From the Salzburg Festival 1992
Based on Dostoevsky’s ‘diary’ of his years as a political detainee, Janácek’s singular opera, with ist profoundly disturbing, but ultimately uplifting, message about the human condition, is set in a nineteenth-century Siberian prison camp. This Salzburg Festival production by Klaus-Michael Grüber graphically depicts the grinding tedium of life in this penal colony. A superb cast is headed by the great Bulgarian bass Nicolai Ghiaurov, and Claudio Abbado conducts the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra in a performance hailed as a musical triumph. (Sung in the original Czech version)
Following his comeback performance at the Vienna State Opera in 1988, this gala concert from the Alte Oper Frankfurt given on September 12, 1992, was one in a series of highly acclaimed performances that marked José Carreras’ return to the concert platform after his battle against leukaemia in 1987/88. Providing the high musical and artistic level of this evening, alongside Carreras are the Vienna Philharmonic – celebrating ist 150th anniversary –, the Vienna State Opera Chorus, the Prague Philharmonic Choir and the Tölzer Boys Choir, all under the baton of conductor Claudio Abbado.
Featuring some of today’s leading conductors in rehearsal, this series gives a unique insight into the process of creating great music. The conductors’ very different styles and methods; the dialogue between an orchestra and an inspired interpreter; the intensity of the preparations for a concert performance; and the struggle towards perfection are captured in these revealing audio-visual records. Most episodes include a full run-through of the work rehearsed. All include interviews with the conductor who is seen at work. Pierre Boulez rehearses the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra for a performance of Alban Berg’s Three Pieces for Orchestra Op. 6 and his own composition Notations I-IV . Directed by Felix Breisach 57’
The Vienna Philharmonic play a home game with Brahms’ D major Second Symphony. Every phrase had the combination of lightness, warmth, core and swell to make it feel ideally satisfying in a very relaxing-deep-in-your-belly sort of way. Paired with Christian Thielemann, one of the few conductors the orchestra allows to really lead and inspire them, they were completely in their element.
Il trittico was premiered in New York on 14 December 1918, composed while the First World War was still raging in Europe. At first glance, the three one-act operas Gianni Schicchi, Il tabarro and Suor Angelica seem to have no connection with each other; their common denominator is solely the entanglement of man in a fateful destiny that only exceptionally, for a moment, seems to promise a happy outcome to the “adventure of life” — a set of themes that in its complexity seems to be in such good hands with few directors as with Christof Loy. The main female roles in the three opera acts are performed by the Lithuanian soprano Asmik Grigorian, a very rare and tremendous feat, but once again connects the works to each other. “Grigorian is […] a wonderful, intense performer: a gracefully graceful Donna fragile as Lauretta, a feverishly longing for love while tormented by guilt Giorgetta, and a desperately lost Angelica rebelling with defiance.” (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung)
For the 30th anniversary of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra’s New Year’s concerts, Carlos Kleiber appeared at the conductor’s podium to conduct his first Strauss family extravaganza. “What Carlos Kleiber presents here is the fulfillment of all waltz dreams,” wrote the trade magazine “Fono Forum.” All the beloved Viennese melodies such as the “Fledermaus” overture, the “Accelerationen” waltz, “Bei uns zu Haus,” “Csardas,” “Pizzicato Polka” and, of course, the “Blue Danube” waltz and the “Radetzky March” – all these Viennese warhorses took on an unexpected elegance, spirit and wit. Kleiber’s rubati and accelerandi, his sensitivity towards everything that is found between the staves of the music invest these pieces with a new urgency. Pieces that we thought were so overplayed as to be trite and meaningless assume a freshness and vitality that is nothing less than amazing. “There won’t be anything more beautiful this year,” gushed one of Vienna’s leading dailies – and it was probably right.
Born in Bolzano (Bozen, Italy) in 1934, Herbert Rosendorfer is a lawyer who introduced himself as an author in 1966 with his short story “Die Glasglocke.” This was followed by many novels, stage works, scripts and short stories, which revealed him to be an imaginative and multi-faceted author. A socio-critical satirist, he writes with a well-balanced mixture of wit, thought-provoking ideas and absurd-grotesque elements. All this is also found in his novel “Briefe in die chinesische Vergangenheit” (Letters to China’s Past) of 1983, which ranks among his most well-known books. Here the Chinese Kao-Tai travels from the 10th century to the Munich of the 20th century. In addition to his legal activities, Rosendorfer is honorary professor for contemporary Bavarian literature at the University of Munich and obtained the Bavarian Literature Prize in 1999.
The little-known composer Juan Crisóstomo de Arriaga (1806-1826) was called the “Spanish Mozart” and died prematurely of consumption shortly before his 20th birthday. Born in 1943, the English conductor John Eliot Gardiner initially devoted himself to the historical performance practice of the music of the 17th and 18th centuries. In 1990 he founded the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique, which specializes in music of the classical and romantic eras and always has exciting surprises in store for its audience. Gardiner numbers among the most renowned opera and concert conductors of the late 20th century.
Born in 1943, the English conductor John Eliot Gardiner initially devoted himself to the historical performance practice of the music of the 17th and 18th centuries. In 1990 he founded the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique, which specializes in music of the classical and romantic eras and always has exciting surprises in store for its audience. Gardiner numbers among the most renowned opera and concert conductors of the late 20th century. Soloist in this concerto is the internationally renowned Portuguese pianist Maria Joao Pires.
