To mark the 125th anniversary of its premiere in Turin on February 1, 1896, the Teatro Regio celebrated Puccini’s most popular opera with an extraordinary staging in the historic costumes and sets designed by Adolf Hohenstein. The incredibly opulent, eternally valid staging of Paolo Gavazzeni and Piero Maranghi was exclusively presented for the recording. “The show appears to be alive, palpitating even in the unravelling of the direction, just enough to capture the most genuine atmosphere of the work with an abandon full of poetry.” (Connessi all’opera)
Le nozze di Figaro
Directed by Alfred Dorfer and Kateryna Sokolova, the Theater an der Wien presented an abridged, concentrated Corona version of Mozart’s “Le nozze di Figaro”, the first part of the successful collaboration between Mozart and Da Ponte. Alongside Robert Gleadow as the “outstanding Figaro” (Der Standard) and the “fabulous Austrian bass-baritone Florian Boesch” (nmz.de) as Almaviva, the orchestra, Concentus Musicus Wien, plays the leading role: “This orchestra is ideal for Mozart, because the combination of historical performance practice and the highest interpretative quality is in a class of its own.” (bachtrack.com)
Rusalka
“The public surrenders to Asmik Grigorian”, wrote Spanish newspaper El Español enthusiastically about the premiere of Antonín Dvorák’s lyric fairy tale “Rusalka” and continued: “Fine cinnamon. Unforgettable. What a great Rusalka we have for the future!” Grigorian perfectly embodies the role of the water nymph who becomes a human in order to find love, but then loses all hope when her prince is seduced by a sensual princess. Stage director Christof Loy tells the story as a fascinating journey of a young woman into life. Thanks to Teatro Real’s music director Ivor Bolton, the whole production is of an immense quality, combining the romantic lyricism with a dark and terrifying musical atmosphere.
La cambiale di matrimonio
The Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro brings a delightful new production of Rossini’s early work La cambiale di matrimonio (The Marriage Promissory Note) on stage. Particularly noteworthy is the excellent young cast, mainly young singers from the Pesaro-based Accademia Rossiniana, one of the most successful talent factories in Italy. “Giuliana Gianfaldoni, Carlo Lepore, Davide Giusti, Iurii Samoilov, as well as Pablo Gálvez and Martiniana Antonie in the smaller parts please with lean, profound voices and a mature ensemble performance that can only be achieved with careful rehearsal work”, applauds Der Tagesspiegel. Rossini’s comic farce is stylistically audibly influenced by Mozart, rich in beautiful melodies and ensemble scenes, but with his lively parlando style and several strettas already a typical Rossini. The 42-year-old Russian Dmitry Korchak, who is also a regular Rossini tenor in Pesaro, appeared here for the first time on the conductor’s podium, outstanding above all his handling of the recitatives. Laurence Dale, who came to Pesaro for the first time as a stage director, also provides an appealing aesthetic. “A truly outstanding ensemble” Das Opernglas
Fidelio
Der Rosenkavalier
Multimedia artist André Heller makes his highly anticipated debut as stage director at the Berlin State Opera with Richard Strauss’ tragicomic Rosenkavalier and the critics are full of praise: “With his staging of Rosenkavalier André Heller sets a monument to flawlessness” (Die Zeit). Master conductor Zubin Mehta leads the fantastic orchestra of the Staatskapelle Berlin and a “cast of singers, above all with Camilla Nylund and Günther Groissböck, which is unsurpassable – a Rosenkavalier with a dream cast” (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung). “One has hardly ever seen a more splendid, elegant and opulent Rosenkavalier” (Süddeutsche Zeitung)
Der Rosenkavalier
Herbert von Karajan began conducting operas at the age of 21, and continued doing so throughout the rest of his long and prestigious career. A great admirer of Richard Strauss’s music, Karajan’s interpretation of Rosenkavalier demonstrates reveals his great familiarity with the work as well as hinting at the pleasure he took in conducting the work. His creative team, including Anna Tomowa-Sintow, Kurt Moll, Agnes Baltsa, Gottfried Hornik, Janet Perry, and Heinz Zednik, remains to this day one of the most spectacular solo distributions the work has ever enjoyed. Legendary for his rigorous approach to rehearsing and performing, the maestro took on the roles of artistic director, music director, and even became involved in certain aspects of filming.
Die Frau ohne Schatten
Under Christian Thielemann’s baton, the new production of Richard Strauss’ Frau ohne Schatten at the Vienna State Opera becomes a much acclaimed musical highlight “with a top-class protagonist quintet” (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung) and a sensationally playing Orchester der Wiener Staatsoper. French director Vincent Huguet gives his debut in Vienna and tells the story as a complex fairy tale, rich in images. Christian Thielemann “presents the most powerful and poetic Strauss conducting in decades” hails the Neue Zürcher Zeitung.
L’Orfeo
Iván Fischer conducts and stages Monteverdi’s opera L’Orfeo at the stunning Teatro Olimpico in Vicenza. Fischer has reconstructed the original ending by composing the music himself, based on the libretto of the first performance of the opera called La favola d’Orfeo. The splendid cast, among them young Hungarian soprano Emoke Baráth and Baroque specialist Núria Rial is accompanied by the excellent playing Budapest Festival Orchestra. “Absolutely worth seeing and listening to“ praises Neue Musikzeitung.
Tosca
French film and stage director Christophe Honoré presents Puccini’s verismo masterpiece as an opera about opera and brings the legendary prima donna Catherine Malfitano back on stage. Young soprano Angel Blue gives a highly acclaimed debut as Floria Tosca with a “warm and golden yet immensly powerful voice” (New York Times). At her side as Cavaradossi sings Joseph Calleja, one of the top tenors of his generation. “Puccini’s opera triumphed in Aix-en-Provence under the baton of Daniele Rustioni” (Le Monde).