A night at the opera with SOSL & Asitha
View(s):Sri Lanka’s leading tenor, Asitha Tennekoon, will be the soloist at the gala opera concert ‘A Night at the Opera’ on May 31 at the BMICH. The concert presented by the Symphony Orchestra of Sri Lanka will feature operatic choruses, arias and overtures and is a memorial concert for Dr. Earle de Fonseka who was a towering figure in the field of orchestral and choral music in Sri Lanka during the latter half of the 20th century. He was the conductor and driving force of the Symphony Orchestra of Sri Lanka for four decades from the 1960’s.
Asitha Tennekoon’s first performance with the Symphony Orchestra of Sri Lanka was as a 15-year-old at its ‘Young Soloists Concert’ 
having won the vocal category of the concerto competition organized by the orchestra. A few years later he proceeded to the US for his Bachelors in Vocal Performance at the Jacobs School of Music, Indiana University, in the studio of Dr. Brian Horne. In the United States he has won competitions with the National Association of Teachers of Singing and was awarded the Jessye Norman Award for Vocal Promise.
Asitha has performed in many operatic roles in the US including the title role in Britten’s Albert Herring, Tamino in Die Zauberflöte, Don Ottavio in Don Giovanni, Arturo Bucklow in Lucia di Lammermoor, Gastone in La Traviata and Odoardo in Handel’s Ariodante. He has been a featured soloist with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, the Indianapolis Symphonic Choir, the Columbus Philharmonic Choir, the Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra and the Indianapolis Baroque Orchestra.
At the ‘Night at the Opera’ Asitha will perform four of the best loved tenor arias in the opera repertoire; Don Ottavio’s moving love song ‘Il mio tesoro’, from Mozart’s Don Giovanni, the romantic ‘Una furtiva’, from Donizetti’s L’Elisir d’Amore, Alfredo’s tragic song, ‘De’ miei bollenti spiriti’, from Verdi’s La Traviata, and Gounod’s beautiful love song from Romeo et Juliette, ‘Ah! Leve-toi’. The orchestra will be conducted by the British conductor Gregory Rose, who also conducted the previous Dr. Earle de Fonseka memorial concert presented by the SOSL in 2009, the Verdi Requiem.
The SOSL Chorus comprising singers from the major choirs in Colombo and Kandy will perform choruses depicting a variety of moods. There is the heroic and celebratory in the famous Grand March (Verdi’s Aida) and Coronation Scene (Mussorgsky’s Boris Godanov), the gentle cooing of the Humming Chorus (Puccini’s Madame Butterfly), the joyful Bell Chorus (Leoncavallo’sI Pagliacci) and the moving Chorus of Hebrew Slaves (Verdi’s Nabucco). Mozart’s brilliant overture to the Marriage of Figaro begins what will be a memorable concert.
Tickets are available online from www.tickets.lk from the tickets.lk office on 5th Lane, Colombo 7, Sarasavi Book Shop, Nugegoda, and the Yamaha Music Centre, Bauddhaloka Mawatha Colombo 7.