Elijah returns to Kingston 16 March 2024

Kingston Choral Society looks forward to bringing Felix Mendelssohn’s Elijah to the royal borough this spring. Propelled by a highly dramatic narrative and some of the loveliest melodies ever written, Elijah is an evergreen favourite with singers and audiences alike.

Mendelssohn said he “imagined Elijah as a real prophet through and through, of the kind we could really do with today: strong, zealous and, yes, even bad-tempered … and yet borne aloft as if on angel’s wings.”  His oratorio Elijah depicts the thrilling story of one devout man’s stand against tyranny, his deliverance of his desperate but fickle people from drought and the conflicts that both overwhelm and ultimately vindicate him as he is “borne on a whirlwind to heaven”.

From its first performance in the 1840s audiences and critics have found Elijah’s blend of wonderful choruses, beautiful arias, and strong dramatic thrust deeply satisfying.

So be sure to note 7.30pm on Saturday 16 March at All Saints Church, Kingston, in your diaries. The performance features a distinguished quartet of soloists, headed by bass Felix Gygli, the most recent winner of the Kathleen Ferrier Awards, alongside soprano Anita Watson, alto Catherine Hopper and tenor Tom Elwin

The Thames Sinfonia orchestra will accompany the choir, and KCS Musical Director, Andrew Griffiths, will conduct.