As highlight of the “The Spirit of Music in Venice” festival 2013, Venice’s venerated opera house, La Fenice, presents Giuseppe Verdi’s Otello performed against the backdrop of the Courtyard of the Doge’s Palace, as the perfect setting for its fifteenth-century plot. The Korean maestro Myung-Whun Chung conducts La Fenice Orchestra and Choir and a prestigious international cast, including American tenor Gregory Kunde as Otello. Also starring: Lucio Gallo, Carmela Remigio and Francesco Marsiglia.
Fidelio
‘Translucence, transparency, warmth’ are the qualities identified by Bernard Haitink as necessary for an ideal sound performance of Beethoven’s only opera, and all are present in this fantastic recording of Katharina Thalbach’s new production for Opernhaus Zurich. Haitink conducts the Zurich Opera Orchestra in a magnificent performance in which Leonore Overture No. 3 provides an interlude between the two scenes of the second act, following a tradition started by Gustav Mahler. German soprano Melanie Diener, in the role of Leonore, leads a brilliant cast including Alfred Muff as Rocco, Roberto Saccà as Florestan, Sandra Trattnigg as Marzelline and Christoph Strehl as Jaquino.
Nerone
Arrigo Boito’s libretti, including those for Giuseppe Verdis’s Otello and Falstaff, are some of the most outstanding achievements in operatic history and his own completed opera Mefistofele is present on the opera stages. On his opera Nerone Boito started working in 1862, but struggeled to complete it immediately, leaving it unfinished for several decades. It became his life’s work and it was only after his death that the conductor Arturo Toscanini created a performable version. The world premiere was held at La Scala Milan in 1924. Boito´s opera Nerone is here available for the first time on DVD/Blu-ray “Musically it´s brilliant.“ (Wiener Zeitung) and “Rafael Rojas triumphs in the murderous role of Nero, Lucio Gallo (Mago) is a great prince of darkness“ (Süddeutsche Zeitung).
Otello
Rarely has a production of Verdi’s Otello been staged in such a prestigious location: the courtyard of the Palazzo Ducale in Venice! This special outdoor “event production” of the Teatro La Fenice takes place amidst genuine late-Gothic and Renaissance architecture highlighted by spectacular projections: “A set of singular fascination” (Il Corriere Musicale).
Critics were full of praise for the musical performance, designating conductor Myung-Whun Chung as the “absolutely dominating force” of the performance (GB Opera). The lead role is sung by Gregory Kunde, who successfully interpreted both Verdi’s and Rossini’s Otello in one year, perhaps the first tenor ever to do so. He “reproduces every accent, every colour demanded by Verdi with sensibility and intelligence” (OperaClick).
Nerone
The focus on rarities has been a trademark of the Bregenz Festival since the opening of the Festspielhaus in the 1980s. It is therefore not surprising that Roman emperor Nero, the colourful character in Arrigo Boito’s lavish opera, makes his appearance in the latest edition of the Festival: The spectacular self-staging of his power contrasts with pangs of remorse he feels after murdering his mother. Begun in 1862, Boito strived to complete the piece for several decades. Only after his death did Arturo Toscanini create a performable version, whose world premiere took place at La Scala in 1924. Olivier Tambosi’s interpretation of this rarely performed opera with love confusions and sectarian characters is radical and opulent. The Wiener Symphoniker perform under the baton of Dirk Kaftan and “the ensemble of singers leaves nothing to be desired and plunges boldly into the sound waves” as the Deutschlandfunk wrote.