Nearly 22,000 spectators fill the amphitheater to watch the spectacle unfold on the world’s largest opera stage. Director Alfonso Signorini’s production of Puccini’s beloved La Bohème transports the summery Arena to a snow-covered Paris of the 19th century. The tragic love story at the centre of the work is convincingly portrayed by audience favourite Vittorio Grigòlo and rising star Juliana Grigoryan, who is making her debut in the Arena. Grigòlo’s “‘full throttle’ Rodolfo shows energy and charisma, winning the audience over from the first notes” and Grigoryan moves the crowd as Mimì: “Her voice is rich, flowing with phrasing and precision, conveying emotions of love, hope and suffering without being victimized” (Artes News). The rest of the ensemble gives remarkable performances, toeing the line between light-heartedness and heartbreak perfectly. Especially outstanding: Eleonora Bellocci as Musetta “steals the show…her vocal agility and dynamism remain steadfast from her charming and flawless Waltz onwards” (Artes News). The orchestra, in the capable hands of Daniel Oren, “creates expressive and effective musical fabric” (Corriere dello Spettacolo).
Arena di Verona Festival 2022: Carmen
After many worldwide successes as Carmen, Elina Garanca now makes her long-awaited debut on the world’s largest opera stage, the nearly 2,000-year-old Arena di Verona. “With perfect diction, [Elina Garanca’s] bohemian is a true stage beast who makes a mockery of life with panache, taunting her lover just out of prison with sarcastic ‘taratata’ and then daring to face an adverse fate with implausible aplomb.” (Crescendo-Magazine.be). Italian film and stage director Franco Zeffirelli also made his debut at the Arena back then with Carmen. On the occasion of his 100th birthday, his three versions were put together for the first time in a “best of” version. The side set painted for the first edition and the large number of people and wide movements that characterized the original production are set back on stage. Highlights of the 2003 and 2009 stagings are skillfully combined with this. The 2022 production is hence something never seen before, which even proposes scenography’s elements that haven’t been realized in the previous stagings, but were originally planned by Zeffirelli.
Arena di Verona Festival 2021: La Traviata
With a spectacular new production, the Arena di Verona is celebrating its restart after the forced Corona break. La Traviata is a story of great emotions in the unique setting of the ancient amphitheatre of the Arena di Verona and with a star cast: Sonya Yoncheva, Vittorio Grigolo and George Petean offer a feast for the ears – and the new production is great theatre for the eyes. The action takes place in the golden Parisian era, the time of the world exhibition of 1889. On the huge stage, an LED wall measuring over 400 square meters unleashes impressive virtual imagery with a selection of paintings. These images from the Uffizi in Florence add additional perspectives to the concept of the mise-en-scene by creating a synergy between the arts of opera and painting.
Jonas Kaufmann: Dolce Vita – Live at Waldbühne Berlin
Italy! Like nowhere else on earth – the sunshine and sea salt, the smell of citrus and coffee, a flirtatious glance, an incomparable song drawn deep from… the heart. Italy and ist immortal music have a magical pull on people like no other culture – and Jonas Kaufmann feels this particularly keenly. In his “Dolce Vita” concert at Berlin’s Waldbühne he pays tribute to this culture, this way of life that has conceived one immortal melody after the other for the tenor voice and influenced him so much. This is a heartfelt tribute to Italian music including Caruso, Mattinata, Parla più piano (‘The Godfather’ theme), Core ‘ngrato, Volare and famous arias by Verdi, Puccini and more!
Lucerne Festival 2017: Rattle conducts Haydn’s Schöpfung
It was a farewell and the end of an era: Sir Simon Rattle was in Lucerne as principal conductor of the Berliner Philharmoniker one final time this summer. Together, they evoked the original state of the world with a performance of Haydn’s Schöpfung. It was a finale that touched upon life through music – thereby proving once again the distinctiveness and the outstanding standard of the artistic cosmos of Rattle and his orchestra. Earlier in the program, they played “ein kleines symphonisches Gedicht” by Georg Friedrich Haas, who was “composer-in-residence” of the Lucerne Festival in 2011. “Rattle highlights the story of the creation with a great sense of detail” NZZ
Daniel Hope – Dance!
Fleet of foot and with the whirling lightness of the waltz, the evening depicts the world of dance in all its variations, from the elegant courtly minuet to the fiery Argentine tango. Universal musician Hope will only be tripping the light fantastic metaphorically as his bow jumps across the violin strings. But who knows what surprises he may have in store? Daniel Hope has long been fascinated by the power of dance to move and inspire. Taking listeners on a journey through seven centuries of music history, DANCE celebrates the rhythms that have set bodies in motion and lifted hearts since time began. With everything from the anonymous 14th-century Lamento di Tristano to Wojciech Kilar’s 1986 work Orawa, via classics by Purcell, Handel, Mozart, Saint-Saëns.
Anne-Sophie Mutter and NY Philharmonic at Kraftwerk Peenemünde
It is a special place: it was here that the Nazi regime had the rockets developed that were used to bombard London during World War II. Today, the former turbine hall is a place of remembrance and reconciliation. Anne-Sophie Mutter, the four-time Grammy Award winner and formative soloist, mentor and visionary, connects Germany and the USA like no other violinist. Her husband, the American-Jewish pianist, composer and conductor André Previn, who died in 2019, dedicated the violin concerto ‘Anne-Sophie‘ to her. It is one of his most successful works and a profound love letter full of virtuosity for a master of her instrument. Joan Tower is also dedicated to strong women. With “1920/2019” from the New York Philharmonic‘s Project 19, the young composer pays tribute to the 19th Amendment to the US Constitution, which guaranteed women the right to vote and which celebrated its centenary in 2020. The New York Philharmonic also finds diversity in equality in Béla Bartók’s most successful work. His concerto for orchestra, premiered in Boston in 1944, demands brilliant solo and virtuoso performances from the orchestra. PROGRAM Previn: Violin Concerto ‘Anne Sophie‘; Bartók: Concerto for Orchestra; Tower: 1920/2019 (European premiere)
Paavo Järvi conducts Mahler 3 – Tonhalle Zürich Reopening
After four years of restoration work, the Tonhalle Zürich, one of the most impressive concert halls in Europe, reopened its doors on September 15, 2021. The Tonhalle-Orchester returned to its historic home with a captivating performance of Mahler’s Third Symphony under the direction of its Music Director Paavo Järvi, one of the great Mahler interpreters of our time. Hardly any work is as suitable for pushing the freshly renovated hall to its limits as Gustav Mahler’s longest symphony with an overwhelming orchestral cast, the alto Wiebke Lehmkuhl, the women of the Sing-Akademie Zürich and the Zurich Boys’ Choir.