The “Catalogue d’oiseaux” (“Catalogue of Birds”) is one of the most important works by Olivier Messiaen. The composer wrote the 13 piano pieces between 1956 and 1958. What may sound at first like an ornithological reference work is one of the most unusual and brilliant piano works of its time. The French pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard is the leading interpreter of Olivier Messiaen’s piano works. His interpretation of the “Catalogue d’oiseaux” is performed in the St. Canisius Church in Berlin. As a pupil of Messiaen’s second wife Yvonne Loriod at the Conservatoire de Paris, Pierre-Laurent Aimard already had musical and personal contact with Olivier Messiaen at an early age. As a 16-year-old, the
exceptional pianist won the Messiaen Competition. Pierre-Laurent Aimard was awarded the Echo Klassik for his recording “Hommage à Messiaen”. Programme: from “Le Catalogue d’oiseaux”: Le traquet stapazin (The Western black-eared wheatear); Le courlis cendré (The Eurasian curlew); L’alouette calandrelle (The Greater short-toed lark); L’alouette lulu (The Woodlark); Le merle bleu (The Blue rock thrush)
John Cranko’s The Taming of the Shrew is one of the greatest ballet comedies of the 20th century. Inspired by William Shakespeare’s world-famous play, Cranko brings to vivid life the story of the shrewish Katherina whom no one wants to marry and the dashing and clever Petruchio who makes her his wife and “tames” her. Set to cheerful and boisterous music by Kurt-Heinz Stolze after Domenico Scarlatti and with colourful costumes and a charming set by Elisabeth Dalton, The Taming of the Shrew evokes the sunlit streets and gardens of Italy. The perfect ballet for the whole family, danced by the Stuttgart Ballet. “This company is world class.” (Tanznetz) / “Cranko’s adaption of Shakespeare’s comedy is an artistic gem.” (FAZ)
The Salzburg Festival brings Mozart’s monumental, unfinished Great Mass in C minor to St. Peter’s Abbey Church – the beautiful church for which the piece was composed and where it was probably also premiered. Gianluca Capuano conducts the orchestra Les Musiciens du Prince – Monaco and the vocal ensemble Il Canto di Orfeo. Mélissa Petit and Patricia Nolz are an “outstanding female duo” (Die Presse): Pétit’s coloraturas “sparkle like precious gems” and Nolz’s “darkly-shaded, slender soprano blends beautifully” (Salzburger Nachrichten)
The promise of a Strauss double-bill with the Wiener Philharmoniker would be enough to have most concertgoers swooning – add in audience favourite Asmik Grigorian and Maestro Gustavo Dudamel, and the Salzburg audience could not be more ecstatic. Grigorian interpreted Strauss’ Vier letzte Lieder with “penetrating intensity” (VN), capturing the fleeting emotions of each song: “She effortlessly savours Strauss’s soaring flights of fancy and lavishes herself on his wide-ranging cantilenas” (BR Klassik). After this moving performance, Dudamel and the orchestra take the audience on a musical hike with Strauss’ tone poem Eine Alpensinfonie. “Gustavo Dudamel’s interpretation…is so vividly real. The orchestra once again delivers a brilliant performance of expressive, joyfully committed playing” (Opera Online).
With his Macbeth, Giuseppe Verdi broke with the operatic conventions of the time and created one of his darkest and most abysmal works. Directed by Krzysztof Warlikowski, the timeless drama unfolds in a new interpretation that takes the audience on an intense journey into human abysses. An opera of this kind demands not only outstanding voices but also outstanding actors. “Vladislav Sulimsky is forceful and brutish in the title role, at times truly frightening, always utterly assured.” (Financial Times) Asmik Grigorian is giving her debut as Lady Macbeth and performs “with an urgency of expression that needs no further explanation.” (Salzburger Nachrichten) “Her singing becomes a victory over expressive resistance.” (Frankfurter Allgemeine) “Philippe Jordan celebrated a triumph on the podium of the Wiener Philharmoniker” (Kurier), his “Macbeth crackles with power and electricity, propelled by its own velocity. The orchestra attacks the score with relish.” (Financial Times)
Mention Giacomo Puccini’s name and opera-lovers all over the world will think of grand opera and passionate love stories. One of the world’s most famous arias comes from the composer’s final opera, Turandot: “Nessun dorma” – none shall sleep because by morning the Chinese princess is determined to have discovered the name of the unknown prince. The work is remarkable for its Chinese local colour, its opulent crowd scenes, its powerful choruses and its characters overwhelmed by their emotions. Enthusiastically acclaimed by its audiences, the present production combines spectacular and touching scenes on the Bregenz Festival’s vast lakeside stage. “Melodies for millions, impressively staged” bringing “a bit of Hollywood to Bregenz” (ZDF heute journal TV news programme).
For this new production of Gounod’s operatic masterpiece at Opernhaus Zürich, stage director Ted Huffmann creates a stark and light-filled scenery in which Benjamin Bernheim and Julie Fuchs’s enchanting voices and their enigmatic play can shine. “The couple of all couples – you can lose yourself in this music for the soul.” (NZZ)
Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor is by no means a private love tragedy, but rather an eminently political story that demonstrates how a system of power deforms and ultimately corrodes human relationships. Donizetti provided his most haunting music for the rebellion and extinction of betrayed love; the revenge is bloody, the madness deadly. In this new production of the Opernhaus Zürich, soprano Irina Lungu sings the title role of Lucia. Piotr Beczala appears as her lover and Massimo Cavalletti as her brother. Tatjana Gürbaca, renowned for her precise direction, staged the visually powerful production under the musical direction of Speranza Scappucci.
It was the existential turning point of a career that until then had known mainly triumphs: During a rehearsal, José Carreras learns that he has leukemia – an almost certain death sentence in 1987. He is transferred from Barcelona to a special clinic in Seattle. His only chance is a therapy that until then was considered impossible: stem cell transplantation. He survives the disease and feels a real commitment to others suffering from leukemia. Starting with the cancer and the subsequent healing as the frame story, the film tells the stages of a world career in an associative and emotional way, jumping back and forth. Tightly edited archive footage brings these chapters to life. Newly filmed material shows the most important scenes from Carreras’ life and career. In addition, interviews with prominent companions, contemporaries and experts as well as a central interview with the jubilarian himself reflect a dramatic biography without slipping into one-sided hero worship. Cross-genre greetings and birthday serenades from Pretty Yende to Diana Damrau and from Plácido Domingo to David Garrett demonstrate the high regard in which the artists’ colleagues hold his life’s musical achievements and document the enormous impact José Carreras continues to make.
Franz Schubert’s “Winterreise” is not only regarded as the zenith of Schubert’s song composition, but as the pinnacle of German art song in its entirety. German composer Hans Zender arranged the cycle in 1993 with the title “Schuberts Winterreise – a composed interpretation”. Zender’s version for tenor and chamber orchestra reveals the cycle’s potential to disturb, and approaches Wilhelm Müller’s poems in its own way. Like Hans Zender, Christian Spuck’s production, which was awarded the renowned «Prix Benois de la Danse» in 2019, undertakes a journey into the innermost self.
