Following his comeback performance at the Vienna State Opera in 1988, this gala concert from the Alte Oper Frankfurt given on September 12, 1992, was one in a series of highly acclaimed performances that marked José Carreras’ return to the concert platform after his battle against leukaemia in 1987/88. Providing the high musical and artistic level of this evening, alongside Carreras are the Vienna Philharmonic – celebrating ist 150th anniversary –, the Vienna State Opera Chorus, the Prague Philharmonic Choir and the Tölzer Boys Choir, all under the baton of conductor Claudio Abbado.
Svetlanov conducts Prokofiev
Yevgeny Svetlanov conducts the State Symphony Orchestra of USSR in this remarkable all-Prokofiev programme, filmed at the Alte Oper in Frankfurt in 1991, the year the Soviet Union collapsed. They begin with the composer’s Symphony No. 1, “Classical”, in a performance that brings out all the pointed wit of Prokofiev’s brilliant pastiche of Viennese classicism. Violinist Vadim Repin then takes to the stage as soloist in the fiercely virtuosic Violin Concerto No.1, composed in the same year, 1917 – a year that, despite major political turbulence in Russia, saw Prokofiev produce several enduring masterpieces.
Masur conducts Strauss
It’s hard to overstate the esteem in which Kurt Masur and the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra were held in Europe in the 1990s. As well as playing a pivotal role in the return of democracy and the reunification of Germany, they performed the German symphonic repertoire with unrivalled splendour and authority. This concert captures them on tour Frankfurt in 1992, in a programme of Richard Strauss at his most exuberant (Till Eulenspiegel) and his darkest (Metamorphosen). The Leipzig orchestra’s historic relationship with Strauss had never seemed more vital, and it gives a special emotional charge to Júlia Várady’s luminous performance of the Vier Letzte Lieder.