Hailed by the press as “the definitive video production” of Tchaikovsky’s music, this exceptional concert series, recorded live from the Alte Oper Frankfurt, features the leading Russian conductor Vladimir Fedoseyev and the Moscow Radio Symphony Orchestra. Fedoseyev’s perceptive reading of the works of his fellow countryman, the masterly playing of the orchestra and guest soloists combine to produce performances which are revelatory in their execution and understanding of Tchaikovsky’s music and the Russian heritage.
Salome
In Petr Weigl’s production of Richard Strauss’s powerful and erotic one-act opera, Catherine Malfitano produces a spellbinding performance as Salome, a role which demands the utmost physical and emotional commitment throughout the complex vocal passages and choreographed scenes. During a banquet, Jochanaan (John the Baptist) proclaims, from his prison cell, the coming of the Messiah. He is brought for Salome to see and she, fascinated by him, makes an advance which he shuns, urging her not to follow the ways of her mother, Herodias. When Jochanaan is taken back to his cell, Herod asks Salome to dance, and she agrees on condition that she will be granted a wish. After her Dance of the Seven Veils, she demands the head of Jochanaan, which Herod is forced to have brought to her. She fondles and kisses it until the revolted Herod orders his soldiers to crush her with their shields.
Die Fledermaus (The Bat)
From the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden 1990: This effervescent operetta is a perennial favourite and John Cox’s production was a glittering setting for Dame Joan Sutherland’s farewell to The Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. She received a standing ovation when she appeared as one of the guests in the party scene, together with Luciano Pavarotti and Marilyn Horne. “The gala was surrounded by a really first-rate performance of Fledermaus” (London Evening Standard), with Richard Bonynge conducting a fine cast, including Nancy Gustafson, Louis Otey and Jochen Kowalski.
Stabat Mater op. 58
Recorded live from the Vladislav Hall in the Hradchin, Prague, Václav Neumann conducts the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra and the Prague Philharmonic Choir in a deeply moving performance of Dvorák’s choral work. (Sung in Latin)
Die Zauberflöte
From the Drottningholm Court Theatre 1989: The international bass Laszlo Polgar joins a strong Scandinavian cast, including Stefan Dahlberg, Petteri Salomaa and Mikael Samuelsson, for this production, directed by Göran Järvefelt and conducted by Arnold Östman. Their authentic staging of the opera, held to be Mozart’s artistic – and philosophical testament, has an atmosphere of naive enchantment and was hailed as “…revelatory …liberating in the sense that it released the opera from the assumptions of the twentieth century” (The Independent). (Sung in German)
Die Entführung aus dem Serail
From the Drottningholm Court Theatre 1990: Set in the exotic seraglio of the Pasha Selim, the story revolves around the rescue of the lovely Constanze by her lover Belmonte – a tale of love, bravery and forgiveness. In this work, Mozart breaks new ground in introducing dramatically rounded characters with recognisably human feelings and weaknesses. The work influenced and changed the nature of opera throughout Europe.
This charming production from Drottningholm does full justice to Mozart’s score. Arnold Östman’s deliberate conducting combined with Carl Friedrich Oberle’s design demonstrates that this really is “an eternal masterpiece of music drama by a youthful, exuberant composer who suddenly found his individual voice and style in the field of opera with this particular work” (Opera now). Sung in German.
Così fan Tutte
At the age of 27 Peter Sellars was hailed as a wunderkind of the U.S. theater and was already the general manager of the American National Theater in Washington’s Kennedy Center. In his productions, Sellars brings out the timelessness and topicality of the works with such naturalness that he arouses interest around the world and stimulates lively discussions as to whether he is brilliantly modernizing the works or brutally maiming them. Besides “Don Giovanni,” Sellars has also staged “Le nozze di Figaro” and “Cosi fan tutte” and moved their stories to present-day New York, whereby, however, he invented a new world for each opera. Thus “Don Giovanni” plays in Spanish Harlem, “Figaro” in the noble Trump Tower on Park Avenue, “Così fan tutte” in Despina’s dilapidated coffee shop. The Da Ponte trilogy is for Sellars, who studied at Harvard, the nonplus ultra of opera literature. With his Mozart productions, Sellars first caused a ruckus in the New York cultural scene, when he presented his work to the public between 1986 and 1988 at the University theater festival Pepsico Summerfare. Then his da Ponte operas went on a European tour and were finally recorded for television in Vienna. Since then Sellars numbers among the most sought-after, unorthodox directors on the international opera scene. But in spite of his gags and witty ideas, Sellars is not out to provoke; instead, he takes the action of the opera literally, transposing it with dramatic sharpness and intelligence. His productions prove that even a 200-year-old opera does not have to be cut off from present-day life.
Giulio Cesare in Egitto
Born in Halle an der Saale in 1685, George Frideric Handel became the court music director of Prince Elector Georg Ludwig in Hanover in 1710. When his master was crowned King George I of England, Handel moved to London and remained there until his death in 1759. Handel wrote more than 30 operas there and was an initiator of the Royal Academy of Music, founded in 1720, which pursued the goal of popularizing Italian opera in London. “Giulio Cesare in Egitto” is Handel’s fifth work for this institution and was given its first performance with resounding success in 1724 at the theater on the Haymarket. After Handel’s death, “Julius Caesar” fell into oblivion like his other operas, but was rediscovered in the 20th century through several successful and often unconventional stagings. Next to “Serse,” it is now considered as the most popular Handel opera of our time. For some, Peter Sellars is an enfant terrible of the opera; for others, the most imaginative of directors, who takes unconventional paths in his work. What distinguishes his stagings from the often belabored modernizations of other directors is that he brings out the timelessness and topicality of the works with convincing naturalness.
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. The Bayreuth Festival production has many of the same haunted, obsessive qualities that mark such Werner Herzog films as “Aguirre, The Wrath of God” and “Fitzcarraldo”. The internationally acclaimed filmmaker’s heroes (often played by the late Klaus Kinski) are generally lonely, enigmatic men; in Lohengrin, Herzog found a truly congenial subject. With its probing images and lavish settings by Henning von Gierke, the production is not only intelligent, fascinating and coherent, but also simply gorgeous. The press unanimously hailed Paul Frey’s “limpid and tender voice” and Cheryl Studer’s “marvelous musicality and transparent timbre”.
Don Giovanni
At the age of 27 Peter Sellars was hailed as a wunderkind of the U.S. theater and was already the general manager of the American National Theater in Washington’s Kennedy Center. In his productions, Sellars brings out the timelessness and topicality of the works with such naturalness that he arouses interest around the world and stimulates lively discussions as to whether he is brilliantly modernizing the works or brutally maiming them. Besides “Don Giovanni,” Sellars has also staged “Le nozze di Figaro” and “Cosi fan tutte” and moved their stories to present-day New York, whereby, however, he invented a new world for each opera. Thus “Don Giovanni” plays in Spanish Harlem, “Figaro” in the noble Trump Tower on Park Avenue, “Così fan tutte” in Despina’s dilapidated coffee shop. The Da Ponte trilogy is for Sellars, who studied at Harvard, the nonplus ultra of opera literature. With his Mozart productions, Sellars first caused a ruckus in the New York cultural scene, when he presented his work to the public between 1986 and 1988 at the University theater festival Pepsico Summerfare. Then his da Ponte operas went on a European tour and were finally recorded for television in Vienna. Since then Sellars numbers among the most sought-after, unorthodox directors on the international opera scene. But in spite of his gags and witty ideas, Sellars is not out to provoke; instead, he takes the action of the opera literally, transposing it with dramatic sharpness and intelligence. His productions prove that even a 200-year-old opera does not have to be cut off from present-day life.