Jenufa
Jenufa is still Janácek’s most successful and most often performed opera, and the Berlin premiere at the Staatsoper in 1924 brought the work its final breakthrough on German stages. This performance from Berlin’s Staatsoper Unter den Linden is “artistically unsurpassable. There are three reasons for this. Firstly, the cast […], secondly: the direction […], thirdly: Simon Rattle, the Staatskapelle and the chorus of the Staatsoper” (BR Klassik). “Simon Rattle revs up the Staatskapelle Berlin with a passion as if he had to fill a melodrama by Giacomo Puccini with bursting sound life” (Süddeutsche Zeitung). “A beguiling mixture of speaking articulation and tonal roundness.” (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung)
Orlando
“A vivid Orlando makes history in Vienna” (New York Times International): Olga Neuwirth’s opera Orlando, based on Virginia Woolf’s novel of the same name, is the first full-length opera work by a woman celebrating its premiere at the Vienna State Opera. Olga Neuwirth, for a long time one of the great composers of the present, succeeds with this opera in creating a captivating arc across many musical genres. It’s an exciting, socially critical production by Polly Graham who puts a fantastically singing and playing Kate Lindsey in the center of the action. For Orlando Olga Neuwirth won the prestigious Grawemeyer Award, it became “world premiere of the year” by Opernwelt magazine and for Die Zeit it was “the premiere of the season”. BONUS: Interviews with Kate Lindsey, Will Duke (Video Designer), Lucas Niggli (drummer)
Parsifal
In Palermo where Richard Wagner composed this monumental opera during a long stay, conductor Omer Meir Wellber makes a highly successful debut as music director of Palermo’s Teatro Massimo, architecturally and artistically one of Italy’s most impressive opera houses. “With the Teatro Massimo’s excellent orchestra he succeded in a reading that was absolutely straight forward” (Opera Today). The singers are excellently cast especially Julian Hubbard as Parsifal “who was a sensation” (neue musikzeitung). Stage director “Graham Vick strips Parsifal of mysticism to deliver a powerful indictment of divisive ideologies” (Musical America).