Deep in the German forest, dark forces stir. Weber’s masterpiece Der Freischütz opened a new and spine-tingling chapter in 19th-century opera, and with its hunting choruses and gothic atmosphere, this tale of a young huntsman ensnared by demonic forces remains one of the great operatic thrillers. It’s natural territory for a conductor with Nikolaus Harnoncourt’s sense of history (and of colour), and Ruth Berghaus’s powerful modernist re-imagining was one of the highlights of his long creative relationship with Opernhaus Zürich. Swedish soprano Inga Nielsen (Agathe) and the great German tenor Peter Seiffert (Max) head a world-beating cast in this performance from 1999.
Aida
Any performance of Giuseppe Verdi’s Aida at La Scala, Milan, is guaranteed to be an experience – but, when it’s a new production, it becomes a major event, especially given the theatre’s notoriously critical audience. Legendary stage director Peter Stein succeeds in delivering a lucid production acclaimed in equal measure by the press and public: “a perfect coup de théâtre” (Giornale della musica). A “stellar cast” (La Stampa) contributes to the production’s success under the musical direction of Verdi specialist Zubin Mehta, who leads the orchestra in a “gorgeously colourful performance”, while “the entire ensemble is brilliant in ist portrayal of the characters” (Die Presse).
Parsifal
It was in Zurich that Richard Wagner, as he himself noted, obtained the inspiration for ‘Parsifal’ in 1857. And it was the Zurich Opera which, in 1913, was the first opera house outside of Bayreuth that was allowed to perform the work. On the occasion of the 150th anniversary of Wagner’s ‘stroke of genius’, we can once again experience ‘the purest Wagner bliss’, as the Neue Zürcher Zeitung put it, thanks to Hans Hollmann’s production and Bernard Haitink’s inspired conducting of the Zurich Opernorchester.
Fidelio
Thunderous applause and loud cries of ‘bravo’ greeted the premiere of Ludwig van Beethoven’s ‘Fidelio’ at the inaugural performance of the first opera season in Valencia’s new Palau de les Arts on 25 October 2006. Attending the stellar performance in architect Santiago Calatrava’s breathtaking theater complex was Queen Sofía of Spain, who added to the glamour of the event. With this spectacular production directed by Pierluigi Pier’Alli, Valencia has put itself back on the map of the international opera world. Dominating the activity on stage are two of today’s most distinguished German singers: Waltraud Meier as Leonore and Peter Seiffert as Florestan.
Tristan und Isolde
This production of Wagner’s “Tristan und Isolde” was premiered at the 1981 Bayreuth Festival and recorded in its third year on the Bayreuth stage, in 1983. With the celebrated Wagner tenor René Kollo as Tristan and the American-born soprano Johanna Meier as Isolde, supported by Matti Salminen (King Marke), Hermann Becht (Kurwenal) and Hanna Schwarz (Brangäne), the production was an uncontested feast of vocal mastery. This was underscored by the “wondrous gold of the score” that “flowed from the orchestra pit in a luminous symphonic flow.” (Süddeutsche Zeitung) Responsible for the inspired and transparent musical direction is Daniel Barenboim, whose sensitive treatment of the orchestra provides the ideal counterpoint to the interpreters on the stage. In his interpretation of “Tristan und Isolde” – his one and only production for the Bayreuth Festival – the late Jean-Pierre Ponnelle refused to follow the fashionable trend of seeking to update a work at all costs. His interest lay chiefly in the psychological treatment of the action, whereby the sublimated love of Tristan and Isolde becomes a nocturne of emotional and psychological depth. His alteration of the end, in which the events of the third act are depicted as a dream sequence experienced by the dying Tristan, provoked considerable criticism in the first year, but was rendered more clearly understandable by Ponnelle in the following years. Ponnelle adapted his production for its audiovisual recording, ensuring that all the magical effects visible in the theater are as stunning and evocative on the screen.
Der Fliegende Holländer (The Flying Dutchman)
For his production of “The Flying Dutchman”, premiered in 1978, Harry Kupfer chose the original Dresden version of 1843, which has a rougher, more muscular texture than the subsequent editions. When “The Flying Dutchman” was performed in Zurich and Munich, Wagner himself revised the work, softening the instrumentation and appending the “redemption” conclusions to the overture and the third act. What was the reason for the heated disputes which took place between the conservative Bayreuth Wagnerians and the more progressive lovers of the composer’s music? Harry Kupfer’s production presents the entire story of the Flying Dutchman as a hallucination, a figment of Senta’s disturbed imagination. She is seen by the director as a highly neurotic, even schizophrenic young girl, whose yearning for the eternally wandering Dutchman puts her into a trance-like state, in which her own internal drama is acted out in the form of a vision. By having the character leap through the window to her death at the end of the opera, Harry Kupfer has placed a highly personal interpretation on Wagner’s notion of “redemption”.
Die Walküre
It began with a scandal, became the object of heated discussions, turned into a sensational success and finally blossomed into a legendary, standard setting production: Pierre Boulez’ and Patrice Chéreau’s epoch-making “Ring” cycle in Bayreuth, the “Centennial Ring”. When the production was premiered in 1976, there were brawls in the venerable Festspielhaus, with the audience divided into one mob roaring in favor and one screaming against. The main reason for the protests was Chéreau, who set the work in the time in which it was written and focused on the all-too-human passions that motivate gods and men alike. The grimy industrial era with its robber barons and suffering masses supplied the ideological underpinnings of Chéreau’s concept. Musical conservatives felt betrayed and cheapened by this association. The tide began to turn in 1977. Certain features were altered and the production began to have a more homogeneous feel. Finally, in 1980, its last year, the Ring concluded with a 90-minute ovation and 110 curtain calls. By the time Philips released the complete recording of this production in 1992, its legendary status had already begun to take shape: “Patrice Chéreau and Pierre Boulez not only wrote a major new chapter in Wagner interpretation with their Ring, but also carried out a revolution that affected all of musical theater. Since then, no production of the Ring has been able to come near to the concept put forward by Chéreau and Boulez.” (FonoForum) Unitel’s production, the first complete recording on film of Wagner’s Ring, marked the beginning of Unitel’s exclusive association with the Bayreuth Festival.
Parsifal
Parsifal is Wagner’s last opera. He named it “Consecration Play for the Stage,” and in so doing, tried to give the proper framework to what is in almost all aspects a sacred Christian play with music. Wagner also included mythology, mysticism and ancient Indian ideas in this work, whose origins he drew from Wolfram von Eschenbach’s famous courtly epic “Parsival”. But even earlier sources related to the legend of the Holy Grail were used by Wagner as a source for his poetic work. For 30 years no theater other than Bayreuth was allowed to perform “Parsifal” by order of Wagner. Only in 1914 did the work spread across the globe. Wagner achieved the essentially sacred atmosphere of the music through an instrumentation that evokes organ registration and often uses the instruments in groups (woodwinds, brass, strings). The leitmotivic work is less dense in Parsifal than in the Ring of the Nibelung. The brilliant songfulness of the world of the Grail is set against chromatic harmonies which, e.g. in the prelude to the third act, anticipate the twelve-tone music of the New Vienna School. The musical direction of this performance from the Bayreuth Festival is in the hands of Horst Stein; the stage director is Wolfgang Wagner, who also designed the sets. In the lead roles are renowned Wagner singers Siegfried Jerusalem, Hans Sotin, Bernd Weikl and Eva Randova.
Don Carlo
Based on Schiller’s play of the same name, Don Carlo is Verdi’s most ambitious work, written for the Paris Opéra in 1865–66 in the tradition of a French grand opera. This legendary production from the Salzburg Easter Festival is directed by Herbert von Karajan. With its extraordinary vocal cast, the wonderful set design and costumes it is truly one of the most memorable opera performances.
Aida
Any performance of Giuseppe Verdi’s Aida at La Scala, Milan, is guaranteed to be an experience – but, when it’s a new production, it becomes a major event, especially given the theatre’s notoriously critical audience. Legendary stage director Peter Stein succeeds in delivering a lucid production acclaimed in equal measure by the press and public: “a perfect coup de théâtre” (Giornale della musica). A “stellar cast” (La Stampa) contributes to the production’s success under the musical direction of Verdi specialist Zubin Mehta, who leads the orchestra in a “gorgeously colourful performance”, while “the entire ensemble is brilliant in its portrayal of the characters” (Die Presse).