The Advent Concert has become a much loved tradition in Dresden, enjoyed by music lovers throughout the world. In this edition the Staatskapelle Dresden performs under the baton of the renowned Columbian maestro Andrés Orozco-Estrada. Bulgarian star soprano Sonya Yoncheva returns to the Frauenkirche and excels with “volume and sonority and a rich vibrato”. She is accompanied by another rising star: Swiss soprano Regula Mühlemann, impressing by her “clear, bright, almost girlish soprano, full of ease” (Dresdner Neueste Nachrichten). Two top-class choirs, Dresdner Kreuzchor – celebrating its 800th anniversary and Dresdner Kammerchor, provide for choral church music at its best. The thoughtfully compiled program features seasonally appropriate selections by Handel, Schubert, Mozart, Mendelssohn as well as traditionals.
Thielemann conducts Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Liszt
Lisa Batiashvili, Gautier Capuçon, Christian Thielemann and the Staatskapelle Dresden present a sophisticated programme about love and death from the perspective of three 19th century composers: The stages of life can be viewed as preludes to the melody of death, as Liszt proposed in Les Préludes. It is only at the very end that the inadequacies of life are resolved – the tragedy behind the love of Romeo and Juliet in Tchaikovsky’s Fantasy Overture. In the jaws of death, Eros enjoys his strongest impulse, one that transcends time. What results is the desire for the epic and heroic, which in Brahms’ final orchestral work, the Double Concerto, achieves a certain consummation. The Double Concerto forms part of Thielemann’s extensive Brahms cycle, containing symphonies and solo concertos performed to frenetic acclaim in Dresden and Tokyo.
Festive Advent Concert at the Frauenkirche Dresden 2015
Since the first of these annual events in 2000, when the magnificent Frauenkirche was still a building site – destroyed during World War II, it was painstakingly reconstructed out of the ruins – the Advent Concert has become a new holiday tradition in Dresden, to be enjoyed by music lovers throughout the world. That appeal is reflected in the concert’s lineup of artists. This time they are headed by renowned Scottish maestro Donald Runnicles, featured “in the solid, German repertoire which is his chief glory” (Financial Times). His soloists are rising-star soprano Sonya Yoncheva, “charismatic” (New York Times) and bass-baritone Luca Pisaroni. Beginning in a blaze of glory with the opening chorus from Bach’s Christmas Oratorio, the thoughtfully compiled programme features seasonally appropriate selections by Handel, Seidel, Weber, Mendelssohn, Humperdinck, Gounod and Reger. “A thrilling concert, festive, ambitious and impressively filmed.” (Sächsische Zeitung)
Thielemann conducts Bruckner No. 6 & Beethoven
Bruckner’s music has played a central role in Thielemann’s relationship with the Staatskapelle; he launched each new concert season with a Bruckner symphony – now the Sixth, this recording of which completes Thielemann’s cycle of the mature Bruckner symphonies. For the Sächsische Zeitung this performance marked “another Bruckner triumph for Dresden” by revealing “the greatness of the work with a rarely heard transparency and clarity. It could hardly have been better!” Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3 featured one of today’s outstanding keyboard virtuosos, the Soviet-born Israeli-American pianist Yefim Bronfman, in a performance marking the start of his residency as the Staatskapelle’s “Capell-Virtuos”. In the words of the Dresdner Neueste Nachrichten: “He has music ‘in his fingertips’ (…) ‘High School’ of piano playing.”
Thielemann conducts Bruckner No. 9
Bruckner’s Ninth – presented in the unfinished version in three movements – calls for no fewer than four “Wagner tubas” at the beginning and end of the Adagio, an instrument which Richard Wagner had specially made for his Ring of the Nibelung. As an avowed fan of Wagner, Bruckner included them in several of his works. Thielemann now lets them sound at full volume. The press verdict: “a musical and spiritual event”.
Thielemann conducts Bruckner No. 4
Conductor Christian Thielemann lives up to his name yet again as a “Bruckner specialist” (Klassik Akzente). The Fourth Symphony is given in the presumed original version recovered by Robert Haas. This version differs considerably from the first, effectively published score, which Bruckner had only accepted as a stopgap so that the work could easily be performed. Thielemann brings out the tone painting very vividly in Baden-Baden: “These are tone paintings of the finest quality”, wrote one reviewer enthusiastically.
Buchbinder plays Mozart
The Austrian piano virtuoso Rudolf Buchbinder, widely acclaimed for his technical perfection, is also a known expert for Mozart. Together with the Staatskapelle Dresden, where he was the first pianist to hold the title of “Capell-Virtous”, he plays and conducts three of Mozarts most beloved Piano Concertos, the concertos Nos 20, 21 and 27. The concert was recorded in Dresden in an unique setting, which matched not only the musical perfection, but also the first ultra-high definition recording of this work: right inside the Gläserne Manufaktur, a luxury car manufactory in the heart of Dresden, a stage was set up next to the assembly line with glass walls and oak floors.
Festive Advent Concert at the Frauenkirche Dresden 2014
Elina Garanca, the star of this festal Advent concert, proves once more “that she has one of the loveliest and finest voices in the whole world”. In Georges Bizet’s “Agnus Dei”, in the “Regina Coeli” from Mascagni’s Cavalleria rusticana, she lets her voice “shine and beam, bringing tears to many eyes”, the critics enthuse. Meanwhile Christiane Karg captivates us with her crystalclear soprano, winging its way straight to our hearts. The concert is conducted by maestro Pablo Heras-Casado, whose sensitive touch and style-conscious precision brings out to the full the particularly refined sound of the Staatskapelle. (Der neue Merker)
New Year’s Gala from Dresden – Kálmán, Die Csárdásfürstin
“A great conductor and great singers in a jewel of the great operetta tradition” was the verdict of the press, converging on the Semperoper in Dresden to celebrate this operetta in grand style. Anna Netrebko sings Sylva Varescu in a concert performance of Emmerich Kálmán’s popular operetta “Die Csárdásfürstin”. Accompanied by the Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden under the direction of its conductor Christian Thielemann, Anna Netrebko is teamed with the Peruvian star tenor and darling of the public Juan-Diego Flórez, also making his role debut as Sylva’s lover Edwin. Yet again the Semperoper has produced “deluxe operetta for television” (Die Welt).
Richard Strauss – Birthday Gala
Richard Strauss premiered nine of his fifteen operas at the Semperoper Dresden – this unique relationship was celebrated with a special gala in honour of the composer’s 150th birthday in 2014, featuring the famous arias from Elektra, Salome, Arabella, Die ägyptische Helena and Daphne as well as orchestral music from Der Rosenkavalier, Intermezzo and Die schweigsame Frau. —– Program: Der Rosenkavalier, Waltz Suites 1 & 2 / Elektra, Monologue / Feuersnot, Love Scene / Salome, Final Scene / Arabella, Final Scene Act I / Intermezzo, 2nd Orchestral Interlude / Die ägyptische Helena, “Zweite Brautnacht” / Die schweigsame Frau, Potpourri Overture / Daphne, Final Scene