Sting will personally visit a rerun of the musical The Last Ship in MdB

29 August 2020, 1:00
Sting will personally visit a rerun of the musical The Last Ship in MdB

In February 2019, the Brno City Theatre staged, as the first to do so scene in the Czech Republic, the musical The Last Ship. This September, one of its reruns is to be attended by Sting, the author of the music and lyrics himself.

Sting, an English musician moving at the edges of all genres, former frontman of The Police and occasional actor, was born in 1951 in the north-east English town of Wallsend as the eldest of four children. The son of a hairdresser and engineer spent his entire childhood in the immediate vicinity of the huge local shipyards, which gave their character not only to the whole city, but also strongly influenced little Gordon. When he saw the Queen Mother travelling through the city at the age of ten, waving at the torn down workers, he decided not to follow in the footsteps of his ancestors and leave the city and the shipyard for a different life. And because he was a gifted student, he managed to get a scholarship to a private high school in Newcastle, which really changed his life. The author of the music and lyrics, Gordon Matthew Thomas Sumner, who performs under the stage name Sting, will visit Brno on Sunday, 13 September 2020. You can see The Last Ship on the MdB Music Stage from 7 p.m.

All the time, however, Sting kept memories of the hard-working men who knew nothing but hard toil in the shipyards. Finally the time came and he brought together all the stories from his childhood in a very personal musical, set in this particular environment. Its main character Gideon Fletcher returns to his hometown, where he finds shadows of his past, a daughter he did not know about, the love he thought he had lost, the shipyard from which he escaped and he now saves it with his return, but mainly finds himself… Strong parallels with the relationship between father and son also appear here, as well as their different views on the son's future in the shipyards.

The musical The Last Ship premiered on Broadway in 2014 and won two Tony Award nominations. It contains over 20 musical numbers, including both original songs and previously written compositions such as Island of Souls and All This Time from Sting's 1991 album The Soul Cages, furthermore the song When We Dance  from the 1994 album Fields of Gold, and also the song Ghost Story  from the 1999 album Brand New Day

Sting / photo by MdB

Comments

Reply

No comment added yet..

The last opera première of the National Theatre Brno this year was Hurvínek Sells the Bride, which was co-produced with the Spejbl and Hurvínek Theatre. The première continued the thematic focus associated with the Year of Czech Music and took place on 24 November in the large hall of the Reduta Theatre.  more

With Thursday's concert entitled Bruckneriana, the Brno Philharmonic under the direction of Principal Conductor Dennis Russell Davies launched the subscription series Philharmonia in the Theatre I. The orchestra performed works by Anton Bruckner and Stanislaw Skrowaczewski, a Polish-American conductor and composer who devoted his life's work to Bruckner. Performers wearing crimson sashes with the inscription "Playing forte!” appeared in front of the audience, joining the "Let's not let culture die” initiative, which draws attention to the underfunding of culture and opposes the government's plan to invest just 0.64% of the state budget into culture next year, moving further and further away from its promise to spend at least 1%.  more

The Brno Philharmonic Orchestra has been running the Orchestral Academy of the Brno Philharmonic (OAFB) project for nine seasons, enabling young talented musicians to gain orchestral experience in a professional ensemble. In this manner, the orchestra educates the next generation of musicians, both permanent and external. However, working here also gives young people the opportunity to show their skills in chamber music and in a concert series called Young Blood aka Music Up Close. The first seasonal concert took place on Wednesday 15 November at Besední dom.  more

Baladas da Luta, Fighting Ballads, is the title of the sixth album by Brazilian singer Mariana Da Cruz and her Swiss-Brazilian band Da Cruz. It is a combination of modern music that combines Latin American tradition and contemporary electronic elements with strong lyrics. In them, the author fights for women’s rights, stands up against dictatorships and specifically criticizes the atmosphere that has evolved in Brazil under the now former authoritarian President Bolsonaro. Da Cruz performed at Brasil Fest Brno in August 2023. We revisit this festival with an interview conducted following their concert at Zelný trh. Singer Mariana Da Cruz and keyboard player and producer Ane Hebeisn, performing as Ane H, responded to our questions.  more

The programme for Janáček Brno 2024, an international opera and music festival now in its 9th year, was unveiled at a concert held to mark this occasion entitled Janáček to the start! On Saturday, 4 November, the Mahen Theatre was filled not only with devoted fans of the festival, but also with foreign journalists, politicians and prominent figures from the world of culture. In addition to a collection of wonderful musical performances, the audience was also treated to a lineup of renowned artists – Kateřina Kněžíková (soprano), Václava Krejčí Housková (mezzo-soprano), Josef Špaček (violin) and, last but not least, Robert Kružík, who took on the role of both conductor leading the Orchestra of the Janáček Opera at the National Theatre Brno during the evening and also performing as a cellist.  more