Barrie Kosky, one of the most innovative opera directors of our time, creates a new interpretation of Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro (which he believed should be renamed Susanna) at the Vienna State Opera with a very young ensemble: Andrè Schuen and Hanna-Elisabeth Müller in the roles of Count and Countess Almaviva, Peter Kellner as Figaro, Patricia Nolz as Cherubino and Ying Fang as well as Eva Nazarova as Susanna. Ying Fang is acting on stage with a perfect lip sync to Eva Nazarova singing from the orchestra pit, as she could not sing herself due to a vocal cord haemorrhage. Philippe Jordan conducts the Orchestra of the Wiener Staatsoper and together they “deliver an ideal mixture of elegant lyricism and concentrated expression – each and every one” (Wiener Zeitung). “Beauty and pointedness are combined in the noblest way.” (Der Standard)
Mitridate, re di Ponto
The Staatsoper Berlin invited Marc Minkowski and his brilliant orchestra Les Musiciens du Louvre, for a new production of Mozart’s early work. Mozart was only 14 years old when he was commissioned to compose a large, full-length opera seria. The story of a declining king and warlord whose two very different sons love the same woman, who is also his bride, inspired Mozart to write music that knows strong passions as well as deeply felt emotions. He drew on tradition and yet already showed himself to be at a height that more than foreshadowed what was to come. The premiere at the end of 1770 became a triumph for the youthful composer. Minkowski and his incredible cast and ensemble made it again a complete showcase of all Mozart operas. The Japanese production team led by director Satoshi Miyagi immerses Mozart’s Mitridate in an enchanting ambience that lets different worlds converge. “Marc Minkowski and his brilliant orchestra Les Musiciens du Louvre […] a real coup.” (Tagesspiegel)
Siegfried
Thielemann/Tcherniakov Ring from Berlin’s Staatsoper Unter den Linden Berlin was a project of truly Wagnerian scale and ambition – one that captured the attention of the opera world and set new standards: “Musically, this ‘Ring’ blew away everything that had gone before – and we are talking about a performance history of more than one hundred years.” (Die Welt) In the third part of his Ring tetralogy, Wagner incorporates fairy-tale motifs into his epic mythological story. The well-known tale of “The Story of the Youth Who Went Forth to Learn Fear” is echoed in ”Siegfried” as well as episodes from the medieval “Nibelungenlied”. “One wishes for such a “Ring” all over the world.” (Kurier)
Götterdämmerung
Wagner’s immense imagination reveals itself in the composer’s 16-hour Ring cycle, being able to fully captivate worldwide audiences since its complete performance in 1876 in Bayreuth. Christian Thielemann’s conducting of “Velvety sound of unmatched beauty” (The Guardian) leads an extremely sophisticated production, with Tcherniakov’s stage that meets the highest technical standards, evolved in ever new, impressive spaces. “Götterdämmerung” is the concluding chapter of Wagner’s monumental four-part opus, which he conceived in the light of the revolution of 1848/49 and completed in 1874 after numerous attempts and a long interruption. In many ways, the thematic and musical threads are intertwined in a highly artistic and complex manner. “Tcherniakov, as usual, manages details on a level rarely seen in opera.” (The New York Times)
Il Trovatore
Giuseppe Verdi’s Il trovatore is said to be one of Verdi’s musical masterpieces – full of emotions and expressive melodies, the paragon of Italian romantic opera but also a formidable challenge for the singers. This production from the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino is brought to vivid life by directing veteran Cesare Lievi with sets and costumes by Luigi Perego. Young Mongolian baritone Amartuvshin Enkhbat caused a first international stir winning the audience prize of the International Singing Competition “BBC Cardiff Singer of the World” in 2015. In the role of Count di Luna he is “the triumphant winner of the opening night.” (Giornale della musica). Ekaterina Semenchuck as Azucena – “admirable from the first to the last note.” (OperaClick.com) – is joined by the accomplished Verdian interpreters Fabio Sartori as the titular troubadour Manrico and María José Siri as Leonora. Zubin Mehta conducts Chorus and Orchestra of the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino.
Das Rheingold
“Michael Volle’s Wotan […] is an event, […] Rolando Villazón plays a fabulous Loge.” (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung) A myth, a heroic epic, a family saga – perhaps all of these together – make up Richard Wagner’s Ring tetralogy. This epic production of the Staatsoper Unter den Linden sees a remarkable collaboration between Christian Thielemann , one of the most distinguished Wagner conductors of our time, and Dmitri Tcherniakov, one of the great, internationally celebrated opera directors of our time. The result is “A glittering feast of voices, sounds, ideas and precise direction of characters. Wagner at his best.” (BR Klassik) The Rheingold gives the background to the events that drive the main dramas of the whole Ring cycle. “In this Rheingold, Thielemann mastered the art of nuance and varied interpretation like no other, and without having to bank on exaggeration.” (Bachtrack.com)
Die Walküre
Raising the curtain on a work of superlatives: the Staatsoper Unter den Linden represents the ultimate challenge for any opera house, Wagner’s “Der Ring des Nibelungen”. Christian Thielemann conducts the Ring tetralogy, and Dmitri Tcherniakov, highly praised for his psychologically sophisticated productions, led the playful all-star ensemble coherently through the panorama of characters, situations and events that unfolded like a universe and consistently interpreted the sheer vastness and the manifold twists and turns of the Ring cosmos. With the “Walküre” score, composed in the mid-1850s, Wagner reached new heights with his music, giving the orchestra remarkable communicative powers, layers of meaning were thus developed and incorporated into the work. “Enchanting magic of sound” (Die Zeit) / “A triumph for the Staatsoper” (Neue Zürcher Zeitung)
Joe Hisaishi in Concert
Joe Hisaishi wrote the score for some of his country’s most successful films, Japanese Anime movies, popular around the globe. In this concert, he presents and conducts some of his best-known compositions: the scores of Princess Mononoke, Ponyo, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, as well as a symphony of his own. Joe Hisaishi is without doubt the most popular Japanese composer in the world. His collaboration with director Hayao Miyazaki has been compared to that of director Steven Spielberg and composer John Williams. “As a composer, I have chosen not to restrict myself” (Joe Hisaishi). PROGRAM Hisaishi: Symphony No. 2, Woman, Princess Mononoke, One Summer’s Day, World Dreams
The Cunning Little Vixen
“How the Lithuanian conductor Giedre Šlekyte conjures up beautiful timbres, what she gets out of the orchestra, is remarkable. This is a conductor one wants to hear more often.” (Kurier) The Cunning Little Vixen, first performed in 1924 and based on a novella by Rudolf Tešnohlídek, is an unconventional portrayal of humans and animals in which the composer Leoš Janácek breaks new ground. His music, as playful as it is melancholic, celebrates the circle of life. For Stefan Herheim, this is a good reason to use Janácek’s opera to celebrate the transformational power of musical theatre when he makes his entrance bow at the Musiktheater an der Wien as the new hands-on artistic director.
Turandot
Philipp Stölzl, known as award-winning cinema director (The Physician), always finds time for opera despite his many TV and cinema projects – and each time it is a very special production. He now turned to Giacomo Puccini’s last opera Turandot, which remained unfinished, because the composer could not find a twist for the final love scene that convinced him. Stölzl came up with a “a particularly intelligent perspective” (Süddeutsche Zeitung), which fascinates as much as his massive puppet moved by string, the splendid cast, or the Staatskapelle Berlin in the pit conducted by the great Zubin Mehta.