Plunge into the soul of genius in this award-nominated play about the life of Ludwig Van Beethoven – the artist whose life-story, above all others, encapsulates our deepest images of courage, overcoming, triumph, and wonder.

Written by multi-award-winning theatre-maker, Tama Matheson, this uniquely riveting drama reveals Beethoven’s incredible life-story from his troubled youth to his apotheosis as one of the greatest geniuses in history.

Performed within a frame of Beethoven’s exquisite music – directed by 2024 Limelight Artist of the Year, Jayson Gillham – this unique play melds drama and music into a powerful theatrical alloy that plumbs the depths of creativity, and examines how experience is transfigured in the crucible of genius.

First performed at the Wimbledon International Music Festival in 2021, I Shall Hear in Heaven was nominated for the 2022 RPS Storytelling Award, and has subsequently won huge acclaim in Australia, Malta, and around the UK. This year, I Shall Hear in Heaven brings its magic to Opera Holland Park.

Twisting and turning through heartbreak, hilarity, degradation, and inspiration, I Shall Hear in Heaven, conducts audiences through all the major experiences of Beethoven’s existence – artistic challenges, lost loves, the tragedy of encroaching deafness – reaching, at last, into the essence of art, and the meaning of life.

By turns hilarious, touching, joyful, and devastating, I Shall Hear in Heaven is a haunting odyssey into the heart of what it means to be human.

Nominated for The RPS Storytelling Awards 2020 & 2022

Limelight Artist of the Year 2024, Jayson Gillham