Smart, stylish Klangforum Wien residency wraps at Prague Spring

Enno Poppe and Klangforum Wien

Juliet Fraser and Enno Poppe

Haas' 11,000 Strings

Evan Hulbert

By Frank Kuznik, 03 June 2024

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“rocketing from small murmurs to violent outbursts of sound”

Reviewed at DOX Centre for Contemporary Art, Prague on 1 June 2024

Saariaho, Solar

Sloboda, 60 noch kleinere Orchesterstückchen (World premiere)

Wróblewski, Durée (World premiere)

Indrák, Generated Answers (World premiere)

Hvozdíková, microdot (World premiere)

Klusák, In D: Ozvěny Bukové hory (World premiere)

Saunders, Nether (World premiere)

Juliet Fraser, Soprano

Klangforum Wien

Enno Poppe, Conductor

Markus Wallner, Sound

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Reviewed at DOX Centre for Contemporary Art, Prague on 31 May 2024

Saunders, Fury II

Poppe, Speicher VI, for large ensemble

Saunders, to an utterance for piano and orchestra

Saunders, Scar

Evan Hulbert, Double Bass

Joonas Ahonen, Piano

Klangforum Wien

Enno Poppe, Conductor

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Reviewed at Forum Karlín, Prague on 2 June 2024

Haas, 11,000 Strings

Klangforum Wien

50 Pianists

Haas’ 11,000 Strings at Park Avenue Armory

Kurt Gottschalk, 30th September

Like Ligeti before him, Georg Friedrich Haas makes the avant garde approachable as this performance of 11,000 Strings reveals.

***11

Miroslav Srnka’s Voice Killer premieres at MusikTheater an der Wien

Chanda VanderHart, 16th June

At MusikTheater an der Wien, Miroslav Srnka’s new opera provess a deeply compelling, meticulously crafted work. It may not uplift, but it sears itself into the memory.

****1

Freitag, der Dreizehnte celebrates Schoenberg at the Reaktor

Chanda VanderHart, 28th April

What do you get for the composer who made – and also kind of broke – everything? Arnold Schoenberg’s well-documented phobia of the number 13 aside, he could not have asked for a superior tribute in his 150th anniversary year.

****1

Embracing the new at Prague Spring

Frank Kuznik, 21st May

A world première by a Czech composer highlights a strong outing by Klangforum Wien.

****1

“To infinity and beyond! ”Cosmic Mondparsifal

Sam Johnstone, 15th October

After Jonathan Meese's Parsifal staging was rejected by Bayreuth, he channelled his frustrations into an "arch-Parsifal" which shoots the titular hero into space, with a musical re-imagining of Wagner’s score by Austrian composer Bernhard Lang.

*****

A shark with shiny teeth

Chanda VanderHart, 18th January

Requiring trained opera singers to focus primarily on acting and asking actors to sing in a renowned opera house puts everyone out of their comfort zone, which is not necessarily a bad thing.

***11

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Frank Kuznik

Frank Kuznik is the former Editor-in-Chief and Culture Editor of The Prague Post, Central Europe’s premier English-language weekly newspaper. He currently divides his time between Prague and his hometown in the US, Cleveland, where he covers northeast Ohio's dynamic classical music scene. In Prague he is an habitué of the Rudolfinum, National Theater, State Opera and other storied classical music venues, and an unabashed fan of Czech music.