This DVD celebrates the extraordinary artistic world of Eastern European Jewish music, or in the words of Itzhak Perlman, “chicken soup for the soul.” Legendary violinist Itzhak Perlman and renowned cantor Yitzchak Meir Helfgot join forces for a musical exploration of liturgical and traditional works in new arrangements for both chamber orchestra and klezmer settings. In Rejoice with Itzhak Perlman and Cantor Yitzchak Meir Helfgot, these two incomparable virtuosos unite for an evening of cantorial masterpieces, Yiddish folk and theater tunes, Hassidic melodies, and klezmer instrumentals.
Jedermann
Seit seiner Salzburg-Premiere im Jahr 1920 gehört Hugo von Hofmannthals Jedermann alljährlich zu den Höhepunkten der Festspiele, und alle Vorstellungen sind Monate im voraus ausverkauft. Der Salzburger Dom bildet die prachtvolle Kulisse für das Spiel über den reichen Bürger Jedermann, an dessen Tür der Tod klopft, um Rechenschaft von ihm zu fordern. Die erste Neuinszenierung seit 12 Jahren des Salzburg-Klassikers schlechthin wurde von Publikum und Kritik begeistert aufgenommen. Besonders gelobt wurde der fast schon konterrevolutionäre Weg des Regieteams Julian Crouch und Brian Mertes, ihrem Jedermann wieder Wildheit, Spaß und urkomische Natürlichkeit einzuhauchen. Burgschauspieler Cornelius Obonya in der Titelrolle und der legendäre Peter Lohmeyer als Tod gelten bereits jetzt als Idealbesetzungen. “Ein Triumph” Die Presse
Arabella
A “lyric comedy” is how Richard Strauss and Hugo von Hofmannsthal described their final collaboration, on which they worked between 1927 and 1929. Arabella revolves around the true
love between two very different couples – the love that unites two people forever “in joy and sorrow, hurt and forgiveness”, as Arabella herself puts it at the end of the opera. With Renée
Fleming in the title role and a supporting cast that includes Thomas Hampson, Gabriela Benacková and the young tenor Daniel Behle – surely a star of the future – this production from the Salzburg Easter Festival was the first of the piece at the Festival since 1958. Under the Strauss specialist Christian Thielemann, it featured a Strauss ensemble that could hardly be bettered today. Renée Fleming and Thomas Hampson are a “dream couple for Richard Strauss” (Salzburger Nachrichten).
Swan Lake
It is the one ballet that everyone knows, has heard of or seen, and it is one of the loveliest and most frequently performed works in the ballet literature. No other ballet is capable of conjuring up such intensive images, dreams and yearnings simply at the mention of its name as Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake. Rudolf Nureyev created a new version of it in 1964 for the Vienna State Opera; it helped the dancer and choreographer, then 26 years old, to achieve international fame and also projected the Vienna State Ballet onto the world stage, where it was to become one of the company’s greatest successes.To mark the 50th anniversary of this ballet, the Vienna StateOpera is now reviving it with new sets and costumes designedby Julia Spinatelli, whose concept is inspired by the fairytalephantasy world of King Ludwig II incorporating simple, paintedbackdrops and few accessories, to present a new Swan Lake.
Bruckner, Symphony No. 5
Following on from their recording of the Eighth, Christian Thielemann and the Staatskapelle Dresden are continuing their internationally acclaimed Bruckner cycle with the Symphony No. 5. For Anton Bruckner, his Fifth Symphony was a glorious confrontation with the music of the past – from a personal, biographical angle, but also as a departure from the composition techniques he preferred up to this point. Not for nothing is this tremendous opus magnum regarded as Bruckner’s “contrapuntal masterpiece”. In this universally lauded performance, Christian Thielemann, already the leading Bruckner interpreter of our times, has once again proven himself to be a “magician of the Bruckner sound”. (Kurier)
Otello
Rarely has a production of Verdi’s Otello been staged in such a prestigious location: the courtyard of the Palazzo Ducale in Venice! This special outdoor “event production” of the Teatro La Fenice takes place amidst genuine late-Gothic and Renaissance architecture highlighted by spectacular projections: “A set of singular fascination” (Il Corriere Musicale).
Critics were full of praise for the musical performance, designating conductor Myung-Whun Chung as the “absolutely dominating force” of the performance (GB Opera). The lead role is sung by Gregory Kunde, who successfully interpreted both Verdi’s and Rossini’s Otello in one year, perhaps the first tenor ever to do so. He “reproduces every accent, every colour demanded by Verdi with sensibility and intelligence” (OperaClick).
The Odeonsplatz Concert, Verdi & Wagner, Rolando Villazon & Thomas Hampson
Take super-tenor Rolando Villazón, baritone legend Thomas Hampson and the fast-rising baton star Yannick Nézet-Séguin. Add one of the world’s greatest orchestras, a summer’s night on Munich’s magnificent Odeonsplatz and a bouquet of famous opera arias, duets, overtures and choruses performed in celebration of Giuseppe Verdi and Richard Wagner. The result: a scintillating opera gala offering you the chance to experience and revisit the Odeonsplatz Concert 2013 in all ist glory and grandezza!
El Sistema at Salzburg Festival
Rarely has an orchestra enchanted and thrilled ist audience as did the National Children’s Orchestra of Venezuela at the Salzburg Festival! This astonishing group was founded in 2010 by José Antonio Abreu as part of El Sistema, and Sir Simon Rattle conducted ist first-ever concert in Caracas. At the Salzburg Festival, it was Rattle on the podium again, conducting the children’s orchestra at its international debut.
A choir for hard-of-hearing and deaf youths? Sounds like a contradiction in terms, but the one-of-a-kind White Hands Choir of Venezuela proves the opposite, and this 60-mins film documents the choir’s first tour abroad following an invitation from the Salzburg Festival. The programme features Latin-American folk songs and Piazzolla arrangements as well as choral works by Mozart and Rutter.
Capriccio
Richard Strauss’s last stage work is an opera about opera as an art form, depicting the creation of a music drama in a wise and witty way. Which came first – words or music? That is the question that Strauss and his librettist Clemens Krauss address through the story of a Countess torn between a composer and a poet. “Renée Fleming is a world-class Countess, moving and intense … All around her there is luxury casting: Bo Skovhus as the Count, Michael Schade as Flamand, Markus Eiche as Olivier, Kurt Rydl as the theatre director La Roche, the wonderful Angelika Kirchschlager as Clairon – all strike exactly the right note, as do the singers in the smaller roles, turning this Capriccio into an event of the first importance.” (Der Kurier, Vienna)
Bruckner Symphony No. 8
Bruckner’s Eighth is one of the most powerful works in music and the symphony that Bruckner himself regarded as his “opus summum”. This recording by the acknowledged Bruckner master Christian Thielemann and “his” orchestra, the Staatskapelle Dresden, marks the beginning of a cycle of the Austrian composer’s complete symphonies that is to be produced over the course of several years – a living monument of musical architecture! Thielemann’s Bruckner “is so mighty, and with such a depth of sound … that one would have to be hard-hearted not to be touched by this heartfelt music” (Der Tagesspiegel).