“The whole world is a jest, man was born a great jester…” So goes the brilliant conclusion to Verdi’s Falstaff, an opera inspired by Shakespeare’s beloved comedy The Merry Wives of Windsor. The virtuosic score requires a particularly talented cast, not to mention a truly exceptional conductor. Herbert von Karajan perfectly fits the bill, and this performance featuring the Wiener Philharmoniker and an all-star group of singers is clearly worthy of Verdi’s powerful work, a masterpiece whose comic facade thinly veils the complex and sometimes even tragic characters’ struggles.
Der Rosenkavalier
Herbert von Karajan began conducting operas at the age of 21, and continued doing so throughout the rest of his long and prestigious career. A great admirer of Richard Strauss’s music, Karajan’s interpretation of Rosenkavalier demonstrates reveals his great familiarity with the work as well as hinting at the pleasure he took in conducting the work. His creative team, including Anna Tomowa-Sintow, Kurt Moll, Agnes Baltsa, Gottfried Hornik, Janet Perry, and Heinz Zednik, remains to this day one of the most spectacular solo distributions the work has ever enjoyed. Legendary for his rigorous approach to rehearsing and performing, the maestro took on the roles of artistic director, music director, and even became involved in certain aspects of filming.
Don Pasquale
After four decades, Donizetti’s Don Pasquale returns to the renowned Vienna State Opera in a cheeky, highly entertaining new staging by Irina Brook. As if to make up for the neglect from which the work has been suffering, Brook’s “operacartoon” (Die Presse) with its opulent, colourful setting features a splendid cast, led by star-tenor Juan Diego Flórez. Flórez, “without a doubt the leading Bel Canto tenor of today, places his legendary, sheer impeccable high notes in all their splendour” (Die Presse)
Tutto Verdi – The Operas Vol. 3, 1855 – 1893
Te Deum
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.
Salzburg Festival: Opening Concert 2011
In the Mahler year 2011, the eminent Pierre Boulez conducted the traditional opening concert of the Wiener Philharmoniker at the Salzburg Festival. The concert begins with the “Lulu Suite” by Mahler’s pupil Alban Berg. The music for the tragic temptress is sung here by the “dazzling” (Der Standard) young soprano Anna Prohaska. In Berg’s concert aria “Der Wein”, Dorothea Röschmann delivers a “masterful interpretation” (Die Presse). The main work of the concert is Gustav Mahler’s large-scale cantata “Das klagende Lied” of 1898/99 – a “great spectral opera for the mind’s eye” (Wiener Zeitung). Scored for massive orchestral and choral forces, the work also calls for three soloists, who are sung here with power and intensity by Dorothea Röschmann, Elisabeth Kulman and Johan Botha.
Salzburg Festival 2021: Intolleranza 1960
Luigi Nono caused a riot at the premiere of his “scenic action” Intolleranza in 1961. The opulent work that collages singing, orchestra, film projections, dance and light has lost none of its actuality, neither in its form nor in its content: the odyssey of a nameless emigrant who is persecuted and tortured ends fatally in the floods of the river that separates him from his homeland. Jan Lauwers’ production in the impressive Felsenreitschule reflects his intense study of the meaning of political art. For Nono expert, conductor Ingo Metzmacher, Nono’s work and legacy are like a guideline that he still follows today. The performers and dancers of the NEEDCOMPANY, the BODHI PROJECT und SEAD – Salzburg Experimental Academy of Dance create images of oppressive intensity in teeming tableaux. “The cast is superb, from Sean Panikkar’s eloquent, impassioned immigrant to Musa Ngqungwana’s harrowing torture victim.” Financial Times
Salzburg Festival 2021: Muti conducts Missa solemnis
Since the death of Herbert von Karajan in 1989, the prestigious Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra’s concerts around Ascension Day (15 August) have firmly been in the hands of Riccardo Muti. Always sold out, they are among the highlights of every festival summer. For this year’s concert and on occasion of his 80th birthday, the maestro was acclaimed for his interpretation of Beethoven’s Missa solemnis, a piece he has never conducted before. “Muti is a master in conveying extremes: monumentality, where it is compositionally intended, and highest internalization alternate with each other in a dense interplay.” FAZ
Salzburg Festival 2020: Elektra
In its 100th anniversary edition, the Salzburg Festival celebrates a real triumph with a mind-blowing new production of Elektra, one of the most famous masterpieces of opera history by the two festival founders Richard Strauss and Hugo von Hofmannsthal. The Lithuanian soprano Ausrine Stundyte as vengeful and traumatized Elektra turns the opening of the Festival into a real knockout performance! Her sister Chrysotemis is sung by her compatriot Asmik Grigorian, who made her international breakthrough as acclaimed Salome at the 2018 Salzburg Festival, and whose performance once again draws the audience into spell. Tanja Ariane Baumgartner as Klytämnestra, Derek Welton as Orest and
Michael Laurenz as Ägisth complete an ensemble of top-notch singers. The staging by Krzysztof Warlikowski of this work about matricide, obsession, revenge and physical degradation is a deep psychological study of a broken family. Franz Welser-Möst, who just recently celebrated an overwhelming success with Strauss’ Salome in Salzburg brings his trademark flair to the pit where the brilliantly effervescent and then again heartrendingly gentle playing Wiener Philharmoniker create gloriously exultant Strauss moments. “To have chosen Elektra of all pieces, was audacious – and to have brought it off so well, triumphant” The Times
Messa da Requiem
Herbert von Karajan recorded Verdi’s Requiem multiple times over the course of his career, such that it became one of the signature works of his repertoire. In this film, he brings together an exceptional group of some of the late 20th century’s greatest singers: Anna Tomowa-Sintow, Agnès Baltsa, José Carreras, and José van Dam. Composed between Aida and Otello, the Messa da Requiem is dedicated to his friend, the poet Alessandro Manzoni, who had participated in the Italian unification movement, the Risorgimento. The technically and artistically challenging work was described by Verdi’s contemporary, the conductor Hans von Bülow, as an “opera in ecclesiastical garb”, an interesting expression of the fascinating tension between the theatrical and the religious in this monumental chef-d’oeuvre.