A coproduction of the New York, London and Valencia houses, Franco Alfano’s little-known 1936 opera ‘Cyrano de Bergerac’ has been reawakened to life by the great Spanish tenor Plácido Domingo. Although Alfano (1875-1954) enjoyed a long and prolific career as an opera composer, he is known today above all for having completed Puccini’s ‘Turandot’. His earlier works not surprisingly reflect Puccini’s verismo style, but his later works – including ‘Cyrano de Bergerac’ – are clearly inspired by Debussy, Ravel and Strauss. Opulent scoring and colorful orchestral effects elegantly underscore the tragic story based on Rostand’s famous drama of 1897, which achieved international celebrity in the Oscar-nominated 1990 film adaptation with Gérard Depardieu.
Also available: Making of Alfano’s ‘Cyrano de Bergerac’ (18’ – A93500217)
Unlike the piano, the violin or even the flute, the oboe is a relatively rare instrument for a solo career. And when a soloist such as Albrecht Mayer plays the oboe, one wishes composers had written more works for this weetly mellow instrument. Critics write about the “divine spark” that inspires his playing, and about the “miraculous oboe” that turns into “an instrument of seduction.” With his particularly warm tone and exceptionally broad palette of nuances, it’s no surprise that Albrecht Mayer is one of today’s most sought-after international oboists. In this documentary portrait of the oboist, we retrace the musician’s impressive career and witness some of its many high points. Mayer embarked on a professional career in 1990, when he joined the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra as solo oboist. Two years later, he made the transition to the absolute top league with his appointment as solo oboist of the Berlin Philharmonic, and since then he has made countless international appearances, playing under such eminent conductors as Abbado, Rattle and Harnoncourt. In addition to his work as a soloist, Mayer also attaches great importance to chamber music. He is a permanent member of the Sabine Meyer Wind Ensemble and also plays with such partners as Thomas Quasthoff, Matthias Goerne and Leif Ove Andsnes.
Her rise to international fame may have been meteoric, but her radiance is nothing less than galactic: Anna Netrebko, soprano and superstar. A phenomenal artist, she has been breaking all records in the world of classical music, and has injected a much-needed shot of youthful vitality into the classical scene. She can dominate the musical stage as Violetta Valéry in “La Traviata” or blend seamlessly into an ensemble as Susanna in “Le nozze di Figaro.” She can move audiences to tears with Russian songs or bring down the house with operetta arias. She is versatile, talented, gorgeous – and deserves to be in the spotlight. Yet though she may have all the makings of a diva, she prefers to play with the notion rather than live it out. This documentary shows Anna Netrebko as she really is: a natural, unaffected young woman full of fun, energy and, yes, boundless ambition and self-confidence. We accompany her to her parents’ home in Krasnodar and to her apartment in St. Petersburg. She relates her beginnings at the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg, where she scrubbed the floors of the lobby¿ And we see the visible impact she makes on a dignified public when she is awarded the Russian State Prize by President Putin. In candid conversations, she tells us about her plans for the future, her hobbies, her loves, but also her fears and how fame has changed her life. Revealing insights are also provided by conductor Valery Gergiev, Netrebko’s mentor, and tenor Rolando Villazón, her most important stage partner. The program contains a wealth of excerpts from Netrebko’s most recent performances in operas such as “La Traviata,” “La Bohème,” “Rigoletto,” and “War and Peace,” and features a side-splitting rendering of Lehár’s “Meine Lippen küssen so heiss” that brilliantly spotlights the humor, spontaneity and naturalness of this one-of-a-kind artist.
“This is how Verdi should be played” (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung on TUTTO VERDI). On the occasion of the 200th birthday of Giuseppe Verdi, the Teatro Regio di Parma and UNITEL CLASSICA have joined forces to realize a truly unique project: All of the composer’s 26 operas, as well as the Requiem, were performed and audiovisually recorded in and around Parma. For the first time ever Verdi’s operatic oeuvre, which comprises the labor of more than 50 years, is available in High Definition and Surround Sound. Available for each of the 26 Tutto Verdi operas are also short INTRODUCTIONS with a length of ten minutes each, which not only tell us the storyline of the respective opera work, point out the musical highlights and references, but also put the same into personal and historical context. The TUTTO VERDI projects also includes the DOCUMENTARY “Verdi’s Backyard” by Sergej Grguric – Length 52’ – Cat. no. A00550001
If there is one genre of music which baritone Thomas Hampson is exceptionally passionate about, it is the lied. To Hampson, song and singing are ‘the diary of our existence’ and he has invested a great amount of time, work and love to luring this genre out of the shadow of the more spectacular opera. One composer he particularly cherishes is Robert Schumann. Hampson begins this Schumann recital, recorded at Munich’s Prinzregententheater with Wolfram Rieger at the piano, with the cycle Zwölf Gedichte op. 35 on poems by Justinus Kerner. The second part of the recital is devoted to the original version of the popular Dichterliebe op. 48. While Hampson was preparing his first performance of the cycle based on poems by Heinrich Heine, he consulted the composer’s manuscript, only to find that the original cycle of 1840 was a completely distinctive work containing many musical and textual differences. Among the most notable differences was the presence of four songs that were omitted from the later cycle. These works – ‘Dein Angesicht so lieb und schön,’ ‘Lehn deine Wang an meine Wang,’ ‘Es leuchtet meine Liebe’ and ‘Mein Wagen rollet langsam’ – are featured here as first-ever recordings of these rediscovered works.
The concert given by the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela under its conductor Gustavo Dudamel at the Beethovenfest 2007 in Bonn was a highlight of the musical year. Over 200 young musicians between the ages of 10 and 24, many from underprivileged backgrounds, performed with nearly untamable energy under the baton of a young maestro destined to conduct the most fabled orchestras in the world. The concert program (2 x 45’) includes Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony, Bernstein’s Symphonic Dances, and pieces by Latin American composers Revueltas, Márquez and Ginastera. In the riveting 90-minute documentary ‘The Promise of Music’ (Prog. No. A05016554) directed by Enrique Sánchez Lansch (award-winning ‘Rhythm Is It’), we follow Dudamel as he prepares his orchestra in Caracas for its concert in Bonn, and we accompany the young musicians on their trip to Europe.
The challenges of a young singer today: by telling Elina Garanc?a’s story, this film invites us on a journey into the heart of today’s lyrical art. It is this intriguing contrast between the beaming singer on stage with the young, concentrated woman, demanding and fragile in her work. This film will be a testimony, one of a future great singer that allows the general public to discover and understand the rise of a grand diva today. ‘There is a moment when you close yourself off completely. You don’t want to let anyone in because you have just given and shown everything possible of yourself and you simply feel empty and sort of lost. It is a special moment… so I gather all the pieces together that I have just given. […] Sometimes it occurs overnight. I wake up in the morning and I realize: Yes, the cosmos has pieced me together again.’
Elina Garanca
This Unitel documentary with unreleased footage material – produced in the course of his 80th birthday in March 2007 – shows the eventful and emotional life of the extraordinary cellist Mstislaw Rostropovich. In one of his last interviews, Mstislaw Rostropovich draws a touching bow from his childhood in Russia – when he suffered from the apathy of his father – to his emigration, his enormous prosperities in a foreign country and to the point of his triumphal return back home. The portrait describes emotional moments in the life of one of the most important cellists and lights up the political and social commitment of the artist. Companions and pupil of the musician like the composer Krzysztof Penderecki, Natalia Gutman and Maxim Vengerov give an impression of who and how he was.
