The history of Verdi’s Messa da Requiem’s interpretation is inextricably bound up with the name of Herbert von Karajan. He conducted the work on countless occasions and in this legendary concert he performed it with some of the greatest singers of that time: Anna Tomowa-Sintow, Agnès Baltsa, José Carreras, and José van Dam. Verdi wrote his Messa da Requiem in 1873/74, between Aida and Otello, for Alessandro Manzoni, a poet whom he much admired. Verdi’s Mass for the Dead is not intended for liturgical use but for the concert hall. In addition to its profound spirituality, this masterpiece brings together the finest qualities from Verdi’s operas: endless melodic lines and captivating musico-dramatic effects.
Don Giovanni
When Herbert von Karajan conducted Mozart’s opera Don Giovanni at the Salzburg Festival in 1987 featuring an outstanding cast of singers, the fantastic Wiener Philharmoniker and staged by Michael Hampe, it became a legendary performance of the highest artistic level. This dream of artistic collaboration made it one of the best opera performances, which now is available for the first time on Blu-ray.
Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny
It took 68 years for [Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt] Mahagonny to come to the Salzburg Festival, but it arrived in style. In Peter Zadek’s bold 1998 production the denizens of Brecht and Weill’s sin city crowd the vast stage of the Grosses Festspielhaus, and conductor Dennis Russell Davies brings an uncompromising zest and grit to the playing of the Radio-Symphonieorchester Wien. But Weill was always adamant that Mahagonny is an “epic opera”, and Salzburg never stints on that score. Catherine Malfitano and Jerry Hadley head a cast that stars Dame Gywyneth Jones as Widow Begbick: performances exactly as outsized, and as gripping, as Weill demanded.
Salzburg Festival 2022: Il trittico
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)
Salzburg Festival 2022: Christian Thielemann & Elina Garanca
“What a sound pleasure, what a playing culture! […] Bruckner’s ‘Ninth’ without burdens, without any heaviness. Symphony in Schubert’s sense, seductive, apollonian.” (Kronenzeitung) To mark the bicentenary of Anton Bruckner’s birth in 2024, Christian Thielemann, the Wiener Philharmoniker and Unitel record the first Bruckner cycle with a single conductor in the orchestra’s history. After a truly magnificent performance of the Seventh Symphony in 2021, the stellar conductor returns to the Salzburg Festival with the Ninth to finish the cycle. In the first part of the concert, Christian Thielemann joins forces with Latvian star mezzo-soprano Elina Garanca and the Konzertvereinigung Wiener Staatsopernchor for Brahms’ Alto Rhapsody. PROGRAM: Brahms: Alto Rhapsody for voice, male chorus and orchestra, Op. 53; Bruckner: Symphony No. 9 in D minor
Salzburg Festival 2022: Káta Kabanová
Janácek’s opera Káta Kabanová is set in a small Russian town and is based on the play The Storm by Aleksandr Ostrov– sky. The story revolves around the central character, Káta – sung by “the phenomenal Corinne Winters” (Neue Musikzeitung) – who is trapped in a loveless marriage to an abusive man named Boris. Despite her unhappiness, she is bound by the strict societal norms of her time and is unable to escape the situation. However, when she meets and falls in love with a young man named Vána Kudrjáš, she finally experiences happiness and passion. But their relationship is short-lived, as Boris finds out and forces Káta to confess her infidelity in front of the entire town. Overwhelmed by the shame and guilt, she drowns herself in the nearby river. The opera explores themes of social conformity, oppression, and the consequences of forbidden love. Janácek’s use of musical leitmotifs and repetitive themes reflect the characters’ emotions and psychological states, adding depth and nuance to the story. Stage director Barrie Kosky managed to create an intimate but impressive setting in the magnificent Felsenreitschule. “The young Czech conductor Jakub Hruša, highly esteemed by the Wiener Philharmoniker, leads the orchestra with a feeling for the great moments as well as the fine lyricism of the grandiose score. Corinne Winters is thrilling in the title role” (Kronenzeitung)
Salzburg Festival 2022: Suor Angelica
In Suor Angelica the perspective has narrowed to the tragic fate of a single figure, the young nun Angelica. Banished to the convent for an indiscretion, she leads a joyless existence and waits for news of her son, whom she has been forbidden to see since his birth. When she learns that he has died, she resolves to put an end to her life. The climax of the opera is an extended monologue lasting 20 minutes in which Angelica works through her doubts as a devout Catholic and frees herself from her feelings of guilt and remorse. In a redemptive ending she finally transcends all her pain and escapes her agony. With a radiant finale Puccini opens up a path for her into the spheres of celestial paradise. “Overwhelming” Opernwelt
Salzburg Festival 2022: Il Tabarro
In Il tabarro (‘The Cloak’), surrounded by the decaying miasma of the river Seine, we have arrived in purgatory on earth. Puccini sets the piece in the present day, in Paris, in a realistic, Simenon-like milieu of stevedores, drinkers, and whores. In an oppressive atmosphere of hopelessness a love triangle arises between Giorgetta, her husband – the barge owner Michele – and his stevedore Luigi. Giorgetta is a woman with a history: she’s a mother who has lost a child and whose marriage is on the verge of breakdown. She starts an affair with Luigi, which gives her a momentary escape from the bleakness of her everyday life… Il tabarro fathoms the entire unremitting darkness of human existence. “Grigorian’s final scene, which milks the unexpected poignancy of her simply changing in front of us from her habit into a sleek black cocktail dress and letting down her hair, is just as wrenching.” The New York Times
Salzburg Festival 2022: Die Zauberflöte
Salzburg stands for Mozart and hardly any work stands for Mozart as much as his Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute), the most famous opera of all. Therefore, a staging of Die Zauberflöte at the Salzburg Festival is always something special. Director Lydia Steier in her revised version of her Salzburg production, now placed at the Haus für Mozart, introduces a grandfather as a narrator to read Die Zauberflöte as a bedtime story to his three grandchildren. In this way, the rich fantasy of the work breaks into the strict household of an upper middle-class family, in which reverie has little place, and takes the three boys right into the middle of the action. As the Three Boys, they plunge into a fairy-tale and dream world in whose surreal enlargements the boys’ everyday lives appear again and again. With a childlike gaze, they accompany and guide the protagonists through their destinies. “Regula Mühlemann is a beautiful-sounding Pamina, Michael Nagl a charming, creamy Papageno, and Tareq Nazmi as bass-strong Sarastro turns out to be a stroke of luck.” (Oberösterreichische Nachrichten)
Salzburg Festival 2022: Gianni Schicchi
In Gianni Schicchi, with its playful levity, peals of unbounded, strident laughter ring out – albeit of the kind that can only be heard in hell. We are in Florence, in the house of Buoso Donati, who has just died. Once the will has been found, his assembled kinsfolk – degenerate aristocrats – discover they have been deprived of their inheritance. After initial reluctance they bring themselves to seek assistance from an unpopular newcomer, the cunning Gianni Schicchi. He sets to work, ruthlessly turning the situation to his own advantage – not for nothing does he rage through Dante’s Inferno as a kind of sinister poltergeist. “Great opera cinema!”
Kronenzeitung