Leading five choirs, fine soloists and a glowing Netherlands Philharmonic, conductor Marc Albrecht emphasised the human struggle in a highly dramatic performance of Mahler’s mammoth eighth symphony.
Guth's incisive staging of Strauss and Hofmannsthal's grandest opera proves a moving and detailed experience at its transfer to the reopened Staatsoper.
Camilla Nylund’s rich, ample voice bloomed in the glorious setting of the sonnet, cosseted by burnished horn playing, in Strauss' unsurpassed operatic farewell to the soprano voice.
Stefan Herheim's eagerly awaited production of Berg's Wozzeck distances us from the emotional heart of the tragedy by portraying the story as a hallucinatory death-room experience.
Sven-Eric Bechtolf’s minimalist staging brought the protagonists’ complicated psychological interaction into focus but to the detriment of Wagner’s myth and magic.
These two Manchester-based choirs formed a formidable partnership for one of the most gruelling choral works in the repertoire. The four soloists, however distinguished as individuals, produced mixed results.
Revival of a 2014 production of Rusalka in Vienna was a great success musically with a splendid cast headed by last minute replacement Camillal Nylund.
Sir Mark Elder led the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and an inspired team of soloists headed by Klaus Florian Vogt into a highly-charged performance of Lohengrin.
Dutch National Opera have given themselves and their patrons a smashing 50th birthday present – a production of Der Rosenkavalier that is a winner on all fronts.
Starring celebrated heldentenor Klaus Florian Vogt, Kasper Holten's highly-praised production of Korngold's Die tote Stadt for Finnish National Opera is brilliantly revived.
Wagner’s Lohengrin was the last work the master completed before settling into a mid-career six-year slump. During this compositional hiatus, he wrote the poems for his Ring operas and ruminated in print on various topics, musical and otherwise, but work on the music dramas essentially ceased.
This opening concert to Vienna OsterKlang festival was a reproduction of sorts: on 5th April 1803 a slate of Beethoven works including the first and second symphonies, the third piano concerto and the oratorio Christus am Ölberge was performed in this very theatre.
Most of Dvořák's ten operas are rarely performed, but Rusalka, his tragic fairy tale of the water nymph who takes human form, has become popular in recent years and is a regular visitor to British opera houses. Last night's production, by directors Jossi Wieler and Sergio Morabito, started life at the 2008 Salzburg festival and has now arrived in Covent Garden.
When Richard Strauss first wrote Salome, he was unable to get it performed in his home city of Vienna, so shocking was the material with its heavy eroticism and necrophiliac ending (the première was in Dresden). A century on, times are more permissive, and Salome features in the seasons both of Vienna's Volksoper and of the Staatsoper, where we saw it last night.
« More corn than gold », ironisait Irving Kolodin, à propos du compositeur viennois alors très en vue à Hollywood, mais tenu pour moins sérieux par la Neue Musik. La postérité n’aura donné que partiellement tort à ce critique à la dent dure, en n’exhumant que rarement l’œuvre de Korngold après la seconde guerre mondiale.
Le samedi 30 janvier 2016, La Ville Morte de Korngold était programmée à l'Auditorium de la Maison de la Radio. Marzena Diakun dirigeait un Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France en pleine forme et une distribution vocale dominée par Camilla Nylund. Un délice.
