With unparalleled charm and whirlwind exuberance, world-renowned tenor Rolando Villazón hosts a unique television special in which young musical “stars of tomorrow” are introduced to millions of music lovers as soloists in performances with the Junge Sinfonie Berlin under the baton of Giedre Slekyte und Elias Grandy – a highly successful, casual, briskly paced concert series that appeals to young audiences!
Elbphilharmonie: Gilbert conducts Mahler No. 3
Alan Gilbert marked his debut as Musical Director of the New York Philharmonic in 2009 with a performance of Gustav Mahler’s colossal Third Symphony. He has now also selected the work for his return to the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra. The former first guest conductor of the orchestra is a renowned interpreter of Mahler. Since first encountering Mahler’s work at the age of nine, the composer’s grip on Gilbert has never loosened. With compelling performances around the world, Gilbert repeatedly demonstrates his unique understanding of Mahler’s powerful scores. Alan Gilbert’s debut “was a fulminant success” (Welt).
UNESCO Concert for Peace
Sir Georg Solti’s unique “all-star” World Orchestra for Peace, with Donald Runnicles conducting a quartet of world-class soloists, chorus members of Bayerischer Rundfunk and the Bayerischer Chorakademie, give a commemorative performance of Beethoven’s legacy to universal peace and brotherhood. They are joined by players of the newly-formed Würth Philharmoniker to add a touching significance on this occasion of remembrance; that the future after any war lies in the hands of the surviving younger generation. Recorded at the exact ’11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month’, when the guns fell silent and World War 1 came to an end in 1918. PROGRAM Beethoven: Symphony No. 9
BPO: Dudamel conducts Bernstein Symphony No. 1
In 1944, at the age of just 25, Leonard Bernstein conducted the first performance of his First Symphony, a work based on the Old Testament lamentations of the Prophet Jeremiah and which demonstrates astonishing musical and intellectual maturity. PROGRAM Bernstein: Symphony No. 1 “Jeremiah”
Leonard Bernstein – A Genius Divided
One of the first US born conductors to receive worldwide fame, Leonard Bernstein is an exceptional composer and certainly not only due to The West Side Story. Instead of concentrating exclusively on his most famous work, Thomas von Steinaecker sets out to paint a complete picture of Bernstein. Thus, the documentary focusses on the American’s less known later works and on three compositions in particular: his Mass, the musical 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and the great final opera A Quiet Place. The film paints a vivid picture of the multitalented Bernstein, struggling with his role as composer and conductor, tackling the tension between successes and flops, between the politics of his time and his own liberal humanitarian claim. It looks back at Bernstein’s major achievements, such as his acclaimed conducting of Mahler and his involvement in the Young People’s Concerts, and it shows Bernstein’s work with young aspiring musicians as well as his political commitment. Joining the dots, Thomas von Steinaecker is cre ting a genuine portrait of Bernstein on his quest to his ultimate masterwork: the great American opera.
Birgit Nilsson – A league of her own
An intimate portrait of Birgit Nilsson (1918–2005) on the occasion of her centennial on 17th May 2018: The Swedish soprano had an incredible technique and was the world’s leading dramatic soprano between 1955 and 1975. Rare TV and archive footage shows Nilsson at work, and is complemented by interviews with Plácido Domingo, Otto Schenk, James Levine, Nina Stemme, Jonas Kaufmann and many others. The film reveals a sensitive woman behind the honest, down to earth, quick-witted artist, who had “a voice like fire and ice” (Sir Antonio Pappano). The documentary was shot at the farm in Bastad/ Sweden, where Nilsson grew up and spent the summers until the end of her life, at the Royal Opera in Stockholm, where the legendary Wagnerian singer made her operatic debut in 1946, and in places like the Bayreuth Festival, the Wiener Staatsoper and the Metropolitan Opera in New York, where Nilsson was the star and box office draw.
I am Carmen
A spirited woman who loves her freedom: Carmen, the protagonist of Georges Bizet’s much loved opera of the same name, brings a whirlwind of emotions to the world’s biggest sea stage at the Bregenz Festival. The documentary I am Carmen looks behind the scenes of Kasper Holten’s spectacular production and shows British stage designer Es Devlin, responsible for the grandiose Carmen set with an impressive height of 21 metres, and costume designer Anja Vangh Kragh at work. Mezzo-soprano Gaëlle Arquez, who sings her Carmen “as if she had just invented Habanera & Co.” (Tagesspiegel), and festival director Elisabeth Sobotka talk about the opera, discuss the main characters Carmen and Don José and also touch upon the role of women in today’s society.
Epiphany Cooncert – Through the forests, through the meadows
If you wander “through the woods, through the pastures” musically, you soon come into romantic hunting grounds. These words from Weber’s opera Der Freischütz are the guiding idea for the traditional Salzburg New Year’s Concert of the Bläserphilharmonie Mozarteum Salzburg, led by Hansjörg Angerer. The Bläserphilharmonie, which is composed of top-class musicians from leading symphony orchestras such as the Berliner Philharmoniker, Bayerisches Staatsorchester, Münchner Philharmoniker, Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin and Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden, roams through the most beautiful hunting, nature and forest music of the 19th century.
Salzburg Festival 2018: Nelsons conducts Mahler and Zimmermann
The notion of passion, in music, initially referred to accounts of the suffering and death of Jesus. But would any form of art be conceivable without ardent passion and that kind of suffering which mobilizes creative forces as starting point for new artistic endeavours? Andris Nelsons presents a concert night which concentrates every conceivable passion: Bernd Alois Zimmermann’s Trumpet Concerto, entitled “Nobody knows the trouble I see” – a protest against racism – and Mahler’s Second, ‘Resurrection’ Symphony. PROGRAM Zimmermann: Nobody knows de trouble I see – Concerto for trumpet and orchestra; Mahler: Symphony No.2 (Resurrection). A passionate rendition of Mahler’s Resurrection Symphony, “oscillating between dream and grotesque, between idyll and Hellmouth” (Wiener Zeitung).
Salzburg Festival 2018: Barenboim conducts Tchaikovsky and Debussy
Special experiences await you at this concert: “It was like a bath of ice, cocaine, and rainbows,” remarked the American writer Henry Miller of the effect made on him by Alexander Scriabin’s orgiastic orchestral fantasy Le Poème de l’extase. No wonder, when it comes to a composer regarded as a visionary who touched on the very limits of madness. Scriabin even saw himself as a kind of Prometheus and declared: “The world lives in my consciousness, as my act of creation.” Claude Debussy also experienced a mystical moment when he conceived his impressionist tone poem La Mer. With this music, he wished not to create a musical depiction of the roaring waves and sparkling water but rather to reflect the impression that the play of the waves awakened within him. Impressive in any case is how Lisa Batiashvili performs the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto. According to the Guardian, she is a gifted storyteller, while the Wiener Standard praised her bright violin sound, comparing it to “a ray of light.” PROGRAM Tchaikovsky: Polonaise from Eugene Onegin; Violin Concerto in D major op. 35; Debussy: La Mer; Skrjabin: Le Poème de l’extase op. 54