The Opening Concert of Salzburg Festival 2012 builds a bridge to the Ouverture spirituelle: Valery Gergiev conducts STRAVINSKY’s Symphony of Psalms, a work that is as unusual as it is haunting, setting three psalms from the Old Testament to music. Modest MUSORGSKY’s Songs and Dances of Death are performed in a version for high voice, with the Russian tenor Sergei Semishkur. The programme closes with Sergey PROKIFIEV’s Symphony No. 5.
Thielemann conducts Strauss
A magical evening at the Salzburg Festival: soprano Renée Fleming, conductor Christian Thielemann and the Wiener Philharmoniker perform works by Richard Strauss – ‘one of those musical events that prove that excellence truly is possible’ (El País). In her interpretation of four songs for voice and orchestra by Richard Strauss, along with a scene from ‘Arabella’, Fleming wanders along the summits of vocal artistry as a diva who dares to project the innermost emotions of the music she sings. Without a trace of bombast or heaviness, Thielemann and the Philharmoniker elaborate, as Der Standard writes, ‘a new vision of the Alpine Symphony’ that is characterized by a ‘chamber-musiclike transparency’.
Salzburg Festival 2012: Mariss Jansons
With four opera productions and its concert cycle, the Vienna Philharmonic once again forming the centre of the Salzburg Festival. Furthermore, in 2012, its concerts bring the musicians not only to the Grosses Festspielhaus, where they are heard under the baton of four of the most important conductors of our times, but – with smaller forces – also to the Main Auditorium of the Mozarteum. With a programme dedicated to the second half of the 19th century, Mariss Jansons, the Vienna Philharmonic and soprano Nina Stemme offer a “superlative concert experience.” (Kurier).
Salzburg Festival 2013: Nikolaus Harnoncourt & Wiener Philharmoniker, Joseph Haydn: “The Seasons”
The great conductor Nikolaus Harnoncourt takes the podium to lead the Vienna Philharmonic and cast of high-class singers joined by the Concert Association of the Vienna State Opera Chorus in Haydn’s oratorio Die Jahreszeiten (The Seasons).
Salzburg Festival 2013: Verdi, Falstaff
Italian director Damiano Michieletto put on his Falstaff for the Salzburg Festival in the present-day “Casa Verdi”, a retirement home for elderly musicians Verdi founded at the time of the composition of this opera. As Falstaff Amborgio Maestri, who has played the role in 19 new productions so far. “His physique is just right for the part, as are his powerful voice, flair for drama and feeling for the Verdi style.” (New York Times) He is joined by soprano Fiorenza Cedolins as Alice Ford, the mezzo-soprano Stephanie Houtzeel as Meg Page and mezzo-soprano Elisabeth Kulman as Mrs. Quickly. Zubin Mehta leads the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra.
Salzburg Festival 2013: Wagner, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg
One of the highlight opera productions of Salzburg Festival 2013: The new Stefan Herheim production of Richard Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, conducted by Daniele Gatti, with Michael Volle, one of the foremost German baritones as Hans Sachs and highly acclaimed Italian tenor Roberto Saccà, who for over two decades he has been singing on the stages of the world’s major opera houses, as Walther von Stolzing.
Salzburg Festival: Verdi, Don Carlo
The Salzburg Festival hosts a new production of Verdi’s “Don Carlo”, directed by Peter Stein and embodied by Jonas Kaufmann. The production is based on the original version of the opera, which includes those passages that were cut shortly before the first performance in 1867. Verdi’s masterpiece demands world-class singers at the peak of their powers, such as Jonas Kaufmann, “who combines absolute technical stability with the highest musical intelligence”, and soprano Anja Harteros, who’s “Elisabetta is quite simply sublime: majestically phrased, rich in nuance, clear of diction and moving easily from immaculately floated pianissimo to sterling fortissimo”. (The Telegraph)
Salzburg Festival 2012: Die Soldaten
Bernd Alois Zimmermann’s opera Die Soldaten (The Soldiers), the “highlight of the festival season” (Süddeutsche Zeitung), breaks all records! The style and structure of an opera, acknowledged as one of the 20th century’s key works, its musical and dramatic collage technique take it to the limits of what is playable. Now, in Salzburg’s Felsenreitschule, the opera has found the ideal performance venue and, with the Vienna Philharmonic under Ingo Metzmacher together with a top-flight cast of singers, ist ideal performers too.
Salzburg Festival 2012: Ariadne auf Naxos
“The vocals are pure gold”, wrote the Berliner Zeitung. Emily Magee masters the challenge of her complex character’s richly nuanced vocal lines, while Elena Mosuc as Zerbinetta produced her coloratura cascades with breathtaking ease, and Jonas Kaufmann received accolades from the critics for his role debut as the “best Bacchus ever” (Berliner Zeitung). Daniel Harding and the Vienna Philharmonic provided the necessary musical foundations to this performance of Strauss’ Ariadne auf Naxos, in a special version for the Salzburg Festival created by Sven-Eric Bechtolf of the original version from 1912. Written immediately after the great success of Der Rosenkavalier, Ariadne auf Naxos was a combination of mythological opera and Molière’s drama Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme, though Strauss expunged all trace of the latter in his second version of 1916. To mark the centenary of the first version, a sensational project has created a daring production fulfilling the composer’s original dream of a “Gesamtkunstwerk”.
Salzburg Festival 2012: La Bohème
For the first time in its long history, the Salzburg Festival performs Giacomo Puccini’s La Bohème in the Great Festival Hall, offering a unique and rare music highlight. Anna Netrebko wins acclaim yet again in the lead role, giving a “deeply melancholic reading of Mimi”, according to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Completing the dream couple she has Piotr Beczala at her side, whose rock-solid tenor voice keeps you with him at every turn.The protagonists are supported by a cheeky Nino Machaidze as Musetta and a strong male ensemble headed up by a resourceful Alessio Arduini. Daniele Gatti conducting the Vienna Philharmonic ensured “shimmering transparency of sound … And Italian style” (Süddeutsche Zeitung) and “reveals the orchestral sound, bringing the tone colours to full glow” (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung).