The Queen and the Composers
An international concert-talk tour marking 110 years since the death of Queen Elizabeth of Romania, known to the literary circles of her time as Carmen Sylva
Ana-Maria Popescu, 11.10.2026, 14:30
“The Queen and the Composers” is a cross-disciplinary endeavor that sheds new light on the Queen’s poetry, on her relationship with music and with the musicians and cultural personalities of her time, and on her role in connecting Romanian culture with the European art scene.
Carmen Sylva’s poetry has inspired scores of composers who wrote music to her poems, including George Enescu, Hans Sommer, Felix Weingartner, August Bungert and Agathe Backer-Gröndahl, but a large part of this repertoire, mostly in German, is rarely performed nowadays.
The “Queen and the Composers” brings back to the stage a selection of these works, and takes the Carmen Sylva music heritage further, as 2 new series of art songs for soprano and piano have been commissioned to the Romanian composers Andrei Petrache and Radu Mihalache for this occasion. The events, designed as a concert-talk series, feature the soprano Rodica Vica, the initiator of the project, the pianists Kira Frolu and Mara Dobrescu, with Bogdan Stănescu moderating some of the talks.
The soprano Rodica Vica visited RRI to give us a few more details.
So make sure you write down the dates of the Queen and the Composers tour, and if you happen to be in Bucharest on the 13th of October, in Braşov on the 19th of October, in London on the 22nd of October, in Paris on the 29th of October, in Vienna on the 21st of November or in Tokyo on the 27th of November, do check out this event, you’ll learn a lot of new things about the fascinating Queen Elizabeth of Romania and you’ll have a chance to listen to music written to her poetry.
