nemirovich-Danchenko Music Theatre, in a double-bill with

Lera Auerbach Lera Auerbach (russian: Лера Авербах, born Valeria Lvovna Averbakh, russian: Валерия Львовна Авербах; October 21, 1973) is a Soviet-born American classical composer and concert pianist.

's ''The Blind''. In 2012–2013, using the surviving vocal score, Langer re-orchestrated

César Cui César Antonovich Cui ( rus, Це́зарь Анто́нович Кюи́, , ˈt͡sjezərʲ ɐnˈtonəvʲɪt͡ɕ kʲʊˈi, links=no, Ru-Tsezar-Antonovich-Kyui.ogg; french: Cesarius Benjaminus Cui, links=no, italic=no; 13 March 1918) was a Ru ...

's 1913 opera ''

Puss in Boots "Puss in Boots" ( it, Il gatto con gli stivali) is an Italian fairy tale, later spread throughout the rest of Europe, about an anthropomorphic cat who uses trickery and deceit to gain power, wealth, and the hand of a princess in marriage for hi ...

'' (''Кот в сапогах'') for the

Grand Théâtre de Genève Grand Théâtre de Genève is an opera house in Geneva, Switzerland. As with many other opera houses, the Grand Théâtre de Genève is both a venue and an institution. The venue is a majestic building, towering over Place Neuve, official ...

, for performance in May 2013. Her song-cycle for soprano, counter-tenor and baroque chamber ensemble, ''Landscape with Three People'', based on poems by

Lee Harwood Lee Harwood (6 June 1939 – 26 July 2015) was a poet associated with the British Poetry Revival. Life Travers Rafe Lee Harwood was born in Leicester to maths teacher Wilfred Travers Lee-Harwood and Grace Ladkin Harwood, who were then living ...

, was performed at Concerts at Cratfield in August 2013. In 2014

commissioned incidental music from Langer for David Eldridge's play ''Holy Warriors'', about the 12th-century struggle for Jerusalem, during the

Second Crusade The Second Crusade (1145–1149) was the second major crusade launched from Europe. The Second Crusade was started in response to the fall of the County of Edessa in 1144 to the forces of Zengi. The county had been founded during the First Crusa ...

, between

Saladin Yusuf ibn Ayyub ibn Shadi () ( – 4 March 1193), commonly known by the epithet Saladin,, ; ku, سه‌لاحه‌دین, ; was the founder of the Ayyubid dynasty. Hailing from an ethnic Kurdish family, he was the first of both Egypt and ...

and

Richard the Lionheart Richard I (8 September 1157 – 6 April 1199) was King of England from 1189 until his death in 1199. He also ruled as Duke of Normandy, Aquitaine and Gascony, Lord of Cyprus, and Count of Poitiers, Anjou, Maine, and Nantes, and was overl ...

. In 2015, in response to a commission from the

Britten Sinfonia Britten Sinfonia is a chamber orchestra ensemble based in Cambridge, UK. It was created in 1992, following an initiative from Eastern Arts and a number of key figures including Nicholas Cleobury, who recognised the need for an orchestra in the ...

for an orchestral piece, Langer wrote ''Story of an Impossible Love'', which was performed in Cambridge and London in 2016, and subsequently in Calgary and Karlsruhe, where it was conducted by Justin Brown.

Welsh National Opera Welsh National Opera (WNO) ( cy, Opera Cenedlaethol Cymru) is an opera company based in Cardiff, Wales; it gave its first performances in 1946. It began as a mainly amateur body and transformed into an all-professional ensemble by 1973. In its ...

commissioned a sequel to ''

The Barber of Seville ''The Barber of Seville, or The Useless Precaution'' ( it, Il barbiere di Siviglia, ossia L'inutile precauzione ) is an ''opera buffa'' in two acts composed by Gioachino Rossini with an Italian libretto by Cesare Sterbini. The libretto was base ...

'' and ''

The Marriage of Figaro ''The Marriage of Figaro'' ( it, Le nozze di Figaro, links=no, ), K. 492, is a ''commedia per musica'' (opera buffa) in four acts composed in 1786 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, with an Italian libretto written by Lorenzo Da Ponte. It premie ...

'', to be performed together as a trilogy in the company's Spring 2016 programme. The libretto of ''Figaro Gets a Divorce'' was written by

David Pountney Sir David Willoughby Pountney (born 10 September 1947) is a British-Polish theatre and opera director and librettist internationally known for his productions of rarely performed operas and new productions of classic works. He has directed over ...

, and the opera was premiered in Cardiff in February 2016, with designs by

Ralph Koltai Ralph Koltai CBE, RDI (31 July 1924 – 15 December 2018), was a German-born, naturalised British stage designer, who worked as associate designer of the Royal Shakespeare Company, and latterly as a sculptor. Early life Koltai was born on 31 ...

and conducted by Justin Brown. The main roles were sung by Marie Arnet (Susanna),

Elizabeth Watts Elizabeth Watts (born 1979) is an English operatic soprano. Watts was born in Norwich and attended Norwich High School for Girls. She studied archaeology at Sheffield University and graduated with first class honours. Beginning in 2002, she stu ...

(Countess Almaviva), Mark Stone (Count Almaviva) and

Alan Oke Alan Oke is a British tenor. Born in London and raised in Scotland, he studied both at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in Glasgow and with Hans Hotter in Munich. Career Following a successful career as a baritone he made his de ...

(The Major). The opera subsequently toured around the UK and in 2017 was performed at the Teatr Wielki in Poznań and at the Grand Théâtre, Geneva, with a live stream on the Arte Channel in Switzerland. The opera is scheduled for performances at

Theater Magdeburg Theater Magdeburg is the principal theatre organization in Magdeburg, Germany, the capital of the state Saxony-Anhalt. It was formed in 2004 with the merger of two theatres, the Theater der Landeshauptstadt (Theatre of the state capital) and the ' ...

from 22 January 2022. In 2016, a CD of small-scale vocal and chamber works, entitled ''Landscape with Three People'', was released by

Harmonia Mundi Harmonia Mundi is an independent record label which specializes in classical music, jazz, and world music (on the World Village label). It was founded in France in 1958 and is now a subsidiary of PIAS Entertainment Group. Its Latin name ''ha ...

. Besides the title track the CD also contains ''Ariadne'', Elena's first collaboration with

, and the light-hearted ''Cat Songs'', based on the absurdist poetry of

Daniil Kharms Daniil Ivanovich Kharms (russian: Дании́л Ива́нович Хармс; – 2 February 1942) was an early Soviet-era Russian avant-gardist and absurdist poet, writer and dramatist. Early years Kharms was born as Daniil Yuvachev ...

. The 2017 London Piano Festival commissioned a piece for two pianos, to be played by Charles Owen and Katya Apekisheva. Inspired by

Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin Kuzma Sergeevich Petrov-Vodkin, (; November 5, Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates">O._S._24_October.html" ;"title="Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates.html" ;"title="nowiki/>O._S._24_October">Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates.html"_;"title="nowiki/>Old_Styl ...

's 1912 painting
Bathing of a Red Horse
', Langer wrote the duet ''RedMare''. ''Rhondda Rips It Up!'', a music-hall/vaudeville about the suffragette Margaret Haig Thomas. was commissioned by Welsh National Opera and premiered in Newport in May 2018. Starring Madeleine Shaw and

Lesley Garrett Lesley Garrett, Order of the British Empire, CBE (born 10 April 1955) is an English soprano singer, musician, broadcaster and media personality. She is noted for being at home in opera and "crossover music". Early life Garrett was born in the ...

, the piece toured to 16 venues around the UK. In 2018, the

Boston Symphony Orchestra The Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) is an American orchestra based in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the second-oldest of the five major American symphony orchestras commonly referred to as the " Big Five". Founded by Henry Lee Higginson in 1881, ...

commissioned a piece for a chamber ensemble composed of ten principals the orchestra's sections; the result, ''Five Reflections on Water'', five contrasting pieces thematically linked, was performed in March 2019. With a libretto by David Pountney, Langer's next piece, ''Beauty and Sadness'', a chamber opera based on the 1964 novel by

Yasunari Kawabata was a Japanese novelist and short story writer whose spare, lyrical, subtly shaded prose works won him the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1968, the first Japanese author to receive the award. His works have enjoyed broad international appeal an ...

, was premiered at the Lyric Theatre, Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, in April 2019, directed by Carolyn Choa, designed by Tim Yip and conducted by Gergely Madaras. Independent Opera commissioned a song cycle to be performed by young prize-winning singers at the company's Scholars' Recital. With lyrics by Glyn Maxwell, ''It's Not You, It's Me'' received its premiere at the

in October 2019. An orchestral suite derived from ''Figaro Gets a Divorce'' was premiered by the

Seattle Symphony Orchestra The Seattle Symphony is an American orchestra based in Seattle, Washington. Since 1998, the orchestra is resident at Benaroya Hall. The orchestra also serves as the accompanying orchestra for the Seattle Opera. History Beginnings The orchestra ...

, conducted by

Maxim Emelyanychev Maxim Yuryevich Emelyanychev (Максим Юрьевич Емельянычев; born 28 August 1988, Dzerzhinsk) is a Russian conductor, pianist, harpsichordist and cornetist. From a musical family, Emelyanychev studied music at the Nizhny Novgor ...

, in January 2020. The suite was premièred in the UK in Glasgow in February 2020, performed by the

BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra The BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra (BBC SSO) is a Scottish broadcasting symphony orchestra based in Glasgow. One of five full-time orchestras maintained by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), it is the oldest full-time professional rad ...

conducted by Gergely Madaras. The suite will receive its Japanese premiere in September 2021, played by the

Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra The is a Japanese symphony orchestra administratively based in Tokyo. The orchestra primarily performs concerts in Tokyo at the Suntory Hall, but also gives concerts at the Tokyo Opera City Concert Hall. The orchestra also performs in Yokohama a ...

at the

Tokyo Metropolitan Theatre is a centre for the performing arts located in Ikebukuro, Toshima, Tokyo, Japan. It opened in 1990 and is operated by Tokyo Metropolitan Foundation for History and Culture. There is a concert hall with 1999 seats and a playhouse with 834 seats as ...

. Langer is currently working on a comic opera based on

Nikolai Erdman Nikolai Robertovich Erdman ( rus, Николай Робертович Эрдман, p=nʲɪkɐˈlaj ˈrobʲɪrtəvʲɪtɕ ˈɛrdmən, a=Nikolay Robyertovich Erdman.ru.vorb.oga; , Moscow – 10 August 1970) was a Soviet dramatist and screenwriter ...

's 1928 play ''The Suicide''. The opera is scheduled to be performed at the Stanislavski and Nemirovich-Danchenko Music Theatre in Moscow in 2022.

Selected works

*''Transformations'' for violin and piano, 1996 *''The Prayer'' for violin and Jewish male choir, 1999 *''Havdala'' for Jewish male choir, 1999 *''Triste Voce'' for viola solo, 2001 *''Platch'' for violin and string orchestra, 2001 *''Ariadne'', mono-opera, 2002 *''The Girl of Sand'', opera, 2003 *''Two Cat Songs'' after

for soprano, cello and piano, 2006 *''The Evening Flower'' for two guitars, 2006 *''Second Movement'' for oboe, violin and string orchestra, 2008 *''Songs at the Well'', song-cycle for soprano and orchestra, 2009 *''The Lion's Face'', opera, 2010 *''Four Sisters'', opera, 2012 *''Songs at the Well'' (expanded), song cycle for singers and orchestra, 2012 *''Landscape with Three People'', song cycle for soprano, counter-tenor and baroque ensemble, 2013Recorded by Anna Dennis, William Towers, and

Nicholas Daniel Nicholas Daniel (born 9 January 1962) is a British oboe, oboist and conductor. In 2003 he was appointed Artistic Director of the Leicester International Music Festival. Education He was educated at Salisbury Cathedral School and the Purcell S ...

and released on

harmonia mundi Harmonia Mundi is an independent record label which specializes in classical music, jazz, and world music (on the World Village label). It was founded in France in 1958 and is now a subsidiary of PIAS Entertainment Group. Its Latin name ''ha ...

February 2016 * ''Story of an Impossible Love'' for orchestra, 2015 * ''Figaro Gets a Divorce'', opera, 2016 * ''RedMare'' for two pianos, 2017 * ''Rhondda Rips It Up!'', cabaret opera, 2018 * ''Five Reflections on Water'' for chamber orchestra, 2019 * ''Beauty and Sadness'', chamber opera, 2019 * Orchestral suite from ''Figaro Gets a Divorce'', 2020

External links

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Langer, Elena 1974 births Living people Russian composers British composers Russian emigrants to the United Kingdom Moscow Conservatory alumni Alumni of the Royal College of Music Alumni of the Royal Academy of Music Women classical composers 21st-century classical composers 21st-century British musicians 21st-century women composers