A superb new Otello from the Salzburg Easter Festival: “Cura is a commanding Otello with his richly coloured tenor and both fragile delicacy and fiery ardour” (Südwestpresse). “Röschmann as Desdemona guarantees effortless perfection” (Neue Musikzeitung). “Álvarez as Iago would be hard to surpass” (Abendzeitung). Thielemann”has discovered an impressively modern sound for Verdi” (Süddeutsche Zeitung), “generating Italian ‘Musikdrama’ with their incandescence and precise nuances” (Abendzeitung). In his fascinating staging, director Vincent Broussard integrates video with set and lighting design to create an idealized visual context for what he calls Otello’s “conflict of ancient and modern, of 2D and 3D”.
Salzburg Festival 2016: Die Liebe der Danae
A work narrowly linked to the Festival’s rich history, Richard Strauss’ Die Liebe der Danae (The Love of Danae) surely ranks among the highlights of this year’s Salzburg Festival. Krassimira Stoyanova, regular fixture at the Salzburg Festival, is heading a truly supreme cast and emerges as the “one in a thousand, the true Strauss lyric-dramatic soprano who can soar and swoop, working miracles on phrases that never stop coming” (The Artsdesk). Bass-Baritone Tomasz Konieczny, “sings this Jupiter almost unsurpassably” (FAZ). Alvis Hermanis’ colourful production brings oriental flair to the Salzach, his “staging was spectacular above all else” (Opera Today). Labelled as “too beautiful to be true”, the score presents a retrospect of Strauss’ lifework.
The Cunning Little Vixen
After quarter of a century, legendary director Otto Schenk returns to the Wiener Staatsoper to stage Leoš Janácek’s musical fairy tale The Cunning Little Vixen, conducted by Tomáš Netopil. Although the opera premiered in 1924, it took more than 90 years for The Cunning Little Vixen to enter the stage of the magnificent Wiener Staatsoper. To celebrate the fact that the work is heard at the house on the Ring for the very first time, none other than Austrian theatre luminary Otto Schenk devotes himself to staging the adventures of the clever fox and accompanying wildlife. Otto Schenk’s take on Janácek’s opera leaves nothing to be desired: “A triumph!” (Kronen Zeitung). “Tremendous applause for Schenk, the living legend!” (Wiener Zeitung).
BBC Proms 2016 – Gergiev, Abduraimov and Munich Philharmonic Orchestra
Valery Gergiev and his Munich Philharmonic Orchestra open with Ravel’s hypnotic Boléro and close with a suite from Richard Strauss’s waltz-filled opera Der Rosenkavalier. In between, Galina Ustvolskaya’s Symphony No. 3 pleads for redemption on raw brass and winds. Composed in 1983 it is based on the texts of the 11th-century German monk and musician Hermanus Contractus and includes solo recitatives performed by Alexei Petrenko. Young Uzbek pianist Behzod Abduraimov is the soloist in Rachmaninov’s soaring Piano Concerto No. 3. “Abduraimov ist phenomenal!“ (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung). “He should be on any must-hear list.” (The New York Times).
John Wilson at the BBC Proms – George & Ira Gershwin Rediscovered
Once again John Wilson and his orchestra, “combining swing authenticity with the poise of a deluxe concert Orchestra” (The Times), return to the Royal Albert Hall with a performance counted among “the star attractions” (Financial Times) of this year’s Proms. Their concert, accompanied by three of the “greatest West-End musical theatre stars” Louise Dearman, Matthew Ford and Julian Ovenden (also known from Downtown Abbey), pays tribute to George and Ira Gershwin, one of America’s most celebrated song-writing duos. Divided between film score theme tunes, dance numbers, and songs from musicals such as the favourites “Embraceable You”, “Love Walked In”, “Fascinatin’ Rhythm” and the ballet music from the 1951 film An American in Paris, “this glorious concert” (The Times) just “dazzled on every level.”
BBC Proms 2016: WEDO and Barenboim perform Widmann, Liszt, Wagner
Proms don’t come more stellar than this!”, raved The Independent about the WEDO’s performance at the BBC Proms. The concert opens with a rendition of Jörg Widmann’s overture Con brio. Martha Argerich continues with an “unforgettable performance” of Franz Liszt’s Piano Concerto No. 1, dazzling with her “frighteningly precise” playing (The Guardian). As encore the two childhood friends join forces at the piano for a four handed rendition of Schubert’s Rondo in A “that for 12 minutes provides a glimpse of paradise” (The Standart) holding “6000 people spellbound” (The Times). Further repertoire includes Wagner’s Overtures to Tannhäuser and Meistersinger; Dawn, Siegfried’s Rhine Journey and Funeral March from Götterdämmerung et al.
BBC Proms 2016: Mirga Gražinyte-Tyla conducts Mozart & Tchaikovsky
The City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra presents its new Music Director Mirga Gražinyte-Tyla at the BBC Proms. Gražinyte-Tyla is not only the successor of Sir Simon Rattle and Andris Nelsons at the CBSO, but also the first female conductor to take over one of the world’s leading orchestras. Her talent and musicality shine bright in the concert’s centre piece, the “spellbinding and bewitching” (The Guardian) song cycle Let me tell you by Hans Abrahamsen, performed by no less than Barbara Hannigan, for whom the piece was written in the first place. In the second half of the concert, Gražinyte-Tyla and the CBSO explore Tchaikovsky’s dramatic Fourth Symphony – “technically impeccable and just that bit more vivid than usual” (The Guardian). PROGRAM: Mozart: Overture Die Zauberflöte; Abrahamsen: Let me tell you; Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 4
BBC Proms 2016: Simon Rattle conducts Mahler 7
For the opening of his last season as chief conductor of the Berliner Philharmoniker, Sir Simon Rattle chose Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 7. Following the performance at the Philharmonie in Berlin, Rattle took his orchestra to London, to present Mahler’s mighty work to his new concert audience from next year on. Indeed it was Mahler’s music that initially led Rattle to the idea of pursuing a career on the podium. And it was an interpretation of Mahler’s 7th that made a significant contribution to the Berliner Philharmoniker selecting the maestro as their chief conductor. “The Berliner Philharmoniker led off in ravishing brass colours that punched the air with exalted penetration before softening to an equally glorious restraint. Thereafter, with dynamics that turned on a sixpence the symphony held together as persuasively as I’ve heard it” (Bachtrack). PROGRAM: Boulez: Éclat, Mahler: Symphony No 7 in E minor
Donizetti: Messa da Requiem
From the Basilique de Saint Denis, the burial place of the French Kings since centuries and at the same time one of the first gothic churches in the world, comes the first ever audiovisual recording of a long lost masterpiece of Italian sacred music, full of romance and belcanto: Gaetano Donizetti’s luminous Messa da Requiem. The highly virtuosic and lyrical score, expressing the Christian vision of the passage from death to eternal life, combines the imposing polyphony of a choir with the operatic brilliance of soloist arias. The Argentine conductor Leonardo García Alarcón conducts his Orchestre Millenium, an orchestra dedicated to bring ancient music to a new generation, with “precise gestures and rich contrast” while the Choeur de Chambre de Namur impresses with “clarity and power” (Forum Opera).
Paris: Harding conducts Berg and Mahler
It was the death of 18-year-old Manon Gropius, the daughter of Alma Mahler and Walter Gropius, which spurred Alban Berg to compose his violin concerto Dem Andenken eines Engels (To the Memory of an Angel). This concerto is played by multiple awarded German violinist Isabell Faust, who has been praised by New York Times: “Her sound has passion, grit and electricity but also a disarming warmth and sweetness that can unveil the music’s hidden strains of lyricism.” The violin concerto is followed by György Kurtág’s Doloroso. As third part of the programme, the Orchestre de Paris performs Mahler’s 4th Symphony, built around the song “Das himmlische Leben” (The Heavenly Life) from Des Knaben Wunderhorn, presenting a child’s vision of Heaven. The soprano solo is sung by Christina Landshamer.