Brandon Cedel in world premiere of "A Wintery Spring"

Brandon Cedel

American barihunk Brandon Cedel will sing in the world premiere of Jordanian-born German composer Saed Haddad’s dramatic lament "A Wintery Spring," which premieres on February 22nd at the Bockenheimer Depot in Frankfurt. It will have six performances in Frankfurt as part of a co-production with Ensemble Modern and the Frankfurt Opera. It will have one performance in Köln on April 8th.

The piece deals with the current political, social structures and attitudes in the Middle East – without attempting to portray a concrete story about the Arab Spring, but rather searching for paths which might unite people and traditions.

The lament is based on aphorisms by the Lebanese writer Khalil Gibran, who emigrated with his mother and siblings to the United States in 1895. Gibran’s central motifs are life and death, and love as their uniting element.

Michael Porter & Brandon Cedel in A Wintery Spring (Photos: Monika Rittershaus)

The premiere will be combined with the first staged performance of the baroque cantata "Il Serpente di bronzo" (The Bronze Serpent) by the Bohemian baroque composer Jan Dismas Zelenka, in which God punishes the doubts of the people of Israel with a plague of snakes, making the people realize the errors of their ways.

The composer wrote several outstanding spiritual works for the court in Dresden. This unconventional orchestral vocal work enjoyed a Renaissance in the last third of the 20th century.

Cedel will sing the unnamed bass-baritone role in A Wintery Spring and God (Dio) in The Bronze Serpent. Tickets and additional cast information for the double-bill are available online. Click HERE for the Köln performance.