Artikel von Aksel Tollåli

It is interesting that neither of the 200th anniversaries of Verdi and Wagner have received much attention in Oslo, especially when compared to the frenzy that has been dominating so many concert halls and opera houses all over the world. What is even more interesting is that it has only been the Oslo Philharmonic that has paid any kind of attention to the two composers.

There seemed to be an air of general disinterest surrounding the Oslo Philharmonic last Thursday. They were playing what on paper seemed like a fairly interesting programme, Grieg’s rarely heard orchestration of his Lyric Pieces, Mahler’s devastating Kindertotenlieder and Schumann’s triumphant Symphony no. 2, and yet it somehow didn’t seem like it was of much of interest to the orchestra.

German director Christof Loy’s second production for the Royal Swedish opera was of Wagner’s Parsifal. The cast is rather on the luxurious side as well, sporting three of the greatest Wagner singers working today – two of them Swedish, no less!Loy’s Parsifal is a distinctly human drama.

Thursday’s concert with the Oslo Philharmonic might not have featured the most exciting programme, dominated by what one might call the less exciting (but no less beautiful) parts of Eastern European Romanticism, although it still provided ample opportunity for engaging music-making. The remainder, however, proved to be some of the most exciting music I’d heard in quite a while.

The Studio for New Music is a Russian contemporary music ensemble, and is the ensemble-in-residence of the Moscow Conservatory. At this concert at the Oslo Opera House, their first in Norway, they presented a programme of Russian music, ranging from Stravinsky’s 1914 song cycle Pribaoutki to Vladimir Tarnopolski’s 2001 piece Chevengur for soprano and chamber ensemble.

The world ended yesterday. Possibly. It probably didn’t, but the facts are still kind of fuzzy.György Ligeti’s only opera, Le grand macabre is a strange piece. The story is straightforward enough: Nekrotzar, a Death-like figure, travels around the world of Breughelland warning its citizens of impending doom – a giant comet will destroy Earth at midnight.

Entering the Norwegian National Opera for their season opener of Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro, I imagined it would be a pretty conventional production and was hoping for some good singing. Turns out, I was only partly right.

There are new forces at the helm at the Oslo Philharmonic. After last season’s final concert of Mahler’s Second Symphony, the farewell of the orchestra’s longtime chief conductor Jukka-Pekka Saraste, this season’s opener was the inaugural concert of the new chief conductor, Vasily Petrenko. Expectations have been high, especially after some very successful concerts this spring.

The north-Norwegian town of Bodø has a special relationship with trains. Bodø is the last station on the Norwegian rail system, and the construction of the railway that goes between the towns of Trondheim and Bodø is one of the most gruesome stories in modern Norwegian history.

The repertoire in Anne Sofie von Otter’s recital in Bodø Cathedral this Saturday was truly a mixed bag. Ranging 350-odd years, from the 1650s all the way up until the very present day, spanning four countries and as many languages, and joined by two accompanists – Mats Bergström and Svante Henryson – there was really no unifying theme to the recital.

When Haydn’s Die Schöpfung (“The Creation”) had its public première in 1799, the forces were nothing less than gigantic; the orchestra numbered 120 people and the choir 60, considerable forces even today. The forces in use on Thursday’s performance were perhaps not of the same size, an orchestra of about 70, and a choir of 26.

When I heard one of the main concerts of the Nordland Music Festival was going to be the Tromsø Chamber Orchestra playing Vivaldi’s violin concerto cycle The Four Seasons with Henning Kraggerud as soloist, I must admit I was rather disappointed.

When naming a recital programme for two composers, say “Biber and Bach”, it is usually a good idea to actually include both composers on said recital programme. Sunday’s recital with Georg Kallweit and Benjamin Bayl of the Akademie für alte Musik Berlin apparently didn’t get the memo, and only played music by one of the announced composers: Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber (1644–1704).

It’s not every day that a world-class Baroque orchestra comes to small towns in the north of Norway. Then again, the Nordland Music Festival doesn’t happen every day. But maybe we should back up a bit. The Nordland Music Festival is a yearly festival held in the north-Norwegian town of Bodø.

For his fourth production for the new Oslo opera house, Norwegian director Stefan Herheim turned his attention to Richard Strauss’ one-act opera Salome. This production is a co-production with the Salzburg Easter Festival (where this production premièred in 2011) and the Teatro Real in Madrid.

Thursday’s concert in the Oslo Concert House marked the end of an era. It was, along with the concert the following evening, the final concert of Jukka-Pekka Saraste, the orchestra’s principal conductor for the last seven years. Final, as in his final concert as principal conductor: the orchestra isn’t letting go of him that easily.

Pairing Mendelssohn’s Fifth Symphony, the so-called “Reformation Symphony”, and Bruckner’s Third Mass in F minor seemed to me at first a rather novel, but very interesting idea. It was perhaps not the most daring of programmes, but certainly a very interesting one, picking a symphony steeped in Protestant tradition and then a Catholic mass.

Nothing says “Happy Easter” like a bit of alcohol-fuelled murder on the church steps, right? With their new double bill of Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana and Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci, the Norwegian National Opera certainly seems to think so!The two productions were done on practically the same sets, albeit with a few differences, which did create a rather wonderful sense of continuity from the fir

It would seem that Easter has come early to Oslo. Friday marked the opening of the Oslo International Church Music Festival, a festival that this year is devoted to the ever-paschal theme of the passion. The opening concert was held in the Oslo Cathedral and was sung by the British vocal ensemble The Tallis Scholars.The concert focused on passion, in both senses of the word.

An obsessively man-hating princess, a slave girl who really needs to open up a bit more about her feelings, a prince who actually fell in love at first sight, and an unhealthily large dose of exoticism? Why, it can only be Puccini’s Turandot.