“The best of the best assembled on stage,” wrote Germany’s leading newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung after the premiere of Richard Strauss’ Der Rosenkavalier at the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden. Indeed, it would be hard to find a more ideal cast for this late-Romantic Rococo pastiche anywhere in the world. As the Marschallin, stellar soprano Renée Fleming uses her velvety tones and autumnal shadings to complement the youthfully lyrical and dynamic voice of Sophie Koch as her young lover Octavian. Diana Damrau’s Sophie enhances the trio’s sparkle with her ethereal high notes. Next to Franz Hawlata as a swaggering Baron Ochs and the always impressive Franz Grundheber as Faninal, the Baden-Baden production rounds off its male leads with international tenor star Jonas Kaufmann as the “Italian Singer.” Leading his Münchner Philharmoniker, acclaimed Romantic specialist Christian Thielemann revels in Strauss’s lustrous melancholy and obtains a rarely heard transparency from the brass and woodwinds.
Bregenz Festival 2024: Der Freischütz
A “small theatre miracle” unfolds at the Bregenz Festival under Philipp Stölzl’s direction, featuring a visually stunning production of Der Freischütz with elements like a dilapidated village and water zombies. Conducted by Enrique Mazzola, the Wiener Symphoniker performs Weber’s music beautifully, while the ensemble shines, particularly Nikola Hillebrand as Agathe and Mauro Peter as Max. Moritz von Treuenfels adds flair as the devil Samiel, guiding the audience through the action with agility and charm, resulting in a captivating two-hour performance.
Die Entführung aus dem Serail (Mozart 22)
The plot couldn’t be simpler: the Spanish nobleman Belmonte must free his fiancée Konstanze, her English maid Blonde and Belmonte’s servant Pedrillo from the clutches of the Turkish Bassa, or Pasha, Selim. Belmonte must sneak into the pasha’s seraglio and sneak back out again, all the while eluding and outsmarting Osmin, the overseer of the harem. With his Salzburg production of 2003, young Norwegian director Stefan Herheim raised a storm of controversy that continued to crackle in 2006, when the production was revised for the Mozart 22 cycle. The controversy was largely due to the fact that Herheim transposed the events to the inner world of the human psyche. The harem is no longer a real harem, but a psychological place of longing and desire, enticing and yet threatening at the same time. The entire exotic, Janissary scenery gives way to the more familiar images of one’s own sexual urges and impulses. The production revolves around the question: how does a man get a woman? To get to the bottom of this age-old question, Herheim shows how men and women try to seek happiness together and fail since they are caught in conventions and subservient to their inner demons – illustrated here by Osmin as priest and devil. “It is a genesis, the beginning of all beginnings, when man is separated into two sexes, is disoriented, and from then on seeks to return to his original form in ever new constellations,” explains Herheim. Giving powerful accounts of their difficult roles is a top-notch cast dominated by Laura Aikin as Konstanze and Charles Castronovo as Belmonte. With her elegiac Andante arias, Aikin is an oasis of calm and nobility. Castronovo suggests his own vulnerability with his wonderfully lyrical timbre. At the head of the Mozarteum Orchestra, Ivor Bolton once again confirms his reputation as a dynamic and sensitive interpreter of Baroque and Classical operas. The clarity and wisdom of his music-making provide an astute contrast to the turbulent activity on stage. Indeed, the marriage of orchestra and voices evokes the image of the stage of life: on the surface, everything is in motion; below, order rules – but it is an order that is often lost in everyday life.
Capriccio
When the curtain fell at the Paris Opera premiere of Capriccio, the audiences rose to long and frenetic ovations. They unanimously applauded each singer in a cast of stars, but Renée Fleming was undoubtedly the leading light of this remarkable production. Every one of the performers in this production is outstanding and can be regarded as the best possible singer for the role – Opera fans from all over the world came to Paris to see this production.
This Capriccio also served as a role debut for American star soprano Renée Fleming who took on the role of the Gräfin. The critics celebrated her performance as “ideal” in all aspects: musically, dramatically and above all
vocally and she was cheered frenetically by the audience at the Palais Garnier of the Opéra National de Paris.
Dietrich Henschel had critics raving about his sensitively sung Graf, Anne Sofie von Otter won audiences over with her highly ironic interpretation of the singer Clairon. Rainer Trost presented himself both as a true actor and as a versatile tenor in the role of the composer Flamand, Gerald Finley gave a very convincing poet Olivier and Franz Hawlata was described by a critic as “a glowing” La Roche. Altogether a true ensemble of stars!
Der Freischütz
The Catalan theatre company La Fura dels Baus is acclaimed worldwide for its avant-garde opera productions. In their production of “Der Freischütz,” created to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the opera’s premiere at the Konzerthaus Berlin as well as the 200th anniversary of the concert hall itself, La Fura dels Baus created a virtual forest in which the cast of amazing soloists as well as the choir performed with the Konzerthausorchester under music director Christoph Eschenbach. Without any audience present, the Great Hall of the Konzerthaus was thus transformed into a myth-filled installation – a 360-degree experience for all the senses.