Bayerisches Staatsorchester – C Major Entertainment

Pique Dame

“Magnetic pull: Soprano Asmik Grigorian shines” (Salzburger Nachrichten) “Madness in close-up” (BR Klassik): Director Benedict Andrews plunges Tchaikovsky’s Pique Dame at the Bavarian State Opera into a cinematic film noir aesthetic, in which the characters regularly seem to vanish into shadow and mystery. Brandon Jovanovich “plays a credibly broken anti-hero as Hermann” (Münchner Merkur) and Asmik Grigorian as Lisa once again steals the show with her unerring dramatic and vocal skills. Conductor Aziz Shokhakimov gives a convincing debut at the podium of the state orchestra, managing a “dramatically stirring, propulsive interpretation” (FAZ).

Giuditta

Giuditta was to be Franz Lehár’s ticket to the world of opera: His “Spieloper” or “musical comedy” was triumphantly premiered in January 1934. Intoxicating melodies and borrowings from Puccini, whom Lehár admired, and his tragically loving characters stand alongside operetta-like innocuousness. However, the end of the plot is by no means cheerful; the lovers Giuditta and Octavio go their separate ways in resignation. The “musical comedy” thus only seems to stand in stark contrast to the social present of the emerging war, the 1930s. Director Christoph Marthaler, known for his whimsically beautiful theatre evenings, picks up on the ambivalence of Lehár’s characters, who vacillate between opulence and resignation, between euphoria and the abyss. Orchestral music by Béla Bartók, Erich Wolfgang Korngold or Dmitri Shostakovich, songs by Viktor Ullmann, Hanns Eisler or Alban Berg as well as excerpts from Sladek oder Die schwarze Armee by Ödön von Horváth radically place Lehár’s operetta in the context of its time of origin. Giuditta in Christoph Marthaler’s version tells a love story within the turmoil and confusion of the times, brilliantly realised by a top-class cast led by Vida Mikneviciute and Daniel Behle.

Alceste

The Belgian dancer, choreographer and multi-talent Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui who has worked with top artists across disciplines like superstar Beyoncé, interprets Gluck’s late Baroque opera as an impressive symbiosis between dance and music. The singers cast, including Dorothea Röschmann, is compelling right up to the small roles. Conductor Antonello Manacorda and the Bayerisches Staatsorchester play phenomenally, the chorus of the Bayerische Staatsoper “sings magnificent” (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung).

Andrea Chénier

Jonas Kaufmann and Anja Harteros, the dream team of opera, continue their successful collaboration in a new production of Umberto Giordano’s Andrea Chénier at the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich. Alongside the superb baritone George Petean, the superstars show how love triumphs over death in the shadow of a terrifying regime. In the opulent staging by film director Philipp Stölzl, Marco Armiliato conducts the Bayerisches Staatsorchester. “A sensational Anja Harteros brings the house down! Kaufmann is perfect for the role – full of vitality and radiance! World-class!” (BR Klassik)

Palestrina

Requiring 38 soloists, chorus and large orchestra, “Palestrina”, Hans Pfitzner’s (1869-1949) “most important work” (Süddeutsche Zeitung), is a challenging opera to stage. In Munich, the city in which it was given its world premiere in 1917, the Bavarian State Opera succeeded – director Christian Stückl, best known for his staging of the Oberammergau Passion Play and the Salzburg Festival’s “Jedermann”, transformed the monumental work into an optical pop art event. Stückl’s production infuses such color and life into the serious work that even the German tabloid “Abendzeitung” delightedly wrote: “Who would have thought that Pfitzner could be such fun?”

Tannhäuser

From the Bayerische Staatsoper Munich 1995 Recorded under studio conditions from the stage of the National Theatre in Munich, David Alden’s challenging production of Tannhäuser is a desolate ‘endgame’, far-removed from traditional, representational stagings. One of the most iconoclastic interpreters of classical opera, Alden stirs up the visionary, erotic and archetypal elements in Wagner’s work. The Bavarian State Opera fields a top-flight cast of Wagnerian singers includes René Kollo in the title role, Waltraud Meier, Jan-Hendrik Rootering, Claes-Håkon Ahnsjö, Bernd Weikl and Nadine Secunde. Zubin Mehta conducts a musically outstanding performance. (Sung in German)

Die Entführung aus dem Serail

August Everding staged Mozart’s Singspiel “Die Entführung aus dem Serail” (The Abduction from the Seraglio) in Munich’s National Theater as a sunny comic opera but, as the director says, one with the “depth” required by Mozart. The buffo characters, for instance, take on compellingly human traits. The stage consists of a bright, orientally suggestive architecture, whose elements are constantly sliding or revolving. The set designer Max Bignens speaks of a “choreographic” setting: “For Mozart’s music, we wanted nothing heavy and, above all, no major scene changes.” Karl Böhm, who conducted his first “Entführung” in 1924, plunges into the depths of the music and uncovers its magic and brilliance, its eros and spirituality. At the center of the performance is Edita Gruberova, whose coloraturas are dazzling and always precise. As Osmin, Martti Talvela is a supple, shifty swaggerer. Thomas Holtzmann speaks the Bassa Selim as a nervous, passionate potentate. Francisco Araiza sings Belmonte with glowing lyricism. Norbert Orth is a spirited Pedrillo and Reri Grist a Blondchen with a natural charm and musical sensitivity.

Mozart, Symphony No.33 in B flat major, K. 319

To watch Carlos Kleiber conduct is to be reminded that the basic channel of communication between conductor and players is above all the body. This emerges with mesmerizing vividness in this concert, recorded live in the Herkulessaal of the Munich Residenz on 21 October 1996.