This gala evening in the beautiful Semperoper devoted to operetta melodies with classic superstars Renée Fleming and Christopher Maltman under the baton of Christian Thielemann was a tremendous success and, as Deutsche Grammophon put it, started ‘a new tradition’. Thielemann, heading the Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden and an ensemble of distinguished soloists and choral singers, presents the most beautiful highlights from Franz Lehár’s ‘The Merry Widow’ and succeeds in giving the famous and universally beloved melodies a perceptive new reading while still creating first-class entertainment. A short entr’acte performed in the foyer by members of the theater’s ballet ensemble allows the viewer a glimpse into the luxurious interior of the Semperoper. The New Year’s Eve gala concert ends with an homage to Dresden: the waltz ‘An der Elbe’, the last waltz written by Johann Strauss.
Festive Advent Concert at the Frauenkirche Dresden 2010
Italian tenor Vittorio Grigolo, hailed as “opera hero of the year” (Sächsische Zeitung), and Carolina Ullrich are the stars of this festive Advent concert from the Frauenkirche in Dresden. Conductor Bertrand de Billy heads this particularly lavish program with the Staatskapelle Dresden in the famous Baroque Frauenkirche. Together with the Chor der Sächsischen Staatsoper and the Kammerchor der Frauenkirche, and in a setting of resplendent beauty, they perform inspiring and festive works.
Petite Messe Solennelle
Live from the Rossini Festival in Pesaro: Alberto Zedda conducts Rossini’s late masterwork, with an excellent singers quartet and the Coro and Orchestra of the Teatro Comunale di Bologna.
Russian Songs
When world-class soprano Anna Netrebko gives a recital of exquisite, rarely heard Russian songs, you can be sure that she will pour her entire Russian soul into her interpretation, and draw out every last drop of expressiveness from these songs. Indeed, what she and her accompanist, the all-round musical phenomenon Daniel Barenboim, presented in Berlin was a truly one-of-a-kind concert: a rare occasion to enjoy these Russian songs sung from and by the heart. And despite the vast dimensions of the Philharmonie, the two artists succeeded in creating an incredibly intimate atmosphere.
The most beautiful song – A search for singers with Thomas Quasthoff (Concert)
Thomas Quasthoff founded international song competition for young singers, ‘Das Lied,’ to ensure that the Lied, which the baritone calls ‘the most beautiful form of music making,’ continues to hold its place in the concert repertoire of the future. According to Quasthoff, the goal of this project is to find the successors to the greatest singers of today and to discover new voices. In addition to Thomas Quasthoff, one of the top baritones and Lied singers of our day, the jury includes such distinguished vocalists as Brigitte Fassbaender and Annette Dasch, as well as the famed accompanists Helmut Deutsch and Charles Spencer. Among the prizewinners who perform at the gala concert are German baritone Tobias Berndt and Austrian baritone Daniel Schmutzhard.
Recital Diana Damrau
One of the warmest personalities on the opera and concert stage today, soprano Diana Damrau has put together a beguiling program for her recital at the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden. The selection of Romantic to fin-de-siècle pieces not only underscores her own vocal artistry, but also pays tribute to her accompanist Xavier de Maistre and, in particular, to the diaphanous delicacy of his instrument, the harp. The use of the harp to replace the piano in a voice recital is a truly unique and unexpected musical treat. De Maistre does more than simply transpose the piano part to his instrument; under the fingers of the Wiener Philharmoniker’s solo harpist, the ethereal sound of this instrument melds consummately with the soprano’s finely honed vocal part, so that the masterpieces by composers such as Schumann, Fauré and Debussy sound as if they had been conceived for voice and harp.
Thomas Hampson sings Schumann
If there is one genre of music which baritone Thomas Hampson is exceptionally passionate about, it is the lied. To Hampson, song and singing are ‘the diary of our existence’ and he has invested a great amount of time, work and love to luring this genre out of the shadow of the more spectacular opera. One composer he particularly cherishes is Robert Schumann. Hampson begins this Schumann recital, recorded at Munich’s Prinzregententheater with Wolfram Rieger at the piano, with the cycle Zwölf Gedichte op. 35 on poems by Justinus Kerner. The second part of the recital is devoted to the original version of the popular Dichterliebe op. 48. While Hampson was preparing his first performance of the cycle based on poems by Heinrich Heine, he consulted the composer’s manuscript, only to find that the original cycle of 1840 was a completely distinctive work containing many musical and textual differences. Among the most notable differences was the presence of four songs that were omitted from the later cycle. These works – ‘Dein Angesicht so lieb und schön,’ ‘Lehn deine Wang an meine Wang,’ ‘Es leuchtet meine Liebe’ and ‘Mein Wagen rollet langsam’ – are featured here as first-ever recordings of these rediscovered works.
Opera Gala Baden-Baden
Four of the greatest singers of our time combine their talents and their artistry in an evening of beloved operatic numbers – rarely has a concert deserved the title ‘Opera Summit’ as much as this one, recorded live at the Festspielhaus in Baden-Baden on 3 August 2007. Heading the quartet is soprano Anna Netrebko with her inimitable blend of glamour and simplicity, her enticing appearance and seductive singing, a musical powerhouse who tops the pop charts and sells out operas houses within hours. Hardly less dazzling than her Russian colleague is Latvian mezzo Elina Garanc?a, whose crystal-clear voice and charismatic stage presence never fail to enthrall her audiences. Replacing the indisposed Rolando Villazón is his fellow Mexican tenor Ramón Vargas, who began his career in Europe after winning the first prize in the Enrico Caruso Competition in Milan. French baritone Ludovic Tézier is a frequent guest at La Scala, the Opéra Bastille and the Met.
Classical Summit 2006 – Three Superstars in Berlin
In the tradition of the original ‘The Three Tenors,’ world-class singers Plácido Domingo, Anna Netrebko and Rolando Villazón joined forces to entertain a live audience of 20,000 spectators on location and millions more around the world on TV. They sing the most famous arias and duets from the world of opera, accompanied by the orchestra of the Deutsche Oper Berlin and its conductor Marco Armiliato.
Mozart, Motet “Exsultate, jubilate”, K.165 (Mozartwoche 2002)
Luba Orgonasova hails from Slovakia and sings at all the major opera houses of the world. She is one of the most sought-after interpreters of lyrical coloratura parts in the fields of opera and concert performance. She was one of Herbert von Karajan’s last discoveries: in 1990 she sang the part of Marzelline (Fidelio) at the Salzburg Festival – a role that marked the beginning of her meteoric career. The Dutch musician Ton Koopman was born in 1944 and ranks among the outstanding specialists in the field of historical performance practice. He studied organ, harpsichord and musicology in Amsterdam and turned to conducting during his training. From the very beginning, he used original instruments and combined theory and practice into a fascinating, historically well-founded interpretation of the works. In 1979 he founded the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra. He is the principal conductor of the Netherlands Radio Chamber Orchestra. As a performing artist and teacher, Koopman has made decisive contributions to the renaissance of the music of the 17th and 18th centuries. He has published many books and articles, teaches at the Conservatory of The Hague and is an honorary member of the Royal Music Academy in London. The Mozarteum Orchester Salzburg goes back to the “Dom-Musik-Verein und Mozarteum” founded in 1841. Since 1938 it has been an independent institution with professional musicians. It has been the orchestra of the city and the Land of Salzburg since 1958 and, in addition to its activity as opera and concert orchestra, it also performs regularly at the Salzburg Festival and the Mozartwoche.