Santa Cecilia Orchestra, Daniel Harding and Christiane Karg | Bologna Festival 2026

On Friday, 8 May 2026, at 8:30 p.m. at the Teatro Auditorium Manzoni in Bologna, the Orchestra Santa Cecilia will perform in concert with soprano Christiane Harding: Wagner and Mahler between ecstasy and “celestial life”.

PROGRAMME:

• Richard Wagner Tristan und Isolde: Prelude and Isolde's Death
• Gustav Mahler Symphony No. 4 in G major for soprano and orchestra

Only one Italian ensemble appears among the twenty best orchestras in the world according to BBC Music Magazine: it is the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, which after eighteen years with Antonio Pappano has entrusted the baton to Daniel Harding from 2024/25. In Rome, Harding is pursuing a multi-year project that intertwines Wagner's Ring Cycle and Mahler's complete symphonies.

The concert moves along two different but complementary paths that attempt to transcend earthly existence: on the one hand, the opening and closing pages of Tristan und Isolde, and on the other, Mahler's Symphony No. 4, Das himmlische Leben (The Heavenly Life), with its ambiguous and transfiguring light.