Under the heading “Party in the Felsenreitschule,” the Munich daily Münchner Merkur boldly proclaimed: “Venezuela’s Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra guests at the Salzburg Festival – and delivers the biggest audience hit of the summer.” Two days after the concert reviewed by the Merkur, the ensemble united its massive forces once again for a spectacular concert in the Grosses Festspielhaus – another unqualified success! Rarely has an orchestra reached out and grabbed its audience in such a visceral manner; and even more rarely has such a feat been accomplished by an orchestra of youngsters between the ages of 12 and 26! The Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra, the Salzburg Festival’s resident orchestra of 2008, is a product of the “Sistema de Orquestas” set up to allow children of all social levels to learn a musical instrument and play in an ensemble.
Salzburg Festival: Opening Concert 2008
Put one of the world’s greatest orchestras in the hands of one of the foremost specialists of 20th century music, add a soloist who is one of today’s leading pianists and conductors, and you are assured of a concert of superlatives that pays glowing tribute to three major works of the past century. The official Salzburg Festival opening concert of the Wiener Philharmoniker is conducted by Pierre Boulez, once the ‘enfant terrible’ of the musical world, now a sensitive, analytical conductor of works from the 19th and 20th centuries. Combining Béla Bartók’s Piano Concerto No. 1 – Daniel Barenboim is the soloist – with Maurice Ravel’s ‘Valses nobles et sentimentales’ and Igor Stravinsky’s ‘Firebird’ ballet in its full-length version of 1910, Boulez weaves a compelling musical texture that uncovers the links among the three works and the three composers.
Karajan – Memorial Concert in Occasion of his 100th Birthday
A “triumph of remembrance,” wrote the daily “Die Welt” in its online service following a stirring concert that left its audience hovering between hushed reverence and deafening exultation. The Golden Hall of Vienna’s Musikverein was the dazzling venue for the live recording of one of four concerts given by the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra under Seiji Ozawa and with Anne-Sophie Mutter. The series began in Berlin’s Philharmonie before going on to Paris, Lucerne and Vienna, where it culminated on 28 January. And there, in Vienna, Karajan’s “Berliner” never sounded better, evoking “a time which self-confidently sought the private and subjective in music, and believed it could find them in the mirror of the works.” (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung).
La forza del destino
“The cast is a dream team”, wrote the Financial Times after the premiere of this production of Verdi’s “La forza del destino” at the Wiener Staatsoper. At the top of the list is soprano Nina Stemme, who gives a full blooded portrayal of Leonora. Passionate, forceful readings are also provided by Salvatore Licitra as Alvaro, Leonora’s lover, and by Carlos Alvarez as Don Carlo, Leonora’s vengeful brother. Zubin Mehta leads the Staatsoper Orchestra with agility, subtleness and relaxed mastery. Director David Pountney establishes the randomness of fate at the outset in a video depicting a butterfly flapping its wings and setting fortune’s wheel into motion.
Portrait André Previn – A Bridge Between Two Worlds
Sir André Previn is one of the most multi-talented and prominent musicians of our time. In this intimate portrait, we meet a composer of music of all genres, a conductor, arranger, pianist and jazz musician, and winner of four Academy Awards for his film scores. Among the musical and artistic personalities contributing to this documentary are the great soprano Renée Fleming, Previn’s ex-wife Mia Farrow, world-class violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter, playwright Tom Stoppard, Previn’s sons and others. In candid conversations with the versatile musician, they help capture the essence of an artist who is truly at home in the different cultural worlds of America and Europe.
Salsa in Salzburg
Under the heading “Party in the Felsenreitschule,” the Munich daily Münchner Merkur boldly proclaimed: “Venezuela’s Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra guests at the Salzburg Festival – and delivers the biggest audience hit of the summer.” Two days after the concert reviewed by the Merkur, the ensemble united its massive forces once again for a spectacular concert in the Grosses Festspielhaus – another unqualified success! Rarely has an orchestra reached out and grabbed its audience in such a visceral manner; and even more rarely has such a feat been accomplished by an orchestra of youngsters between the ages of 12 and 26! The Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra, the Salzburg Festival’s resident orchestra of 2008, is a product of the “Sistema de Orquestas” set up to allow children of all social levels to learn a musical instrument and play in an ensemble. Today, 250,000 youths are learning from 15,000 instructors and playing in over 120 youth orchestras and nearly 60 children’s orchestras. Some of the Sistema’s finest players were picked to form the S.B.Y.O. and to work in Salzburg with such outstanding musicians as Nikolaus Harnoncourt and Martha Argerich.
Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg
Wagner’s ‘Meistersinger’ is a festive opera in its own right, but at the reprise of the work at the Vienna State Opera in January 2008, the festive spirit literally leapt out into the audience as well. Vienna’s dailies exploded with praise such as ‘A feast of singers’ (Der Standard), ‘A feast … grandiose’ (Die Presse) and ‘Nearly six hours of pure enjoyment’ (Kurier). The plaudits applied to all the singers, from Hans Sachs to the night watchman, as well as to the chorus and orchestra. Among the vocal surprises of this live recording is Adrian Eröd as Beckmesser, a fully fleshed-out character whose every gesture and every note reflects a well-rounded concept of the usually unsympathetic role of the critic. As Walther von Stolzing, Johan Botha is pure tenor gold, whose impressive reserves of strength allow him to sing brilliantly and effortlessly throughout the work.
Rolando Villazón – Handel Arias
It would be hard to imagine a more seductive hero, a more passionate performer, a more glorious interpreter of the great Romantic roles of Verdi and Puccini than Rolando Villazón. Yet the singer’s temporary withdrawal from the spotlight in 2007 opened up a wealth of new possibilities for the singer. Among the ‘new paths’ that Villazón envisioned for the future were ‘adventures’ such as Baroque music. Next to a recording of works by the early Baroque composer Claudio Monteverdi (available from UNITEL CLASSICA), he now offers a selection of arias by George Frideric Handel. This intimate concert featuring Villazón and the Gabrieli Players under Paul McCreesh was filmed in a setting that ideally suits the style of the music, St. Paul’s Church in Deptford, near London, one of Britain’s finest Baroque churches. It was built between 1712 and 1730, almost exactly when Handel was writing his most celebrated operas and oratorios.
Monteverdi in Saint-Denis
After speaking with her for one and a half minutes, I knew that I would even sing Heavy Metal for her if she wanted me to,’ gushed Rolando Villazón after meeting French conductor and harpsichordist Emmanuelle Haïm. Devoted to cultivating the works of Monteverdi, Handel, Rameau and Purcell, the vibrant Haïm has become one of the leading lights of the Early Music scene. Trained as a pianist and harpsichordist in Paris, she assisted William Christie before founding her own ensemble ‘Le Concert d’Astrée,’ which performs on historical instruments. Rolando Villazón is better known for his performances as tormented lover and ‘dream’ partner of Anna Netrebko in ‘La Traviata’ and ‘La Bohème’ (both available from UNITEL CLASSICA) than for his accounts of early Baroque music. But in this concert of works by Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643), the powerhouse tenor proves his allround mastery of italianità. The main work is the ‘Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda,’ a descriptive piece for three voices based on a text from Torquato Tasso’s epic poem ‘Gerusalemme liberata.’
Making of “Assassinio Nella Cattedrale”
What more appropriate venue for Ildebrando Pizzetti’s operatic masterwork of 1958 “Assassinio nella Cattedrale” than the austere, Romanic Basilica di San Nicola in the southern Italian port city of Bari. A striking coincidence: the action of T. S. Eliot’s stage play “Murder in the Cathedral”, on which the opera is based, takes place in December 1170; the Basilica di San Nicola also dates from the 12th century and was consecrated in 1197… Pizzetti, one of Italy’s leading lyrical composers of the first half of the 20th century, composed several operas, of which “Assassinio nella Cattedrale” is one of his most famous. It unites all the elements of his lyrical style, such as a supple arioso treatment of the text that bears echoes of Debussy’s “Pelléas et Mélisande” as well as of Monteverdi and the Florentine monodists; and powerful, surging choral movements that are even more breathtaking when performed in a church. Pizzetti’s religiosity also manifests itself in his choice of T.S. Eliot’s modern-day miracle play about St. Thomas Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury, who returns from a seven-year-exile only to be confronted by various torments, including Four Temptations; he succumbs to the fourth, the temptation of martyrdom… Internationally acclaimed bass-baritone Ruggero Raimondi, at home on all of the world’s major stages and unforgotten as Don Giovanni in Joseph Losey’s celebrated 1979 film, brings the firmness and authority of his vocal artistry to this role, elevating it to one of the most passionate and intriguing portrayals of a 20th-century operatic hero.