The Teatro La Fenice opened in 1792 and is one of the most renowned and most beautiful theaters in the world. Since nearly 20 years it has celebrated the traditional New Year‘s concert every year, which became immediately vast popularity in Italy and abroad making it one of the best-known and desired New Year´s events. The orchestra of Teatro La Fenice, conducted by Daniel Harding, presents a colourful array of arias and orchestral pieces. As soloists soprano Federica Lombardi and tenor Freddie De Tommaso sing famous arias as Casta Diva and Nessun dorma among others from the operas Carmen, La traviata, La bohème, Turandot, William Tell and La clemenza di Tito. On top Jacopo Tissi, now principal of the Dutch National Ballet, is dancing a scene from Tchaikovsky´s ballet The Sleeping Beauty in this thrilling and exhilarating concert.
Opera Gala für die deutsche Aids Stiftung
Excerpts from the musical program of the 5th Opera Gala for the German AIDS Foundation on 21 May 2016 at the Bonn Opera House. Featuring renowned singes like Simone Kermes, Roberto De Biasio and Robin Johannsen.
Marc Minkowski at Mozartwoche
Under the direction of the principal conductor and artistic director of the Salzburg Mozart Week, Marc Minkowski, the Musiciens du Louvre perform on two of Mozart’s original instruments. Mozart’s Violin Concerto and his Piano Concerto in A major are played on instruments that were once in the composer’s possession. Thibault Noally plays the Violin Concerto on a violin from the workshop of Pietro Antonio Dalla Costa and “conjures up Romantic brilliance from the well maintained instrument”, then Francesco Corti brings Mozart’s fortepiano to life again, thereby spreading “collective Mozart happiness all round” (Salzburger Nachrichten).
Daniel Barenboim and the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra – The Salzburg Concerts
The idea of uniting young musicians from Israel, Palestine and various Arab countries still seems incredible today. Yet the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra has been flourishing since 1999, when it was founded by Daniel Barenboim and Edward Said. In 2007 the ensemble took a highly acclaimed residency at the Salzburg Festival. The major orchestral concert comprises a Beethoven overture, an intricate and multilayered piece by Schoenberg, and Tchaikovsky’s Sixth Symphony, the Pathétique, in which Barenboim pulls out all the stops and coaxes rarely heard instrumental lines and accents from his musicians.
Piano Duos at the Teatro Colón – Martha Argerich & Daniel Barenboim
“Martha Argerich and Daniel Barenboim wow their hometown of Buenos Aires” proclaimed the FAZ newspaper. This is the first time the two musicians have performed together in the city of their birth. So this concert, which formed part of the Festival de Música y Reflexión was a sort of “home game” for them, and one for which Argentinians had waited long. “The opera house has not been so packed for a long time as for the concerts featuring these two great artists.” (FAZ) “The Colón seemed to burst at the seams”. (Buenos Aires Herald) Martha Argerich delights the audience as “the untamed lioness of the keyboard” no less than Daniel Barenboim, who radiates “an unusually exuberant sparkling sound” (FAZ). Works by Mozart, Schubert and Stravinsky were followed by frenetic demands from the audience for encores and so, accompanied by three musicians from the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, Argerich and Barenboim gave Schumann’s Variations for two pianos, Rachmaninoff’s Suite No. 2 and pieces by Guastavino and Milhaud. The Buenos Aires Herald summed up: a “grand tour de force”.
Teatro Colón – West-Eastern Divan Orchestra Opening Concert
“A city in a state of emergency” was the euphoric title of the article in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung describing the performance of the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra in Buenos Aires. Daniel Barenboim and the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra make a guest appearance every year during their Summer Residency in several evening concerts at the Teatro Colón. With the greatest of ease, they represent one of the highlights of the Festival de Música y Reflexión: the musicians enthralled their audience with Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 1 – the piece Martha Argerich played at her debut at the Teatro Colón at the age of eight and with which she returned to the Teatro after a prolonged abstinence – plus two premieres of works by Roustom and Adler and Ravel’s evergreens. In the Ravel in particular, the Divan musicians were able to prove “their filigree tone, their mastery of pianissimo through to the barely audible and many other merits”. (FAZ)
Festive Advent Concert at the Frauenkirche Dresden 2025
It is the traditional start to the pre-Christmas season for classical music lovers throughout Germany: on the eve of the First Advent, the Frauenkirche shines in its baroque splendour and offers a magnificent experience with the Sächsische Staatskapelle, the Sächsischer Staatsopernchor and the Kreuzchor Dresden. Conductor Nicholas Collon takes the podium for this year’s concert, joined by the dazzling soprano Elsa Dreisig, star tenor Benjamin Bernheim, and virtuoso violinist Daniel Hope. Together, they present a festive programme of Mozart, Berlioz, Bach, Gounod, and more.
Festive Advent Concert at the Frauenkirche Dresden 2024
The Advent concerts have long become a tradition, and numerous internationally renowned artists have since accepted the invitation to the annual Advent concert. For this production, the audience can look forward to the Canadian mezzo-soprano Emily D’Angelo, who is on stage with the Saxon State Opera Chorus and the Saxon Staatskapelle under the baton of Riccardo Minasi. In addition to soprano Nikola Hillebrand, another prominent guest is Thomas Quasthoff, who celebrates his fiftieth stage anniversary this year.
Festive Advent Concert at the Frauenkirche Dresden 2022
Two world-renowned singing stars are this edition’s guests at the “Festive Advent Concert”, German TV’s most successful concert series: soprano Diana Damrau and tenor Mauro Peter. The young French conductor Marie Jacquot leads the Staatskapelle Dresden for the first time. With the 2024/25 season, Marie Jacquot will take over as Musical Director of the Royal Danish Theatre in Copenhagen. In addition to the Staatskapelle Dresden, two choirs complete the cast of the 2022 “Advent Concert”: the Sächsischer Staatsopernchor Dresden and the Kammerchor der Frauenkirche. The choir’s director, the cantor of the Dresden Frauenkirche, Matthias Grünert, also appears as organist. “The Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden and the Sächsischer Staatsoperchor once again proved their quality.“ (Online Merker)
Festive Gala from the Semperoper Dresden
In this edition of the Staatskapelle Dresden’s New Year’s Eve concert, every classical music fan is sure to get their money’s worth. Exceptional pianist Igor Levit performs Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 21, perhaps the most famous of Mozart’s piano concertos. “Transparent, without the slightest scratch, he mastered his part, attentive to the orchestra. At times it seemed as if Levit was stroking the keys, only to grow into brilliant virtuosity.” (Dresdner Neueste Nachrichten) South-African soprano Golda Schultz (“a voice with an almost immeasurable range of colours, effortlessly guided and golden in bloom”, Dresdner Neueste Nachrichten), Czech mezzo-soprano Štepánka Pucálková and Ukrainian baritone Iurii Samoilov take the audience into the world of opera and operetta – from with love arias from Die Zauberflöte, Don Giovanni and Le nozze di Figaro to Strauss, Offenbach, Franz Lehár and Strauss II. Conductor Tugan Sokhiev “proved himself to be a man of unerring precision and precisely differentiated orchestral work.” (Dresdner Neueste Nachrichten) “A splendid programme with splendid soloists” (Dresdner Morgenpost)