“The whole world is a jest, man was born a great jester…” So goes the brilliant conclusion to Verdi’s Falstaff, an opera inspired by Shakespeare’s beloved comedy The Merry Wives of Windsor. The virtuosic score requires a particularly talented cast, not to mention a truly exceptional conductor. Herbert von Karajan perfectly fits the bill, and this performance featuring the Wiener Philharmoniker and an all-star group of singers is clearly worthy of Verdi’s powerful work, a masterpiece whose comic facade thinly veils the complex and sometimes even tragic characters’ struggles.
Bach, Weihnachtsoratorium (Christmas Oratorio) BWV 248
Considered one of the world’s leading specialists of Baroque music, Nikolaus Harnoncourt founded the “Concentus Musicus Wien” in 1953. It has since become one of the world’s most respected ensembles specializing in the performance of early music on original instruments or faithful reproductions. With its opulent decor and gilt ornamentation, the Austrian Baroque church of Waldhausen provides a setting evocative of Bach’s times. An added highlight of the program is the retelling of the Nativity story with the magnificent carved figures of two master wood-carvers of the Baroque period from Upper Austria. Also heard on the recording are the distinguished tenor Peter Schreier, bass Robert Holl and the Tölzer Boys’ Choir.
Introduction to Wagner’s “Der Ring des Nibelungen”
Hommage à Séville
Hommage à Séville
Brahms, Symphony No.2 in D major, op.73
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.
Brahms, Symphony No.4 in E minor, op.98
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.
Rigoletto
Renaissance Italy has never been portrayed more opulently and more realistically than in Jean-Pierre Ponnelle’s film of Verdi’s “Rigoletto”, the composer’s first true masterwork for the stage. Towering over the production is Luciano Pavarotti as the cynical, dissolute Duke of Mantua, one of the famed tenor’s greatest vocal and dramatic roles. Rigoletto is magnificently portrayed by the Swedish baritone Ingvar Wixell. His beautiful daughter Gilda is interpreted by Edita Gruberova, one of the leading coloratura sopranos of our time. Director Jean-Pierre Ponnelle, “whose stage and television work has brought a new and grandly colorful vitality to opera interpretation” (The New York Times), acclaimed Italian cameraman Pasqualino de Santis (Death in Venice) and architect Gianni Quaranta have created a spellbindingly unique atmosphere. The drama unfolds with a powerful authenticity highlighted by the historic locations in which it was filmed: Parma’s Teatro Farnese of 1628, Mantua’s Palazzo Te, famed for its frescoes by Giulio Romano, and the Palladian-style Teatro Olimpico in Sabbioneta. Riccardo Chailly’s vibrant interpretation of Verdi’s score, with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra responding magnificently to his conducting, is a perfect complement to Jean-Pierre Ponnelle’s high-intensity retelling of the drama.
Elektra
In this production, history, psychoanalysis and modern-day apocalyptic visions are presented with compelling urgency through Friedrich’s staging and Böhm’s artistic mastery. “Elektra” becomes a contemporary myth of desperate, unrelenting humanity. “Seldom before, surely, have the often erotic ideas of Hofmannsthal’s libretto been so explicitly delineated or its tragic grandeur so movingly realised. […] Leonie Rysanek, in her first and possibly only Elektra, surmounted the score’s superhuman demands with an interpretive achievement that crowns her career of more than 30 years. […] As a whole, the film showed that opera on television can be a great experience…” (Daily Telegraph)
Lohengrin
“Lohengrin” was premiered in Weimar in 1850 under the direction of Franz Liszt. The performance was a triumph for the composer, who, however, was unable to attend: he had been exiled for taking part in the 1848 uprisings in Dresden. Director Götz Friedrich took this historical background into account by having the radiant knight appear at the end dressed in black – a symbol for the dashed hopes of the German revolutionaries. The political message, however, generally pales before the aesthetic power of the images which depict the Middle Ages in a totally abstract manner. As Lohengrin, Peter Hofmann gives a performance that is dazzling in every gesture and every tone. Karan Armstrong replies with a very lyrical timbre and applies expressionistic means to convey sorrow, wonder and the bitterness of leave- taking. This production by Götz Friedrich was recorded at the Bayreuth Festspielhaus in 1982.