Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde is one of Bernstein’s finest opera recordings and still considered exemplary. Leonard Bernstein’s way of conducting this opera is unique and he makes orchestra and singers perform at their very best. The Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks was the only German orchestra with which Leonard Bernstein regularly collaborated for many years and it has numbered among the top ten orchestras in the world. A star cast of singers with Peter Hofmann and Hildegard Behrens in the title roles, completes this exceptional semi-staged production. Bernstein’s 1981 recording of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde is still considered an outstanding interpretation and has set the bar until this day. When he heard this performance Karl Böhm said, “Bernstein has conducted Tristan und Isolde the way that Wagner intended it to be conducted”.
Aida
Verdi’s enduring masterpiece of musical theatre, Aida, is a marvellous blend of human emotion and grand spectacle, full of Egyptian pomp and pageantry. In Sam Wanamaker’s lavish production, highly acclaimed for its extraordinary musical performances, Margaret Price is outstanding as the Ethiopian slave, Aida, Luciano Pavarotti makes a triumphant debut in the role of Radames, commander of the Egyptian Army, and the entire performance is masterfully shaped by the Spanish conductor, García Navarro.
Beethoven, Coriolan Overture, op.62
At the request of the writer Heinrich Joseph von Collin, Beethoven composed an overture to Collin’s tragedy in five acts Coriolanus (1802) in the spring of 1807. It was given its first performance in March 1807 in Prince Lobkowitz’s palace in Vienna. Although Beethoven’s music did not bring about the hoped-for stage revival of Collin’s tragedy, the Overture made its breakthrough as an independent concert piece. A dramatic work that owes its somber quality to Collin’s tragedy, it came to be favored for solemn occasions. Bernstein’s impassioned renderings of Beethoven move audiences in a unique way. “Beethoven has always meant universality to me, ever since my early adolescence, when I first heard that unforgettable cry of ‘Brüder!’. From that moment on, every… symphony came to mean heart-to-heart communication, traveling satellite-fashion via the cosmos itself. I offer [this cycle] to all music-loving ears as a testament of faith and of my most profound reactions to this greatest of all composers.” (Leonard Bernstein, 1980)
Brahms, Symphony No.3 in F major, op.90
Between 1981 and 1984, Leonard Bernstein recorded nearly all of Brahms’s orchestral works with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra to honor the 150th anniversary of the composer’s birth in 1983. Today, the cycle is considered as a landmark in the interpretation of Brahms’ music. For Bernstein, Brahms was “a true Romantic, containing his passions in classical garb”, but also a “North-German classicist swept away to Vienna, and fired by Danubian, Carpathian and gypsy passions”. Bearing this dualism in mind, Bernstein and the Vienna Philharmonic have underscored both the classicism and romanticism, the dramatic intensity and the sober restraint of Brahms’s music. The venue was Vienna’s Musikvereinssaal, where two of Brahms’s symphonies were premiered and where Brahms himself conducted. For the concertos, Bernstein enlisted the services of some of the finest Brahms interpreters of the time: the violinist Gidon Kremer, the cellist Misha Maisky and the pianist Krystian Zimerman.
Beethoven, Egmont Overture, op.84
For a stage production of Goethe’s “Egmont” planned for spring 1810, the Vienna Burgtheater commissioned Beethoven to compose incidental music to Goethe’s tragedy. Although Beethoven was a great admirer of Goethe and was profoundly flattered by this commission, he did not complete the music by the time the play was given its premiere on 24 May 1810. Only at the third performance of the play on 15 June was Beethoven’s music heard for the first time. Like the “Leonore” overtures, the “Egmont” also foreshadows the events to come. In “Egmont,” they are encapsulated in the main theme of defiance of tyranny, which gives the music its explosive power. Bernstein’s impassioned renderings of Beethoven move audiences in a unique way. “Beethoven has always meant universality to me, ever since my early adolescence, when I first heard that unforgettable cry of ‘Brüder!’. From that moment on, every… symphony came to mean heart-to-heart communication, travelling satellite-fashion via the cosmos itself. I offer [this cycle] to all music-loving ears as a testament of faith and of my most profound reactions to this greatest of all composers.” (Leonard Bernstein, 1980)
Brahms, Symphony No.1 in C minor, op.68
Between 1981 and 1984, Leonard Bernstein recorded nearly all of Brahms’s orchestral works with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra to honor the 150th anniversary of the composer’s birth in 1983. Today, the cycle is considered as a landmark in the interpretation of Brahms’ music. For Bernstein, Brahms was “a true Romantic, containing his passions in classical garb”, but also a “North-German classicist swept away to Vienna, and fired by Danubian, Carpathian and gypsy passions”. Bearing this dualism in mind, Bernstein and the Vienna Philharmonic have underscored both the classicism and romanticism, the dramatic intensity and the sober restraint of Brahms’s music. The venue was Vienna’s Musikvereinssaal, where two of Brahms’s symphonies were premiered and where Brahms himself conducted. For the concertos, Bernstein enlisted the services of some of the finest Brahms interpreters of the time: the violinist Gidon Kremer, the cellist Misha Maisky and the pianist Krystian Zimerman.
Hänsel und Gretel
Based on a fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm, Engelbert Humperdinck’s beloved opera is traditionally often performed at Christmastime as a treat for children. Humperdinck had originally planned to write a simple work with a spoken text and folksong-like melodies. It turned out to be a full- fledged, Wagnerian-style opera that was premiered in 1893 by no less a conductor than Richard Strauss, who termed the work “a masterpiece of the first rank.” For this lavish production staged and directed by August Everding, a cast of top singers has been put together, including Brigitte Fassbaender, Edita Gruberova, Hermann Prey, Helga Dernesch and Sena Jurinac. Sir Georg Solti conducts the Vienna Philharmonic.
La Traviata
Acclaimed film and stage director Franco Zeffirelli spared no costs to reproduce the opulent settings of Violetta Valéry’s happiness and downfall. The unparalleled musical quality of the production is guaranteed by some of the world’s foremost musicians: New York’s Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, conductor James Levine and singers Teresa Stratas and Placido Domingo. As Violetta, Teresa Stratas strikes the right balance between emotional grandeur and physical weakness. And with his meltingly lyrical voice and magnetic stage presence, Placido Domingo embodies Alfredo Germont with a rarely seen passion.
Parsifal
Parsifal is Wagner’s last opera. He named it “Consecration Play for the Stage,” and in so doing, tried to give the proper framework to what is in almost all aspects a sacred Christian play with music. Wagner also included mythology, mysticism and ancient Indian ideas in this work, whose origins he drew from Wolfram von Eschenbach’s famous courtly epic “Parsival”. But even earlier sources related to the legend of the Holy Grail were used by Wagner as a source for his poetic work. For 30 years no theater other than Bayreuth was allowed to perform “Parsifal” by order of Wagner. Only in 1914 did the work spread across the globe. Wagner achieved the essentially sacred atmosphere of the music through an instrumentation that evokes organ registration and often uses the instruments in groups (woodwinds, brass, strings). The leitmotivic work is less dense in Parsifal than in the Ring of the Nibelung. The brilliant songfulness of the world of the Grail is set against chromatic harmonies which, e.g. in the prelude to the third act, anticipate the twelve-tone music of the New Vienna School. The musical direction of this performance from the Bayreuth Festival is in the hands of Horst Stein; the stage director is Wolfgang Wagner, who also designed the sets. In the lead roles are renowned Wagner singers Siegfried Jerusalem, Hans Sotin, Bernd Weikl and Eva Randova.
Cavalleria Rusticana
Based on a drama by Giovanni Verga, “Cavalleria Rusticana” relates the lives and passions of simple Sicilian peasants. It was the first opera of the “verismo”, or realist, school. Turiddu has long been one of Placido Domingo’s finest roles, infused with passion and musical intensity. Franco Zeffirelli has masterminded a brilliantly naturalistic filming of this opera, shooting it on location in a small Sicilian town. The Russian mezzo-soprano Elena Obraztsova is a moving Santuzza, totally convincing in her passionate dejection. Together with the other veristic masterpiece, Leoncavallo’s “Pagliacci”, “Cavalleria” forms the most popular double-bill in the operatic repertory.