When Grace Bumbry performed Carmen under Karajan in 1966/67, she was the shooting star of the international opera scene. Her career almost seems like a fairy tale: Due to racial segregation, she could not begin her studies at the St. Louis Institute of Music in the USA, although she had already won a radio competition at the age of 17. Against this background, one has to see her later triumphs. She celebrated her breakthrough in Bayreuth, where Wieland Wagner brought her for his Tannhäuser and where the press praised her as the “black Venus” and the audience clapped her in front of the curtain 40 times. Many have had great careers. Grace Bumbry’s was more than that: it was significant – and Carmen was one of her finest moments.
Robert Wilson – The Beauty of the Mysterious
We know Winston Churchill’s saying about a “riddle wrapped inside an enigma”. Nothing could better describe Robert Wilson’s symbolic productions. What do minimalist fuel pumps have to do with Shakespeare’s sonnets? Why does Parsifal wear a triangular helmet? How did Alice from Wonderland end up on the Reeperbahn? Why and how does all this move many audience member to tears? This film sets out on a journey to uncover the mystery in the heart of Robert Wilson’s mysterious art – with the help of Tom Waits, Willem Dafoe, Marina Abramovic, Coco Rosie, and Rufus Wainwright.
Magic Moments of Music – The Centenary Ring in Bayreuth 1976
Uproar, disruption, violent dispute – this was the response to the much-anticipated centenary of the Bayreuth Festival in 1976, which presented a new production of Richard Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen. But before Pierre Boulez could step up to the conductor’s podium and the curtain could rise on Bayreuth’s Green Hill for Patrice Chéreau’s bold new production, the festival was rocked by artistic and political upheaval. The film tells how one of the greatest scandals in opera went on to become one of the greatest musical moments in history.
Magic Moments of Music – Rubinstein plays Chopin
In April of 1975, a piece of music history is filmed in London’s Fairfield Hall: the legendary pianist Arthur Rubinstein wants to leave a legacy to the world. 63 years after he made his debut there, 88 year old Rubinstein returns to London to record Chopin’s Second Piano Concerto, completely without an audience, especially for the cameras, with the London Symphony Orchestra under conductor André Previn. Chopin’s Second Piano Concerto has accompanied him throughout his life. Rubinstein dominated the world stage for three quarters of a century and lived life to the fullest as a connoisseur, globetrotter and notorious womaniser. Although he claimed to practice as little as possible, he would go on to become one of the most important pianists of the 20th century and described himself as “the happiest man I ever met in my life”.
Magic Moments of Music – Anna Netrebko & Rolando Villazón sing La Traviata
The performance of La Traviata at the 2005 Salzburg Festival drew attention from all over the world: It is not the first time on stage together for Anna Netrebko and Rolando Villazón in the leading roles – but it is here in Salzburg that they finally rise to superstardom. Each are brilliant on their own, but under the direction of Willy Decker, they shine above all as a couple, playing to the fantasies of the audience. Opera stars had never before been so up-close and personal, and had never been so present in the media. Previously unseen rehearsal scenes and interviews with Anna Netrebko, Rolando Villazon, Thomas Hampson and Willy Decker bring this magic moment of music to life.
Salzburg Festival 2021: Blomstedt conducts Honegger & Brahms
Now in his nineties, Herbert Blomstedt, former conductor of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, is still a powerful interpreter of the symphonic repertoire. His programme with the Vienna Philharmonic is straightforward: it begins with Honegger’s brilliant Third Symphony and ends with Brahms’ Fourth. The eminent maestro, one of the orchestra’s favourites since his debut at the 2011 Salzburg Mozart Week, continues to enchant audiences with his enormous presence, verve and artistic drive. “At the end, standing ovations and boundless cheers.” (br-klassik.de) PROGRAM Honegger: Symphony No. 3 “Liturgique”; Brahms: Symphony No. 4
Salzburg Festival 2021: Barenboim & West-Eastern Divan Orchestra
Ever since its first performances in 2007, the concerts of Daniel Barenboim’s West-Eastern Divan Orchestra have been among the first to be sold out at the Salzburg Festival. In 2021, the orchestra presents a program including works by Beethoven, Brahms and Franck with Michael Barenboim and Kian Soltani, both members of the orchestra, as soloists. PROGRAM: Beethoven: Overture to the ballet “Die Geschöpfe des Prometheus”; Brahms: Concerto for violin, cello and orchestra; Franck: Symphony in D minor
Salzburg Festival 2021: Thielemann conducts Mahler & Bruckner
After a truly magnificent performance of the Fourth Symphony in 2020, the stellar conductor returns to the Salzburg Festival with the Seventh Symphony, one of Bruckner’s most popular works. In the first part of the concert, Christian Thielemann joins forces with Latvian star soprano Elina Garanca for Mahler’s Lieder. “Expressive but without false pathos, he shapes the Rückert Lieder – audibly inspired by the magnificent Elina Garanca, whose perfectly focused voice sounds wonderfully sensual. A haunting evening”, hailed br-klassik.de. PROGRAM Mahler: Rückert-Lieder; Bruckner: Symphony No. 7
Salzburg Festival: Dudamel conducts Strauss
Richard Strauss year 2014 at Salzburg Festival: Gustavo Dudamel, winner of the Leonard Bernstein Award 2014, conducts the Vienna Philharmonic. On the program Strauss’ tone poems “Tod & Verklärung” and “Also sprach Zarathustra”. The evening is rounded up with a work by René Staar, who is also one of the Philharmonic’s violinists.
Salzburg Festival 2021: Muti conducts Missa solemnis
Since the death of Herbert von Karajan in 1989, the prestigious Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra’s concerts around Ascension Day (15 August) have firmly been in the hands of Riccardo Muti. Always sold out, they are among the highlights of every festival summer. For this year’s concert and on occasion of his 80th birthday, the maestro was acclaimed for his interpretation of Beethoven’s Missa solemnis, a piece he has never conducted before. “Muti is a master in conveying extremes: monumentality, where it is compositionally intended, and highest internalization alternate with each other in a dense interplay.” FAZ