This charming, light-hearted concert is a celebration of Gustavo Dudamel’s appointment as Music Director of the Opera de Paris. It features an anthology of opera excerpts, inviting us to rediscover great arias, duets, ensembles, and musical interludes from a rich and eclectic repertoire in a truly exceptional performance.
From Georges Bizet’s Carmen to John Adams’ Doctor Atomic, from Richard Wagner’s Lohengrin to Osvaldo Golijov’s Ainadamar, from Richard Strauss’ Der Rosenkavalier to Giuseppe Verdi’s Falstaff, from Manuel De Falla’s La Vida Breve to Benjamin Britten’s Peter Grimes, Gustavo Dudamel conducts the Orchestra, Chorus, and guest performers.
This concert has quite a roster of international star singers. They include Clementine Margaine, Matthew Polenzani, Ekaterina Gubanova, Marie-Andrée Bouchard-Lesieur, Gerald Finley, Jacquelyn Wagner, Sabine Devieilhe, Tobias Westman. Directed by François-René Martin.
The Vienna State Opera announces its new season tody.
Top of the bill is a staging of two Mahler song cycles, Das Klagende Lied and Kindertotenlieder.
It is one of just six new productions.
Here’s the full rundown:
VON DER LIEBE TOD
DAS KLAGENDE LIED. KINDERTOTENLIEDER.
→ Gustav Mahler
29. September 2022
Musikalische Leitung Lorenzo Viotti
Inszenierung Calixto Bieito
Mit Florian Boesch, Tanja Ariane Baumgartner, Vera-Lotte Boecker, Daniel Jenz
DIE MEISTERSINGER VON NÜRNBERG
→ Richard Wagner
4. Dezember 2022
Musikalische Leitung Philippe Jordan
Inszenierung Keith Warner
Mit Michael Volle, David Butt Philip, Hanna-Elisabeth Müller, Wolfgang Koch, Georg Zeppenfeld, Michael Laurenz, Christina Bock, Martin Häßler
SALOME
→ Richard Strauss
2. Februar 2023
Musikalische Leitung Philippe Jordan
Inszenierung Cyril Teste
Mit Malin Byström, Iain Paterson, Gerhard A. Siegel, Michaela Schuster, Hiroshi Amako, Patricia Nolz
LE NOZZE DI FIGARO
→ Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
11. März 2023
Musikalische Leitung Philippe Jordan
Inszenierung Barrie Kosky
Mit Andrè Schuen, Hanna-Elisabeth Müller, Ying Fang, Peter Kellner, Patricia Nolz, Stephanie Houtzeel, Josh Lovell, Andrea Giovannini, Stefan Cerny, Wolfgang Bankl, Miriam Kutrowatz
IL RITORNO D’ULISSE IN PATRIA
→ Claudio Monteverdi
2. April 2023
Musikalische Leitung Pablo Heras-Casado
Inszenierung Jossi Wieler & Sergio Morabito
Mit Georg Nigl, Kate Lindsey, Josh Lovell, Hiroshi Amako, Andrea Mastroni, Jörg Schneider, Helene Schneiderman / Concentus Musicus Wien
DIALOGUES DES CARMÉLITES
→ Francis Poulenc
21. Mai 2023
Musikalische Leitung Bertrand de Billy
Inszenierung Magdalena Fuchsberger
Mit Sabine Devieilhe, Michaela Schuster, Nicole Car, Eve-Maud Hubeaux, Maria Nazarova, Bernard Richter, Michael Kraus
From Bloomberg:
(Kyohei) Sorita, 27, founded Japan National Orchestra Co. just a year ago, during the pandemic. He’s planning to take the orchestra to perform overseas later in 2022. As an entrepreneur and musician, Sorita sees the for-profit endeavor as a way to nurture talent and promote wider appreciation for Mozart, Beethoven and Rachmaninoff.…
Slippedisc, courtesy of Opera visions streams Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny. This opera is a testament to the fertile but fraught collaboration between composer Kurt Weill and man of theatre Bertolt Brecht. Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny is one of the great operas of the 20th century. Brecht might have resented the dominance of the music over the words but together they created a work with rich melody and unstoppable dramatic momentum. The expressionistic grotesque trial scene leads inexorably to the hit-tune finale where Mahagonny’s citizens stage mass demonstrations. Director Henning Brockhaus takes inspiration from artist Edward Hopper’s painting of mythical America. For him, the citizens of Mahagonny are a constant threatening presence, like the uneasy shadows in a Hopper’s painting which evokes the dystopia of rampant capitalism. Performance is from Teatro Regio di Parma in co-production with I Teatri di Reggio Emilia.
Singers include Christoperh Lemmings, Alisa Kolosova, Chris Merritt, Zoltan Nagy, and Nadja Mchantaf.
The Plot: in an imaginary American city, God consigns its licentious citizens to hell but they truculently reply that they are already there. Mahagonny ‘the city of nets’ is founded in the desert by three criminals on the run from the police. It is to be a city devoted to pleasure. The only god is money. So Jimmy Mahoney, the hedonistic lumberjack, is condemned to death for being unable to pay the bill for the whisky he has consumed.
Available from 30.April 2022 at 2000 CET/ 1900 London/ 1400 New York
The record industry never makes the fuss about a Sibelius cycle that it does with Beethoven and Mahler. Not sure why not. Maybe Sibelius sells less, or Finns are shy. Or, past sets by the likes of Colin Davis, Neeme Järvi and Herbert Blomstedt failed to get the suits excited.
The new set from young Finn wizz Klaus Mäkelä comes accompanied by exceptional hype from Decca, always a strong Sibelius label. The conductor’s promise is incontestable. At 26, he is chief of the Oslo Philharmonic and the Orchestre de Paris, and hotly tipped to succeed in Chicago or New York. So how’s his Sibelius?
In a special edition of Living the Classical Life, Zsolt Bognar extracts life lessons from the likes of Lisa Batiashvili, Julia Fischer, Karen Gomyo, Bejun Mehta, Emanuel Pahud and Christian Gerhaher, who happens to be a trained physician.
A really fascinating and worthwhile set of conversations.
Sovrintendente Dominique Meyer says the audience has rejuvenated substantially since Covid.
And the tourists are back.
He has told the board they have banked a $300,000 surplus.
We have received this clip of Alexander Toradze finishing the 2nd Shostakovich piano concerto.
He seems barely able to rise from his piano stool. Doctors later diagnosed that he experienced acute heart failure.
His fortitude is, by any measure, astonishing.
The Met has let it be known that Hibla Gerzmava, a Putin enthusiast, has been dropped from next season’s Tosca.
Her replacement will be the Ukrainian Liudmyla Monastyrska, who is presently filling in for Anna Netrebko as Turandot.
Patrik Klein reports (in German) from Wednesday night’s Hamburg concert with the Rotterdam Philharmonic:
… A mobile phone rings and it takes the elderly couple at least 2 minutes to switch it off. This happens without hectic with a certain coziness and great innocence.
The maestro at the podium, none other than Yannick Nézet-Séguin , has long since laid down the baton at the beginning of “Ruhevoll (Poco Adagio)” in Mahler’s fourth symphony to wait for the jingle. …
The highlight of the evening, however, is a lady in the front stalls who must have fallen asleep. Her neck fell back, loud snoring could be heard before her tongue disappeared down her throat and she passed out. Maestro Nézet-Séguin broke off again and sat down with his musicians, waiting for the lady, who had now woken up, to be escorted outside….
The Royal Academy of Music has just announced its biggest donation in two centuries, and one of the largest seen in UK higher education.
The philanthropist David Sainsbury’s Gatsby Foundation has given £6 million to create a Gatsby Chair of Musical Theatre, giving a boost to the next generations in London’s West End.
The consequences of Boston Symphony’s cancellation of its Europe tour are starting to roll in.
Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie has booked the Munich Phil to replace them, but with the same conductor. That’s…. delicate. Even a bit cheeky. So my main orchestra won’t come to Europe? I’ll find a local band instead.
Nelson’s agents may be sending a signal that he’s in play.
Here’s the press statement: Die Münchner Philharmoniker übernehmen am 20. und 21. Mai zwei weitere Konzerte in der Elbphilharmonie Hamburg. Das Orchester springt für das Boston Symphony Orchestra ein, das aufgrund eines großen Corona-Ausbruchs unter den Musiker*innen seine gesamte Europa-Tournee für dieses Frühjahr absagen musste. Die Münchner Philharmoniker freuen sich auf diese beiden Konzerte mit Andris Nelsons, unter dessen Leitung das Boston Symphony Orchestra zwei Konzerte mit Werken von Richard Strauss im Rahmen des internationalen Musikfests Hamburg bestritten hätte.
Das Orchester ist somit innerhalb einer Woche an vier Tagen in der Hamburger Elbphilharmonie zu erleben: Am 14. und 15. Mai wird Daniele Gatti mit zwei verschiedenen Programmen (u.a. Bruckner Symphonie Nr. 9, Schostakowitsch Symphonie Nr. 5) am Pult der Münchner Philharmoniker stehen, beide Programme werden auch am 16. und 17. Mai in der Philharmonie de Paris zur Aufführung kommen.
Am 20. und 21. Mai wird das Orchester nun nach Hamburg zurückkehren und mit Andris Nelsons ein reines Strauss-Programm bestreiten. Auf dem Programm stehen »Träumerei am Kamin« aus der Oper »Intermezzo«, »Vier letzte Lieder« (Solistin: Rachel Willis-Sørensen), »Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche« und »Tod und Verklärung«.
