Kristine Opolais joins Leipzig’s Gewandhausorchester on June 1 for an all-Shostakovich program, led by Andris Nelsons and also featuring bass Dmitry Belosselskiy. The concert will feature Shostakovich’s Symphonies No. 14 and No. 10. Opolais has received for her interpretation of the challenging Symphony No. 14, with her “haunting tone” and “cold radiance” (Boston Classical Review) that “brought just the right touch of warmth to her featured songs.”

Symphony No. 14 is a haunting, uncompromising meditation on death, composed in 1969 during a time of personal and political reflection for Shostakovich. The piece departs from traditional symphonic form, presenting instead a cycle of 11 movements based on poems by García Lorca, Apollinaire, Küchelbecker, and Rilke. Each text confronts mortality, injustice, and the brutality of human suffering, reflecting Shostakovich’s deep skepticism of power and his own brushes with death.