Kamdzhalov's visionary Heidelberg finale

Propora's Mitridate at Schloss Schwetzingen lacks dramatic sense (blame librettist Cibber and director Spirei). But exciting music strongly delivered makes a case for more Porpora in the repertoire.

Before they even started, the twin opening of Johannes Harneit and Gero Troike’s operas Abends am Fluss (“Evening on the river”) and Hochwasser (“Flood”) were hailed as operatic highlights, indeed as important cultural political events - and the performance of the Heidelberg Opera Ensemble was spectacular, with both these operas placed in the tradition of Theatre of the Absurd and performed convincingly with their politically explosive strength of message.

A journey through time into Ancient Egypt with Philip Glass' Akhnaten

This concert, to celebrate the 200th anniversary of Wagner’s birth, opened with that composer’s most influential phrase – the beginning of the prelude to Tristan und Isolde wherein the Tristan chord, which is reputed to have had such an unsettling effect on the harmonic language of all who followed, first stole upon the ears of 19th-century music lovers.

Agostino Steffanis witzige Oper über Alcibiades, der nach allerlei amourösen Verwicklungen doch lieber ungebunden bleibt, hätte in der Heidelberger Produktion von der Regie her mehr Pepp vertragen. Doch die Musik ist ein pures Vergnügen.

Johann Sigismund Kussers Adonis aus dem Frühbarock wird im erfrischend modernen Gewand zu einem rundum gelungenen Opernvergnügen.