Spoleto Festival USA and Piccolo Spoleto Coverage

00000177-2120-db48-a97f-fb222fe30000 South Carolina Public Radio brings you coverage of Spoleto Festival USA in Charleston, SC, May 27 through June 12, with reports throughout the day on the artists, events, and organizers of both Spoleto and Piccolo Spoleto.Listen to Performance Today and Sonatas and Soundscapes each week day for previews of upcoming performances and guest interviews.Spoleto Coverage Archive

Soprano in U.S. premiere of Lachenmann’s The Little Match Girl at Spoleto Finds the Work Challenging

South Carolina Public Radio

Published May 31, 2016 at 11:29 AM EDT

A performance of "The Little Match Girl."

Hans Christian Andersen’s story The Little Match Girl tells the tragic tale of a young girl trying to survive in the bitter cold, striking matches for warmth and reflecting on her life’s memories. Composed from 1990 to 1996, Helmut Lachenmann’s opera of the same name uses two singers to play the match girl.

Soprano Heather Buck is one of two halves of the role in Spoleto Festival USA’s production of Lachenmann’s opera, which also marks the opera’s U.S. premiere. Heather joins SC Public Radio’s Kate McKinney to speak about the role and the many parts of the production which includes puppets and an over-100 piece orchestra that surrounds the audience.