Synopsis
Dame Kiri Te Kanawa makes a rare appearance at the Proms to sing two romantic arias by Massenet, and octogenarian Russian pianist Tatyana Nikolaeva, making her Proms debut, plays Shostakovich's sparkling Piano Concerto No 2. The bicentenary of Rossini's birth is celebrated with the overture to his best-known opera, The Barber of Seville, and with Soirees musicales, a suite of some of his most beguiling music orchestrated by Benjamin Britten. Andrew Davis conducts the BBC Symphony Orchestra.