With a triumphant staging of Berg’s monumental opera Wozzeck, universal artist William Kentridge, who already made headlines with his productions of The Nose and Lulu, makes his appearance at the Salzburg Festival. In a “breathtaking reassessment” (Financial Times), he puts Berg’s tragical portrait of a simple soldier harassed by a merciless society in an extraordinary, multilayered set design, in which various projections of movie scenes and drawings intertwine with the action on stage. “Mr. Kentridge has given Wozzeck his most elegant and powerful operatic treatment yet.” (New York Times)
Salzburg Festival 2019: Ariodante
At Salzburg Festival, Cecilia Bartoli shines as Ariodante with her dazzling coloratura in a highly acclaimed new production by the German director Christoph Loy, who is known for his clever psychological stagings. Loy turns Handel’s splendid baroque opera into an exciting and differentiated reflection on gender roles. A high-class ensemble, first and foremost a brilliant Cecilia Bartoli in the trouser role of the knight Ariodante who effortlessly switches between cheerful and lamenting virtuoso singing makes the production a true triumph. At her side perform audience favourite Rolando Villazón as Lurcano and young American soprano Kathryn Lewek, praised by critics as a „true discovery“ (Neue Zürcher Zeitung). Gianluca Capuano at the podium of the Musiciens du Prince – Monaco „provides for elegance, richness of colour and a sensitive, stirring realisation of the ingenious score.“ (Kurier). “Cecilia Bartoli is a league of her own!” (Der Standard). “The singing was sensational” (LA Times)
Salzburg Easter Festival 2017: Die Walküre
In 1967 the first Salzburg Easter Festival presented a now legendary production of Richard Wagner’s “Ring des Nibelungen” tetralogy, led by Herbert von Karajan. The 50th anniversary of the festival in 2017 saw a new production of “Die Walküre” by famous Bulgarian director Vera Nemirova which is set in a unique “re-creation” of this very first Salzburg Easter Festival opera production in the set by Günther Schneider-Siemssen. Christian Thielemann conducts his Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden and an illustrous cast including Anja Harteros, Anja Kampe, Vitalij Kowaljow and Peter Seiffert. The critics are full of praise for this “musically ravishing Walküre” (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung) and ist “excellent ensemble of soloists”. As Sieglinde, Anja Harteros is “enchanting and elegant”, Peter Seiffert “amazingly presents a steady and expressive Siegmund”, Christa Mayer “shows off as irresistible, throroughbred Fricka” and Anja Kampe is celebrated as “outstanding Brünnhilde” (Süddeutsche Zeitung).
Bregenz Festival 2017: Carmen
Georges Bizet‘s captivating music with its Spanish sounds took the world by storm: Carmen‘s Habanera and Seguidilla, like Escamillo‘s Toreador‘s Song, are known to one and all. The French composer‘s most successful opera is staged on the world’s largest, spectacular floating stage of Lake Constance in Bregenz, with a set designed by British artist Es Devlin. She has designed sets for pop stars like Adele, U2, Take That, the Pet Shop Boys and Kanye West. In collaboration with the stage director Kasper Holten, Director of Opera at the Royal Opera House in London, she has also worked at opera houses in Helsinki and Copenhagen, at the Theater an der Wien and the Royal Opera House Covent Garden. For the Danish stage director, this “opera about destiny and obsession” centres on “two people who are treated as outsiders, whose paths cross and who cling to each other in a passionate but unhealthy relationship”.
Bregenz Festival 2017: Mosè in Egitto
This production from the Festspielhaus at Bregenz Festival centers on the Biblical Exodus. The universal story, with ist themes of migration and inability to deal with power, has lost none of ist urgency and topicality. By choosing an Old Testament subject, Rossini was able to get round the ban on staging operas during Lent. None the less, Mosè in Egitto contains all the ingredients of grand opera, mainly thanks to the concealed love story of the heir to the Egyptian throne. Today the moving prayer-aria of the Israelites in captivity remains the best known piece from the opera. For the staging of this rarely performed work by Rossini, Dutch director Lotte de Beer, one of the most sought-after stage directors of her generation (International Opera Newcomer Award 2015) teams up with the Dutch theatre collective Hotel Modern. While the soloists and choir relate the tale of the pharaoh and the conflicts in his family, Hotel Modern conjure up ist own reality by using live animations to portray the mass scenes and the parallel narrative of the people and the slaves. Miniature cameras, thousands of puppets, models of villages and cities and a spectacular aquarium installation present the biblical tale of plagues and the parting of the Red Sea on the Bregenz stage.
Salzburg Festival 2017: Aida
“Passionate and unconditionally dedicated” (Süddeutsche Zeitung), Anna Netrebko makes her role debut as Aida at the Salzburg Festival, joined by Francesco Meli as Radamès and Ekaterina Semenchuk as her rival Amneris. In the pit: no other than Verdi expert Riccardo Muti, “our finest Verdi conductor” who “creates effects you didn’t quite think possible” (NY Times). This Aida is the first opera staging by award-winning Iranian film-maker, photographer and video artist Shirin Neshat, known for her critical examinations of gender roles and religious fundamentalism. “Lyric sensitivity and searing power – Ms. Netrebko is ready for Aida!” (New York Times)
Salzburg Festival 2017: La Clemenza di Tito
Deemed today’s most exciting Mozart conductor and highly acclaimed for his revolutionary Da-Ponte Cycle, Teodor Currentzis takes on Mozart’s final opera for his long awaited debut at the Salzburg Festival: “La clemenza di Tito”. The current Artistic Director of the Perm State Opera and Ballet Theatre is accompanied by his MusicAeterna and MusicAeterna Chamber Choir and joins forces with award winning director Peter Sellars, with whom he has established a successful long-term collaboration. Known himself as Mozart rebel for his unique contemporary stagings of Mozart’s operas, Sellars directs the opera also for the screen. “Peter Sellars’ picture language and precise direction are masterful!” (Der Spiegel)
Salzburg Festival 2017: Mozart Requiem
Teodor Currentzis and his Russian ensemble musicAeterna give their long awaited Salzburg Festival debut at the Felsenreitschule with an exhilarating interpretation of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Requiem. The Greek-Russian star conductor, “visually the rock star amongst all conductors” (Kleine Zeitung), is for many today’s most exciting Mozart conductor. The musicAeterna orchestra and its fabulous choir, completely dressed in solemn black cassocks and afoot throughout the concert, perform with full verve and complement each other perfectly: “compelling and in its greatness hardly comparable” (Kronen Zeitung). The young quartet of excellent soloists – Anna Prohaska, Katharina Magiera, Mauro Peter and Tareq Nazmi – is “smoothly blending in with the ensemble” (Salzburg.com). The “phenomen Teodor Currentzis sets Salzburg on fire!” (Kleine Zeitung)
BBC Proms 2017: First Night of the Proms
The BBC Symphony Orchestra and Igor Levit, conducted by Edward Gardner, follow the tried formula for the First Night of the Proms at London’s Royal Albert Hall, combining an exciting new work by a British artist, Tom Coult’s St John’s Dance, with a repertoire classic – Beethoven’s 3rd Piano Concerto – and a topical piece such as John Adams’s Harmonium, marking the composer’s 70th birthday. Igor Levit performs Beethoven “with rare grace and intimacy” (The Independent). For the grand finale, John Adams’s armonium receives “a glowing performance” (The Daily Telegraph) by ist gargantuan chorus: alongside the BBC SO under Edward Gardner, seven choirs, among them the
BBC Symphony Chorus and the BBC Proms Youth Choir, make up the choral forces, doing “a formidable job” in “this stratospherically high, rhythmically difficult, super-exposed
job.” (The Observer) PROGRAM Adams: Harmonium; Beethoven: Piano Concerto No.3; Coult: St John’s Dance
BBC Proms 2017: Barenboim conducts Birtwistle and Elgar
Daniel Barenboim and the Staatskapelle Berlin, returning heroes of the BBC Proms, give the UK premiere of Sir Harrison Birtwistle’s Deep Time at the Royal Albert Hall in London. They contrast the contemporary piece with the Second Symphony by Edward Elgar, thus reaffirming their special relationship with the revered British composer: “The Staatskapelle, driven by Barenboim, has become probably the world’s best Elgar-orchestra.” (Die Welt) They earn praise for playing his Opus 63, which is considered one of the greatest English symphonies, “with heroic sweep and heart-melting beauty” (Spectator) and “magnificent energy” (Daily Telegraph). Despite a five minute blackout during the recording of the performance, this unique concert of Barenboim and the Staatskapelle Berlin was captured in its entirety, with beauty shots compensating for any discontinuity. PROGRAM Elgar Symphony No.2; Birtwistle: Deep Time