Herbert von Karajan began conducting operas at the age of 21, and continued doing so throughout the rest of his long and prestigious career. A great admirer of Richard Strauss’s music, Karajan’s interpretation of Rosenkavalier demonstrates reveals his great familiarity with the work as well as hinting at the pleasure he took in conducting the work. His creative team, including Anna Tomowa-Sintow, Kurt Moll, Agnes Baltsa, Gottfried Hornik, Janet Perry, and Heinz Zednik, remains to this day one of the most spectacular solo distributions the work has ever enjoyed. Legendary for his rigorous approach to rehearsing and performing, the maestro took on the roles of artistic director, music director, and even became involved in certain aspects of filming.
Cosi fan tutte
From the Drottningholm Court Theatre 1987 Described as “the Östman pièce de resistance” (Financial Times), this production is performed by an extensively-rehearsed cast of young Swedish singers who “…proved a triumph of stylish teamwork, with singers and orchestra listening to each other, almost, as it were, breathing together” (Daily Mail). Östman collaborated with producer Willy Decker and designer Tobias Hoheisel to realise his vision of Mozart’s charming comic opera. (Sung in Italian)
Schumann, Symphony No.4 in D minor, op.120
Following the cycles of orchestral works by Mahler, Beethoven and Brahms, Unitel chose to honor Robert Schumann in 1984/85 with this cycle performed by the Vienna Philharmonic under Leonard Bernstein. Schumann’s orchestral works are firmly established in the repertoire of the Vienna Philharmonic. The glowing, romantic sound of this orchestra and Leonard Bernstein’s expressive interpretation complement each other in an ideal way to produce a perfect rendering of Schumann’s symphonic oeuvre. Schumann’s four symphonies, his piano concerto, the violoncello concerto and the Manfred Overture have been filmed and recorded in the “Golden Hall” of the Vienna Musikverein, held to rank acoustically among the world’s best halls. The soloists are Justus Frantz, piano, and the cellist Misha Maisky.
Brahms, Piano Concerto No.2 in B flat major, op.83
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. The soloist in Brahms’s concerto is the Polish pianist Krystian Zimerman, who launched his meteoric career when he won the Chopin Competition in Warsaw in 1975. An important influence in his youth was his friendship with Artur Rubinstein, and other landmarks in his career arose through his work with conductors such as Bernstein, Giulini and Karajan.
Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg
Wolfgang Wagner’s universally praised Bayreuth Festival production of “Die Meistersinger” most clearly demonstrates the originality of its conception in its treatment of Beckmesser. Refusing to caricature Beckmesser, to represent him simply as a fool or a pedant, Wolfgang Wagner allows the character the status of a genuine poet with a melancholy, almost elegiac quality. The production dispenses with the usual clichés and the excessive pathos which often lend the opera an overly “German” quality, and concentrates on the specifically human aspect of the characters, which other productions have tended to neglect. Hans Sachs is seen not as a solemn patriarch, but as a likable middle-aged man; Stolzing emerges as a sensitive, thoughtful individual drawn towards the bourgeoisie, rather than as an aggressive aristocrat. Wolfgang Wagner has succeeded in liberating “Die Meistersinger” from its aura of Teutonic heaviness and retrieving the light and color of the original: late medieval Nuremberg truly comes to life.
Artists and Models
David (1748-1825) saw his art as a weapon for social change. This film traces his career from his youth, as a Student of Boucher, through his heavy involvement in the politics of the French Revolution, to his exile in Brussels. Drawing on the memoirs of his pupil Delecluze and other historical documents, it provides a fascinating insight into the world of late eighteenth-century French society.
Silence Is The End Of Our Song
Christopher Bruce’s moving ballet is danced to Chilean folk songs, including several by Violetta Para and the poet/song-writer Victor Jara, who was assassinated by the junta that overthrew Allende’s government in 1973. Dedicated to the Chilean people, the work shows the tension and sorrow of a country in turmoil. Contrasting light and darkness, it embraces celebration and evokes the courage needed to confront political adversity and the threat of death. This performance was recorded in studio.
Julius Caesar
Dame Janet Baker, in one of her greatest roles, leads a cast of some of Britain’s finest interpeters of baroque opera and their performance under the baton of Sir Charles Mackerras is one of the highest musical excellence. John Copley’s acclaimed English National Opera production was restaged in studio, skilfully using all the technical advantages offered, to create this top quality recording.
The opera was first performed in 1724 at the Haymarket Theatre in London using castrati singers in the heroes’ roles. This production follows modern practice in using women in these parts. Dame Janet’s virtuoso role as Julius Caesar has been heralded as a masterful recreation of the music which Handel wrote for the finest singers of his time. Sung in English.
A Life of Puccini
Tony Palmer’s feature, scripted by Charles Wood, dramatises the story which hit the Italian headlines in 1908, when Puccini was fifty. Robert Stephens plays Puccini, Virginia McKenna his wife, Elvira, and Judith Howarth the servant girl who, wrongly accused by Elvira of having an affair with her husband, killed herself. The scandal devastated Puccini’s career and shattered his private life. Ten years later he wrote Turandot. Music and documentary film are skillfully combined with the drama to draw connections between this sublime masterpiece and Puccini’s experiences.
Gloriana
From the English National Opera 1984 Sarah Walker stars as Queen Elizabeth I of
England in a production by Colin Graham which succeeds memorably in capturing Britten’s dramatic
blend of passionate music, pageantry and psychological intensity. The relationship between the
ageing queen and the young Earl of Essex (Anthony Rolfe Johnson) throws into focus her lifelong
dilemma – the conflict of duty and personal love. “An operatic feast not to be missed” (The
Times). (Sung in English)