21 Apr 2026
In the 200th anniversary year of Carl Maria von Weber’s death, the Monteverdi Choir and Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique return to the BBC Proms for a rare performance of the composer’s final opera, Oberon, led by Sir Mark Elder, making his MCO debut.
Although the Overture has been heard frequently, this performance on Thursday 6 August is the opera’s first full concert staging at the BBC Proms. It is broadcast live on BBC Radio 3.
This opera was premiered in April 1826 at Covent Garden Theatre with Weber conducting. Weeks later, the composer died of tuberculosis, at the age of just 39, leaving an operatic legacy – Der Freischütz, Euryanthe, and finally Oberon – that shaped the future of German Romantic opera.
Oberon is Weber’s only opera in English, and for this performance, the BBC Proms is commissioning a new narration to create a compelling dramatic concert staging of the work. It is a work of magic and chivalry: enchanted horns, glittering fairy choruses, ocean storms and ardent love duets combining in a narrative that leaps from Bordeaux to Baghdad. Encompassing this fanciful plot is a score of radiant beauty: presaging Wagner and his leitmotif whilst drawing on wide-ranging traditions – the German Singspiel of Mozart, the English semi-opera of Purcell, and Weber’s longstanding interest in the music of non-Western cultures.
In his Monteverdi Choir debut, Sir Mark Elder - long admired for his authority in nineteenth‑century opera and large‑scale dramatic works - joins the impressive line‑up of prominent conductors who have collaborated with MCO in recent seasons. The performance also underlines our long‑standing commitment to early German Romanticism, central to the founding vision of the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique, with Weber a recurring presence in their work from Der Freischütz at the BBC Proms in 2011 to a landmark Oberon recording in 2005.
Tenor Charles Castronovo as Sir Huon and soprano Jennifer Davis as Reiza lead a distinguished cast including Nicky Spence as Oberon, Yannick Debus as Sherasmin, Rachael Wilson as Fatima and Jasmin White as Puck.
Photo credit
Dinis Sousa conducts the Monteverdi Choir and Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique at the BBC Proms © Andy Paradise
