Opera Holland Park – Messa di Gloria Giacomo Puccini – 7:30pm
Ahead of his return to Opera Holland Park as Canio in Pagliacci, tenor David Butt Philip joins baritone Ross Ramgobin, conductor John Andrews, the Opera Holland Park chorus and City of London Sinfonia in a special performance of Puccini’s Messa di Gloria.
The concert will take place in the glorious surrounding of Holy Trinity Church, Sloane Square, on 22 February 2024 and launches an exciting series of events by Opera Holland Park to mark the centenary of Puccini’s death, including a revival of Stephen Barlow’s sensational 2008 staging of Tosca, and three semi-staged performances of Puccini’s early romance, Edgar.
Scored for tenor and baritone soloists, choir and orchestra, the Messa di Gloria blends the solemnity of the Italian choral tradition with expressive melodies and motifs that would later reappear in operas from Edgar and Le Villi to Manon Lescaut and Suor Angelica.
Six years after the first performance of Verdi’s Messa da requiem in Milan, Puccini, the young composer who would soon be hailed as Verdi’s natural successor, completed a setting of the Mass that melded his heritage as the scion of generations of professional church musicians with the first flourishing of his instincts for sung drama
The evening will open with a selection of music from throughout Puccini’s life, including rare and well-known arias from Opera Holland Park’s principal singers, and the composer’s only string quartet, Crisantemi.
Continuing the company’s mission to increase its performances throughout the calendar year, this is a rare opportunity to hear Puccini’s first major work in the context of his later creations, and in the sublime setting and soaring acoustics of Holy Trinity, Sloane Square.
John Andrews
Conductor
David Butt Philip
Tenor
Ross Ramgobin
Baritone
Dominic Ellis Peckham
Chorus Master
Anna Patalong
Soprano
Alison Langer
Soprano
Eleanor Broomfield
Soprano
Phillip Costovski
Tenor
Joseph Buckmaster
Tenor
Upcoming Events
Bach and Pancakes
Enjoy Johann Sebastian Bach’s choral and organ music sung by members of Holy Trinity’s Choirs, including: Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring, Toccata and Fugue in D Minor while indulging in pancakes and more, as is tradition on Shrove Tuesday.
45 minutes of music followed by pancakes and refreshments,
Tickets £20 (£10 under 18s)
Holst Singers- Illuminations – Sacred Music of Europe – 7pm
Illuminations – Sacred Music of Europe opens our 2026 concert series with a pilgrimage of sacred choral music across northern Europe. Beginning in Finland with the stillness of Einojuhani Rautavaara, the programme visits the choral traditions of the Baltic states and Western Europe, exploring music shaped by prayer, ritual, and light.
Read MoreThe London Chorus – Vaughan Williams Five Tudor Portraits – 7.30pm
Join The London Chorus for a rare performance of Vaughan Williams Five Tudor Portraits, 7.30pm 12 March 2026 at Holy Trinity Church, Sloane Square.
The London Chorus presents a thrilling programme of the music of Ralph Vaughan Williams, one of the greatest of all British composers and a Chelsea resident for 24 years. His Five Tudor Portraits, masterful settings of the poems of John Skelton, priest and tutor to Henry VIII, are at times bawdy, poignant and witty, and deserve to be heard far more often.
We also hear his popular Five Mystical Songs, settings of the 17th-century poet and priest George Herbert, and his Norfolk Rhapsody No. 1, which conjures up an eloquent aural portrait of the Norfolk landscape and its people through five locally-sourced folk songs.