Multimedia artist André Heller makes his highly anticipated debut as stage director at the Berlin State Opera with Richard Strauss’ tragicomic Rosenkavalier and the critics are full of praise: “With his staging of Rosenkavalier André Heller sets a monument to flawlessness” (Die Zeit). Master conductor Zubin Mehta leads the fantastic orchestra of the Staatskapelle Berlin and a “cast of singers, above all with Camilla Nylund and Günther Groissböck, which is unsurpassable – a Rosenkavalier with a dream cast” (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung). “One has hardly ever seen a more splendid, elegant and opulent Rosenkavalier” (Süddeutsche Zeitung)
Eugene Onegin
Young conductor Omer Meir Wellber, Musical Director of Valencia’s Palau de les Arts, scores a triumph with Tchaikovsky’s “Eugene Onegin” in Mariusz Trelinski’s timeless production. Polish filmmaker and stage directo Trelinski has created a series of dream-like, surrealist tableaux of great suggestive beauty. The clear lines of the production (premiered at Warsaw’s Teatr Wielki) are finely echoed by the slender musical design of Omer Meir Wellber – “A miracle of poetry” (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung). The superb young cast is headed by Artur Ruzinski as Onegin and Kristine Opolais as Tatyana.
Tannhäuser
This exciting and compelling modern-day adaptation of Richard Wagner’s fable of love and redemption features one of the great Wagner singers of our time in the lead role, Peter Seiffert. As a nimble, youthful-voiced Tannhäuser, he plays alongside Petra Maria Schnitzer as Elisabeth. As the goddess of love, Elisabeth’s counterpart Venus is portrayed by the stunning Béatrice Uria-Monzon. Displaying particular vigor and dynamism is Günther Groissböck as Hermann, here in the guise of an art dealer. Sebastian Weigle, the Liceu’s principal conductor, gives a performance that is ‘full of vitality and visibly inspired’, as the Spanish daily ABC wrote.
Rusalka
This highly acclaimed production from the Bayerische Staatsoper, a powerful and fascinating re-interpretation of Dvorák’s fairy-tale opera Rusalka, was a revelation: the young, up-and-coming Latvian soprano, Kristine Opolais, whose performance was rightly hailed by the press as “one of the most vivid and striking accomplishments seen on an opera stage in a long time” (Vienna’s leading daily Der Standard). With her supple and velvety soprano voice, her captivating physical beauty and her hauntingly moving stage presence, Kristine Opolais perfectly embodies the role of the water nymph who becomes a human being in order to find love.
Doktor Faust
For Philippe Jordan, the conductor of this production from the Opernhaus Zürich, ‘Doktor Faust’ is one of the greatest operas of the 20th century, ranking alongside ‘Wozzeck’ and ‘Lulu,’ and resplendent with lush, lateromantic harmonies and motivically derived melodies reminiscent of Wagner, Verdi and even Mahler. Director Klaus Michael Grüber has produced a staging that ‘emphasizes the sensuality and operatic quality of the work’ (Neue Zürcher Zeitung). Adding the final touch to the sensuality
of Busoni’s music, Jordan’s expressive control of the complex score and Grüber’s stage magic is Thomas Hampson in the lead role.
Gardiner conducts Haydn, Mendelssohn and Bruckner
Sir John Eliot Gardiner is most famous for his interpretations of Baroque music on period instruments, but his repertoire and discography are not limited to early music. In this production he is conducting the BR Symphony Orchestra with a program including Joseph Haydn’s: “Insanae et vanae curae”, Mendelsohn-Bartholdy’s Symphony No. 5 in D major/D minor (“Reformation) and Anton Bruckner’s Mass No. 1 in D minor.
Making of “Rusalka”
Magic Moments of Music – The Centenary Ring in Bayreuth 1976
Uproar, disruption, violent dispute – this was the response to the much-anticipated centenary of the Bayreuth Festival in 1976, which presented a new production of Richard Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen. But before Pierre Boulez could step up to the conductor’s podium and the curtain could rise on Bayreuth’s Green Hill for Patrice Chéreau’s bold new production, the festival was rocked by artistic and political upheaval. The film tells how one of the greatest scandals in opera went on to become one of the greatest musical moments in history.
Rusalka
This highly acclaimed production from the Bayerische Staatsoper was a veritable sensation and a double revelation. That of the powerful and fascinating re-interpretation of Antonín Dvo?ák’s fairy-tale opera “Rusalka” and that of the young, up-and-coming Latvian soprano, Kristine Opolais, whose performance was hailed by the press as “one of the most vivid and striking accomplishments seen on an opera stage in a long time” (Vienna’s daily “Der Standard”). With her velvety soprano, her captivating beauty and her tremendous stage presence, Opolais perfectly embodies the role of the water nymph who becomes a human in order to find love, but loses all hope when her prince is seduced by a sensual princess.
Tannhäuser
Wagner’s grand romantic opera Tannhäuser explores the tension between earthly desire and spiritual purity. Torn between Venus and Elisabeth, Tannhäuser represents the Romantic struggle between indulgence and guilt, with themes of love and redemption that still resonate. Lydia Steier’s production moves through Venus’ world as a variety show, the ordered society of Wartburg Castle, and a contemporary media-driven landscape. Staatsoper debutant Clay Hilley as Tannhäuser is the shining star of this new production: “Even in the most powerful forte, his voice shines so effortlessly that one thinks he still has reserves to draw on. In terms of character, Hilley shows his inner turmoil very clearly, and his stage presence is that of a professional spoken theatre actor” (Bachtrack). Günther Groissböck as Landgrave Hermann and Malin Byström as Elisabeth also deliver “vocal highlights” (Concerti). In the pit, Philippe Jordan allowed “this masterpiece to resound in all ist splendour and beauty” (Der Opernfreund).