Gluck’s Alceste was the opera that launched a revolution. Urgent, direct and pulsing with emotion, it stripped away baroque conventions to create a new kind of opera, and more than two centuries later, this tragedy of a woman prepared to give her life for love still strikes straight to the heart. Anne Sofie von Otter is formidable in the title role of this powerful production, created by director Robert Wilson in 2000 for the Theatre du Châtelet in Paris. Paul Groves and Ludovic Tézier also star, with John Eliot Gardiner conducting the period instrument forcers of the English Baroque Soloists.
Orphée et Eurydice
The power of music, the pain of loss, and the price we pay for love: the characters in Orphée et Eurydice might be ancient, but the themes of the drama are eternal – and in his most celebrated opera, Gluck express them with a directness and an inspiration that feels as fresh today as it did in the composer’s own era. In Paris, in 2000, director Robert Wilson and conductor John Eliot Gardiner revived Berlioz’s adaptation of this groundbreaking score, coupling a pared-back minimalist setting with all the colours of the period-instrument Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique. Magdalena Kožená brings all her youthful brilliance to the role of Orpheus.
In Rehearsal: John Eliot Gardiner
Through his particular combination of scholarship and inspired musicianship, John Eliot Gardiner has won international acclaim as a key figure in the revival of early music. His concert performances and recordings with the ensembles he has founded – the Monteverdi Choir, the English Baroque Soloists and the Orchestra Révolutionnaire et Romantique – are unmistakable, not just for their zest and technical mastery, but as highly personal readings of music from Monteverdi to Verdi and beyond.
This present film of the rehearsal of Bach’s Canata BWV 63 is intercut with comments from the singers and an interview with John Eliot Gardiner which reveals not only the depth of his knowledge of Bach’s music but also his profound love of the composer’s work. He talks incisively about Bach’s music as a whole, the place of the cantatas in the composer’s oeuvre, the particular structure and brilliance of “Christen, ätzet diesen Tag”, and explains something of his reasons for championing authentic rendition.
Salzburg Festival 2021: Gardiner conducts Mendelssohn Bartholdy
Sir John Eliot Gardiner and his Monteverdi Choir have a long-standing artistic partnership with the Salzburg Festival. With music by Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy to Goethe’s “Walpurgis Night” and Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, Gardiner once again turns his attention to romantic music and confronts two great literary texts: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s ballad “The First Walpurgis Night” inspired the composer’s vivid depiction of the conflict between an ancient pagan community and the new aspirations of Christianisation, between faith and superstition on both sides. For Mendelssohn Bartholdy’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” to the play of the same name by William Shakespeare the Monteverdi Choir is joined by seven top-class singers. PROGRAM: Mendelssohn Bartholdy: “Die erste Walpurgisnacht”; “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”
RCO: Gardiner conducts Brahms Symphony No. 3
Who was Johannes Brahms? In a new cycle of four concerts, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, conducted by Sir John Eliot Gardiner, is investigating Brahms’s œuvre through the lens of the four symphonies performed over two seasons and accompanied by other works by the composer. The Third Symphony is juxtaposed with choral works sang by the Monteverdi Choir. Under the baton of Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Brahms is instilled with a new radiance and vitality. PROGRAM Brahms: Symphony No. 1, Choral Works
St John Passion
After performances in recent years of Bach’s liturgical cantatas and St Matthew Passion, John Eliot Gardiner and the Monteverdi ensembles turn to the composer’s other great meditation on the suffering and crucifixion of Jesus. Martin Luther described the Gospel of John as ‘unique in loveliness and, in truth, the principal Gospel, far superior to the other three and much to be preferred’; Bach responded to the text with music which is by turns evocative, stirring, exultant and profoundly moving – music that holds our attention from beginning to end. The Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists are joined by a dynamic cast of exciting soloists to bring the story of the passion to life. “This is a St John Passion that no music lover should miss.” The Times