Christian Thielemann is a compelling advocate for German music, and his Salzburg Festival 2020 programme with the Wiener Philharmoniker is smack-dab at the heart of his favoured repertoire. For his long-awaited return to the Summer Festival, he opens with Wagner’s Wesendock Songs, considered musical sketches for the opera Tristan und Isolde, with terrific Latvian mezzo-soprano Elina Garanca as soloist. The centerpiece is Bruckner’s Symphony No. 4, the Romantic. Storms of applause. “Together with an orchestra that breathes with her, Elina Garanca proved that she currently represents the non plus ultra in the mezzosoprano category. Grandiose the fusion of intensity and noble sound” Der Standard “An event with goose bumps“ Kurier PROGRAM Wagner: Five Poems for female voice and piano “Wesendonck Lieder”; Bruckner: Symphony No. 4 “Romantic”
Zazà
With Ruggero Leoncavallo’s rarity Zazá, the Theater an der Wien scored a coup with the grandiose house debutante Svetlana Aksenova in the title role. Christof Loy delivers a striking staging of the Verismo drama and conductor Stefan Soltez spiritedly leads the ORF Radio-Symphonieorchester Wien through the highly acclaimed evening. “It would take a whole newspaper page to praise all the performers appropriately”, praises Der Standard. Of particular note is Svetlana Aksenova as Zazá who “suffers the whole spectrum from intimate affection to raging jealousy and mute despair”, Nikolai Schukoff (Milio) “shows himself as a daredevil and a depressed mourner”, Christopher Maltman as Cascart “leads energetically and touchingly his already lost fight for his beloved.” An evening worth seeing and hearing!
Cosi fan tutte
“He was out to to create something ‘unheard-of’,” observed conductor Nikolaus Harnoncourt beforehand. And true to form: What the conductor had offer as he commenced his Mozart/Da Ponte cycle in the Theater an der Wien was something we “had never before heard like this” (Kurier). Nikolaus Harnoncourt, “master” of period performance practice, realized a project that had long been one of his dearest wishes: for the first time, he and his “original-sound orchestra” Concentus Musicus and his personal choice of singers were presenting the complete Mozart/Da Ponte cycle and harvesting the fruits of his Mozart research – an “enthusiastically acclaimed cycle!” (news.at). During an intensive phase of rehearsal and preparation, he was in search of a Mozart hermeneutic resting on historical sources and yet anchored in our own time, in order to stage the whole Da Ponte “trilogy” – Le nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni and Così fan tutte – in a matter of a mere six weeks. “The culmination of Harnoncourt’s involvement with [Mozart’s Da Ponte operas] – „A Mozart drawn from historical sources and yet anchored in our own time.” (Die Presse)
Elektra
Strauss and Hugo von Hofmannsthal. The Lithuanian soprano Ausrine Stundyte as vengeful and traumatized Elektra turns the opening of the Festival into a real knockout performance! Her sister Chrysotemis is sung by her compatriot Asmik Grigorian, who made her international breakthrough as acclaimed Salome at the 2018 Salzburg Festival, and whose performance once again draws the audience into spell. Tanja Ariane Baumgartner as Klytämnestra, Derek Welton as Orest and Michael Laurenz as Ägisth complete an ensemble of top-notch singers. The staging by Krzysztof Warlikowski of this work about matricide, obsession, revenge and physical degradation is a deep psychological study of a broken family. Franz Welser-Möst brings his trademark flair to the pit where the brilliantly effervescent and then again heartrendingly gentle playing Wiener Philharmoniker create gloriously exultant Strauss moments. “To have chosen Elektra of all pieces, was audacious – and to have brought it off so well, triumphant”
Jedermann (Everymen)
It is the centrepiece of the Salzburg Festival and an incontrovertible institution: For it’s 100th anniversary, the Salzburg Festival offered an opulent interpretation of Jedermann (Everyman) by Hofmannsthal. “Tobias Moretti plays with great commitment, Caroline Peters gives a brilliant performance” (Salzburger Nachrichten). On 22 August 1920, the first Salzburg Festival opened with Jedermann in a production by Festival founder Max Reinhardt against the breathtaking backdrop of the baroque Salzburg Cathedral. Since then, no other piece has more closely been connected with the 100-year history of the Festival than this play about the transience of the world, fame and money. BONUS: Documentary: The Great World Theatre – Salzburg and it’s Festival A high-quality docufiction about the dramas and unknown events behind the scenes, from its founding in 1920 to the present day showing unseen footage from 30 archives worldwide and numerous private films.
Der Messias
Known as a creator of astonishing images, stage director and visual artist Robert Wilson delivers a magnificent production of Mozart’s adaption of Handel’s Messias. Mozart was commissioned by Gottfried van Swieten to modernise the score fifty years after Handel’s popular composition (1742), mainly by arranging the wind parts and partially re-composing them. With Marc Minkowski a conductor has been engaged who understands perfectly how to combine baroque style with the tonal possibilities of an orchestra of the classical period like the Musiciens du Louvre. The excellent soloist quartet with Elena Tsallagova, Wiebke Lehmkuhl, Richard Croft and José Coca Loza merges perfectly into Wilson’s enormous flood of images. “A complete artwork”, praises Opernglas; “stunningly beautiful” (BR Klassik); “A stellar moment for the music” (orf.at); “Timelessly beautiful” Süddeutsche Zeitung
Anne-Sophie Mutter, Yo-Yo Ma, Daniel Barenboim
The West-Eastern Divan Orchestra celebrates its 20th anniversary by giving a concert at the Berlin Philharmonie with world-renowned artists: Anne-Sophie Mutter and Yo-Yo Ma perform Beethoven’s Triple Concerto together with Maestro Barenboim and the young musicians. Yo-Yo Ma, who played with the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra at their first
concert 20 years ago, and Anne-Sophie Mutter, who made her debut with the orchestra only this year, were named as honorary members of the orchestra on the occasion of this event. “It is fascinating to experience how brilliant, concentrated and at the same time relaxed these three world stars make music together and listen to each other. A masterpiece of harmony“ (RBB24). The second part of the concert features Bruckner’s 9th Symphony, transcendental music which the composer himself dedicated to “the dear God“. The symphony is unfinished not only because Bruckner died during the process of composition, but especially because it seems to perish in nothingness. The musicians of the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra are excellently prepared and play technically and tonal flawlessly. A magic moment.
Le nozze di Figaro
“He was out to create something ‘unheard-of’,” observed conductor Nikolaus Harnoncourt beforehand. And true to form: What the conductor had to offer as he commenced his Mozart/Da Ponte cycle in the Theater an der Wien was something we “had never before heard like this” (Kurier). Nikolaus Harnoncourt, “master” of period performance practice, realized a project that had long been one of his dearest wishes: for the first time, he and his “original-sound orchestra” Concentus Musicus and his personal choice of singers were presenting the complete Mozart/Da Ponte cycle and harvesting the fruits of his Mozart research – an “enthusiastically acclaimed cycle!” (news.at). During an intensive phase of rehearsal and preparation, he was in search of a Mozart hermeneutic resting on historical sources and yet anchored in our own time, in order to stage the whole Da Ponte “trilogy” – Le nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni and Così fan tutte – in a matter of a mere six weeks. Harnoncourt has once again lived up to his name as a “Mozart rebel”: “True to his reputation as a provocateur, Harnoncourt takes at a fast speed what we are accustomed to hear slow, while reining in what we expected to be lively” (Forum Opera).
Don Giovanni
“He was out to to create something ‘unheard-of’,” observed conductor Nikolaus Harnoncourt beforehand. And true to form: What the conductor had offer as he commenced his Mozart/Da Ponte cycle in the Theater an der Wien was something we “had never before heard like this” (Kurier). Nikolaus Harnoncourt, “master” of period performance practice, realized a project that had long been one of his dearest wishes: for the first time, he and his “original-sound orchestra” Concentus Musicus and his personal choice of singers were presenting the complete Mozart/Da Ponte cycle and harvesting the fruits of his Mozart research – an “enthusiastically acclaimed cycle!” (news.at). During an intensive phase of rehearsal and preparation, he was in search of a Mozart hermeneutic resting on historical sources and yet anchored in our own time, in order to stage the whole Da Ponte “trilogy” – Le nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni and Così fan tutte – in a matter of a mere six weeks. “The culmination of Harnoncourt’s involvement with [Mozart’s Da Ponte operas] – „A Mozart drawn from historical sources and yet anchored in our own time.” (Die Presse)
Mahler Symphony No. 2
Barcelona’s Palau de la Música Catalana, world heritage site and one of the world’s most beautiful concert halls, hosted Gustavo Dudamel and the Münchner Philharmoniker with an unforgettable performance of Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 „The Resurrection.“ The composer emphasizes life and death in all its terrible and stunning splendour in this overwhelming opus: “There is nothing except the complete substance of my whole life”, he remarked on his all-embracing oeuvre. Gustavo Dudamel, who said it was „a privilege to conduct this work in this unique venue“, and his ensemble were celebrated with more than then minutes of applause. American mezzo-soprano Tamara Mumford and Israeli soprano Chen Reiss as well as the seemingly weightless choirs of Orfeó Català and Cor de Cambra del Palau de la Música Catalana perform “a mark-shattering finale with goosebumps” (Münchner Merkur). “The dynamic range is enormous. But most fascinating are the moments of absolute silence, in which you can feel how the dramaturgy of the evening comes together: An audience holds its breath” (Süddeutsche Zeitung). „Really an event … a phantastic conjunction of stars … a memorable interpretation“. (El Periódico)