I'm not dead! Well not yet anyway ;-) Almost tried death by work, but for the coming days i've got another "poison" of choice... MUSIC!!! And scrumptious loads of it!!
Tosca, Tosca, Tosca :-))))))) and then maybe Butterfly and Cendrillon and Tell and more Tosca!!! I'm absolutely giddy with excitement and reading this:
I almost wish i had been there to feel the atmosphere :-) I hope as many as possible got tickets!
I'm looking forward to Puccini with Pappano, because nobody does Tosca like him! To hearing everyone again ( the best Mario EVER! and Ange and Bryn live again) , to proming, to Rossini and Santa Cecilia (how cool is it that Pappano has both his orchestras in town?!) , to lunch on the run between venues, to boiling alive at the RAH, to freezing inside the ROH, to waking up and going to bed with music ringing in my head :-)
Well, it is almost here, only 1 day left! For all of us out here and not at the Met, we can listen to the Walkure on line over the internet on this Met link.
It starts at 6,30pm NY time, that is 11,30pm London time and 12,30am elsewhere in Europe. And a little present from a dear friend in New York, to make us feel a little bit closer :-))) Thanks sooo much!!!
The cast is, in case you need a reminder ;-)
Conductor: James Levine Brünnhilde: Deborah Voigt Sieglinde: Eva Maria Westbroek Fricka: Stephanie Blythe Siegmund: Jonas Kaufmann Wotan: Bryn Terfel Hunding: Hans-Peter König
For the impatient ones, here are a few small videos from the general rehearsal, courtesy of the Met :-) No need to explain who is who i guess ;-)))
Enjoy!
Hm, for whatever reason the embedded links don't seem to work, so here is the direct link to the Met Videos of the Walkure:
Gustav Mahler (1892) from Hofphotograph Leonhard Berlin-Bieber (1841–1931) --------------------------------------
UPDATE (21 April) unfortunately, the listed cinemas will no longer have the live broadcast :-(((( The only alternative available for most of us in the UK is the Digital concert hall live relay. Check the links from the Berliner Philharmoniker below for details, it is not free, but the cost is minimal. http://www.digitalconcerthall.com/ http://www.berliner-philharmoniker.de/en/berliner-philharmoniker/
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It's exactly 100 years from the day of his death on May 18th this year. And on this occasion, Claudio Abbado and the Berliner Philharmoniker are dedicating him a special concert. They present Mahler’s last symphony which remained unfinished at his death in 1911 and Das Lied von der Erde, considered by him as “probably the most personal composition I ever created”.
For the LvdE the soloists will be Anne Sofie von Otter and Jonas Kaufmann. And i think this is the first time maestro Abbado will conduct LvdE (but do correct me if i am wrong).
For other cinemas around the UK, you can contact the distributor Myscreenevent or just do a google search, there are several locations in the Uk where one can already book, including the two cinema's in London mentioned.
There have been a number of successful broadcasts from the ROH this season on the BBC, both radio and TV, among which Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, the usual opera broadcasts and as we all remember the positively mouthwatering series of Opera Italia! All this, and i would also guess the considerable success Tony has had as a communicator of opera on TV (see the recent nomination from the Royal Philharmonic Society Awards for Creative Communicationfor the series) have lead to a new partnership with the BBC, which was announced today.
"Alice's Adventures In Wonderland will be broadcast on BBC Two on Saturday 23 April at 2.30pm immediately preceded by a documentary exploring the making of the ballet at 2pm" "The Royal Opera House and the BBC will come together to co-produce new commissions for 2012 created especially for television prior to live performance on the stage ..."
More Tony! yay!!!! "The new deal includes a series on classical masterworks presented by Antonio Pappano, beginning with Pappano's Essential Tosca for BBC Two and also the development of a new five-part series about singing to be written and presented by Antonio Pappano"
And guess what????!!!! We will get THAT TOSCA on TV!! :-))) "Other presentations include The Royal Opera's production of Tosca Tosca with Angela Gheorghiu as the heroine, Jonas Kaufmann as her lover Cavaradossi and Bryn Terfel as the Chief of Police Scarpia, accompanied by Pappano's Essential Tosca, a documentary presented by Antonio Pappano in which he examines the dramatic importance of each location in the opera and illustrates what Puccini does musically to create a great theatrical experience."
By the way, the Tosca will also be on BBC Radio3 , as well as "Mexican tenor Rolando Villazon starring in Massenet's Werther, Nina Stemme as the heroine Leonora in Beethoven's Fidelio, and Simon Keenlyside singing the title role of Verdi's Macbeth for the first time in the UK. Radio 3 will also broadcast two operas live: Puccini's Madam Butterfly and a new production of Massenet's Cendrillon (Cinderella) with Joyce DiDonato in the title role. "
More details in the press release link above. Great news, isn't it? :-)
Now it's official. Jonas Kaufmann will give a new recital at Wigmore Hall on June 10th 2012 !with his faithful partner, Helmut Deutsch.
Copyright: LA Opera/Robert Millard
The programm is still not announced but whatever he sings it will be,for sure, the hottest ticket of the Wigmore season, especially after the announcement yesterday of his nomination for the Royal Philarmonic Society Music Awards "for his performance of Schubert’s Song Cycle Die Schöne Mullerin at Wigmore Hall".
Jonas Kaufmann Photo by Michael Pöhn Staatsoper Wien (**)
Massenet: Werther Wiener Staatsoper, 28 January 2011 Frédéric Chaslin/Dirigent Jonas Kaufmann/Werther Adrian Eröd/Albert Sophie Koch/Charlotte Ileana Tonca/Sophie Janusz Monarcha/Le Bailli Benedikt Kobel/Schmidt Clemens Unterreiner/Johann
Tell you what, dropping off the tube on a chilly London night, dragging your suitcase through the bus station among a bunch of drunks, running to catch the bus home (almost seeing the fluffy bed you are going to drop into any minute now!) only to have the little machine tell you that your Oyster card has : not enough money on it! puts a totally new perspective on minor nuisances such as a Carmen-ish tambourine rattling away in Werther act 1.
But let’s leave reality behind and talk about Werther...
I now know that what definitely was love at first sight (or listen live) last year in Paris is for life. (Remember Paris ? Feel free to go back to it, even I felt I had to pay another visit to my own thoughts ;-) I love this opera and I know I always will, no matter what conductors do to it and through all possible productions. I have the most wonderful memories of the Paris Werther and I am even more grateful to realise that what that cast, that orchestra and Michel Plasson have created there will last me much more than just a beautiful memory. They have shown me how complex, intricate, delicate and perfect from the first to the last note it can be and I was both surprised and happy to hear and feel that the pattern they have engraved guides me through the score again and again, no matter where I hear it.
It’s not like I went to Wien in search of the same Werther. I knew that would be unrealistic and really who wants to relive the exact same operatic evening again and again and again , identically in every detail? I guess nobody, at least not live in an opera house. But I did wonder if the emotions in the Paris Werther were a one off event. Incredibly, they are not :-) I didn’t hear the Paris Werther inside the one from Wien, neither did I log off my ears and played what I really wanted to hear in my head ;-) What happened was that I did hear, recognise and most of all feel it in odd lines here and there and most of all in the singing, not the Werther from a year ago, but Massenet’s Werther, if that makes sense.
I’ve had that luck once before, with the Lohengrin, when the first experience live of the opera was so extraordinary that it really helps you discover the secrets (which is why what Tony Pappano said in the video I have posted before stroke a cord). Something as powerful as that connects you to a piece forever, hopefully not in the sense that you will always want to go back to that one experience, but in the sense that you will identify it whenever you hear it again and strive for a repeat encounter with some or a lot of that beauty :-)
As I was saying, to me Massenet’s Werther is incredibly beautiful!
Even when it comes in such an uneven and often chaotic mix as the one in Wien. I’ve tried all possible seating in the house and the acoustics stay weird and this time I had a better view of the pit which partly explained why this must be. I think it has about as much seating as the ROH but is built much tighter, it’s a much more closed space and probably higher. The pit comes far deeper into the circle, giving from almost all seats unobstructed view into it. I know it can be sunk and elevated as most pits these days, but it basically is built totally in front of the stage and has a full wooden wall at the back, which is also the line where the stage starts. I’ve seen a similar set up in Zurich and a similar sound impact is created there, but on a much smaller scale and obviously lesser impact. I think basically from the line at the end of the pit and the hall you probably have a full circle, which makes the sound on stage basically come from behind this circle. And this is how it sounds like. With a considerably elevated pit like we had in Werther you have the sound of the orchestra flowing straight up, not exactly in a wall of sound, as the pit is very wide and deep, but a kind of fuzzy forest of sound and through the trees you hear the singers. The two sounds never intertwine or at least much more rehearsal and work on coordination is needed than time allowed for these 4 performances. I thought sitting higher up would help get closer to where the two sounds meet, but it doesn’t. Whatever you do, the singers will always be outside this sound circle, even perfectly audible, but kind of acoustically far away.
It’s surely a tricky thing to master in any opera, and in French opera all the more so.
From my limited experience, French opera and Massenet all the more so is most beautiful when it becomes a kind of flow, where individual instruments can hardly be distinguished from each other, in an indissoluble harmony which beds the singers voices, embracing them. I always imagine them when I hear something like that like a swimmer floating in the water, not really above the wave, not diving in, but merged into the surface. And that is not really what we got. It was more like stormy weather, clashing uncontrollably around the singers, sometimes in unison, sometimes threatening, sometimes leaving exposed. There were some real moments of beauty, the less the orchestration the better the harmony but the speed changes were sometimes unsettling.
It’s also my personal preference for a more intimate version of the interpretation that made me duck a few time from the crashing sound. With the drama in Werther I always felt that the music carried enormous emotion, tension, passion but in undercurrent, not exposed. It’s like a bubbling volcano, threatening nearby. The tension is sometimes unbearable, takes your breath away but in a quiet kind of way, which makes the outbreak in act 3 that much more frightening, because it destroys everything and it is final. For me this suits the story much better and makes it more credible, it’s about longing and despairing with it, but not daring.
In this case, both the production and the musical interpretation were much more out there. The plot transposed to the 50’s with a large linden tree dominating the stage. I liked the way the tree want through the seasons and it’s bareness in the end was definitely atmospheric. I didn’t care much about the rest, it neither disturbed nor did it add a lot I felt. I am generally not sure if stripping the drama of its intimacy and shyness improves it. For me it doesn’t really. For Werther and Charlotte it doesn’t really seem to be love at first sight, there is already an obvious connection, Sophie is much more than a teenager feeling shy pangs of first love and not really knowing what to with it, she is more of the annoying clingy type and Albert’s love rather than strong and deep and steady seems or of the violent, cold hearted type. Tonca and Erod both sing well and Erod has admirable French pronunciation, but it somehow stays on the surface and there was one thing I did miss from Paris, the way Tezier knew how to enrich every line with feeling and meaning. It’s the same story, but nothing is hidden, nothing is implied, it is all out there in the open. It feels mundane, sometimes bordering on stale, or it would threaten to become so, were it not for the lead singers :-)
Sophie Koch Photo by Patrick Nin at imgartists
I am thankful in this case for little rehearsal time, which allowed Sophie Koch and Jonas Kaufmann to be less fused into this concept and for some of the romanticism of the story to be retained. There is a delicacy and sensibility intrinsic to Sophie, which make her my favourite in this role. Because she always seems to tremble somehow, to care, to feel and worry. She never becomes the disappointed housewife, reality never numbs this Charlotte, which is why in the 3rd act she sings with all that feeling that already in Paris brought tears to my eyes. Her Charlotte is caring, human, involved, which is how I like her :-)
Jonas also managed to make his Werther a bit wilder, more unstable, more dangerous almost if you will, while at the same time retaining his pensativeness and melancholy. His Werther is less resigned , less remorseful, more unhinged but equally driven or attracted to death both in release as in desire for peace. His “Lorsque l'enfant” had all the melancholy and mysticism that so touched me the first time I heard it. The only instance in the whole evening where the production really annoyed me, was when it ruined the poetry of that wonderful “Je ne sais si je veille ou si je rêve encore!” by having him grab a bottle of beer and take a refreshing sip on “Cette source limpide et la fraîcheur de l'ombre”. Ok, it may be funny, but it had me thinking: what on earth????? Luckily most people will not connect the text to the gesture because that irony was cheap and uncalled for and why ruin Werther’s dream? I love that aria! The way the music mirrors the words and images is soo beautiful…
The personalities they created for the characters matched extremely well and musically it’s where Massenet found that harmony one could wish for. Theirs was the element that managed to ground the music in a French sound, that essentially provided the line and flow of the opera and it was most beautiful, harmonic and filled with emotion! I could only regret that only sometimes did some solos from the orchestra find their way to this harmony while mostly giving a much bigger, rasher sound, which meshed Wagnerian with Verismo in a way that ,instead of slowly building the tension, threatened to overwhelm it. In the softest piani passages which both Jonas and Sophie almost caressed with their voices you also shuddered sometimes with suddenly intruding instrument solos gone overboard. Painstakingly spun nets of tension and emotion coming from the stage were often under threat….
I just wish the conductor and the orchestra would have worked equally as hard at showing the audience how incredibly beautiful and rich the soft and tender parts are, more so in the hands of artist like Sophie and Jonas. In opera such moments are rare and few can cherish and shine in them like these two and it is such a pity to not give people a chance to get to know and admire this as much as they do big and bold. Just because the latter is more obvious and more recognisable does not mean it is the only beauty worth admiring :-)
Which is maybe the right moment to explain about the two production photos you see.
You may have noticed, or not, that I am making an exception and not bringing you photos from published reviews or the page of the Staatsoper itself. Consider this is a special treat ;-) These are two only 2 production photos that i actually own.
(The only other printed production material i own is a poster of a ROH production, the Don Giovanni, bought to cheer up the empty walls between moving boxes into my London apartment as this was the first opera I saw when new in town :-))
You may wonder, why if I don’t even particularly like this production? I could say, well, I bought them before seeing it ;-))) Which is true, but I did know more or less how the production looked like when I did. I actually never meant to buy them either. I like to browse around opera shops and Arcadia (the one at the Wien Staatsoper) is full of treasures of old times, with gazillions of CDs and signed pictures of almost any singer you have heard of, it’s more like a mini-museum than a shop. So in i went with a friend of mine and we had a breeze around and gave some “serious” consideration to the business the opera houses are making with photos, calendars and such ;-) I still believe the ROH could make more money out of this, if they sold the right pictures and posters. As the lady at the counter informed us, such pictures and posters sell very well. Yep, the margin on something that must cost pennies to make and sells at 10 times that is considerable ;-) In any case we looked at their current year calendar (check out here if curious) but I think it is overpriced, I don’t like all of the 12 images, I can’t have a calendar and keep it on January the whole year and even less if all the other pictures are better taken than that one! So after commenting about the calendar (ok, a particular picture in the calendar which we both agreed was a particularly good one! But can’t have that month up for a whole year either!)we moved on to the Werther pictures and there were loads of them!
So I went: no, no, no,no, no… can I see that one please? So the lady wants to go inside to get some and I go: No, no, I don’t want to buy them I just want to look at them please. She: looks at me (“this is the craziest one yet!”), sighs deeply and proceeds to take out the pins of the postcard size photo I was pointing to. I study that one and go : “can I see the other one too please?” She : pointing to the board: “which one?” Me: “the other bloody one please”. So there I stand twisting and turning them. I already know I am in trouble when looking at them I hear Jonas voice singing… The one where he lies on the bed goes : “Là-bas au fond du cimetière,/il est deux grands tilleuls!” and the other “Père! Père! Père, que je ne connais pas, /en qui pourtant j'ai foi, parle à mon coeur, appelle-moi!Appelle-moi!” (i know it’s still the 4th act i am looking act, give me some credit! But it is that what I am hearing that the picture suggests to me).
Ok, damn Massenet! I am gonna give in and buy one, but which? It’s about choosing what I like to hear most… and I can’t. It’s like deciding what Jonas does best… what do I prefer in his singing? The soft, sensitive, touching piani? The power and strength, the force of rage and desperation? My turn to sigh and grunt in frustration, purse out, here you go, I am taking both! I was still mumbling about what on earth I was going to do with them, now that I had bought them?
And I’d rather not be thinking about the saleswomen doubling over with laughter as soon as the door closed behind us…
Jonas Kaufmann Photo by Michael Pöhn Staatsoper Wien
Back to the performance a few hours later. There had been clapping at the end of act 1 and 2 and the singing was gorgeous, so it was obviously going well. And I was looking forward to the Letter aria from Sophie, to those dark threatening accords when Werther appears “Oui! c'est moi! je reviens” and well, to all the rest of it. While the audience as it turned out had been waiting all night for their chance of giving some enthusiasm they were feeling back.
Does any moment in this opera strike you as rewindable and repeatable in an instant? Probably not, me neither :-) The drama builds in such a tight way and spirals out musically into such tension… But that would be forgetting that one aria in this opera is known much more than the rest and is recognisable for everyone in the audience. And in certain circumstances it becomes about the aria more than the opera itself or the drama. And if perfectly delivered it will bring the audience to such a state of euphoria that it creates the opportunity for a naturally very enthusiastic public to stop the show with Bravo shouts and clapping and well, requests of encore. And stop it they did, for about 3 full minutes.
I’ve witnessed encores before, I’ve even asked for them before :-) But I have to say it was for Verdi or Rossini or Donizetti pyrotechnics. I don’t think somebody can spontaneously pour their heart out…twice in a Flower song… or look death in the eye and back at life for the last time... twice… in E lucevan, nor did I believe Werther could recite Ossian twice in the same night. I did believe the audience would ask for it :-) There is something the audience in Wien share with the one at the Met, their incredible enthusiasm and the fervent way they express it and I believe there is no greater compliment that an audience can pay an artist than telling them their rendition of an aria was so beautiful they must hear it again!
In Paris I would have hit anyone who would have dared to interrupt the music until the end with either clapping, shouting or even ... breathing ;-) Only quiet sobbing was allowed :-)
But this wasn’t Paris and after 3 min of cheers, a pause, more clapping and generalised laughing when the orchestra got signals wrong and tried to continue, there really wasn’t any drama being interrupted. The audience needed to express how much they admire Jonas and the only way to actually get the show rolling again was, well, to give generously what was asked for so fervently :-) That is what I thought afterwards, but when I heard the music and heard him start to sing “Pourquoi me réveiller, ô souffle du printemps” I think I literally stopped breathing. I thought he sang it even more emotionally the second time around, which is what I said when I asked for the autograph much later(*) but honestly I don’t know if it was just the emotion from the singing or my own emotion and my mind flashing : OMG Jonas is doing an encore! It’s his first encore….
Took me way more to process that than it took Sophie and Jonas to get things going and I snapped back when an absolutely too real looking pistol was handed over.
The interlude to act 4 could have been more sensitive and I did miss the shot itself… it was weird not hear it, especially since Werther had a more than real injury… I don’t know if the shot is actually written in the score, but the music suggests a peaceful, although very sad passing, and end, but somehow a release and I felt the shot rightly jolting us back to a very real reminder that this is not a natural passing, but a self-inflicted death of someone who is so terribly desperate. I guess I am more shocked by the sound than the visuals, although gallons of blood work very well too. Except for me it was another one of those instances where the production went from strong emotional suggestion to all too literal display. As I mentioned before it was the intensity in the artistic expression and the suggestion in the music that made me want to hold on to a physical memory of the piece than the actual bloody image of the dying Werther.
In this production Albert darkly lingers about in the death scene, but it neither intruded nor distracted, as one could focus on nothing else but the last moments Charlotte and Werther spent together.
And the curtain fell and more applause came from a satisfied and touched audience. And it is when I will always feel like shouting Bis! I can’t pick out a single thing I want to have repeated on the night, I couldn’t make myself stop at any point in time , I feel driven to the end and I always feel that it has gone by way to quickly. And I am always left wanting more and encore… from the beginning to the end, all over again…
(*)Well I had bought those things and I still had them! So it occurred to me to make some good use of at least one, rather than standing there fidgeting and trying to say something like: uhhh, it was nice! Believe me, your brain would be frozen as well had you stood outside in -7C for more than half an hour trying to process the evening :-) (**) As you can imagine now I am glad I am the owner of these photos ;-) Please notice the way the signature embellishes the photo! It’s placed exactly right to not destroy any of the expression and now instead of looking at the blood your eyes are drawn to the signature :-) Thanks ever so much Jonas! This might just go up my wall ;-))))
Update - Ok, here you go! You know you want it and i can't stand the envious glares anymore ;-))))
You can listen to the gorgeous, wonderful, heart wrenching, romantic, etc , etc rendition of Schubert’s Mullerin Jonas Kaufmann and Helmut Deutsch gave on the 31st of October at the Wigmore Hall tonight on Radio 3 – Performance on 3.
You can just click at 7pm Uk time on the BBC iplayer icon for Radio3 on the right hand side.
(before reading this you might want to give the Verismo video a break, just press on pause ;-) As there is more music to be had in this post)
There have been so many extraordinary things that I have been able to experience musically over this past season that it gets almost too overwhelming to capture in words. I almost wish I was able to stretch time and create a gap around each of these to fully enjoy them. And basically when it is this good I just want to linger and hold on to the feeling for a while longer…
This Fidelio has certainly been one of those moments. I will forever remember it as the first time I saw and heard Abbado conduct live! It is something I wished for a long time and until I actually got on the train from the airport to Luzern I didn’t even allow myself to think about it. Sitting there and looking at the mountains surrounded by dark grey clouds it suddenly hit me! It was happening and I was only a few hours away :-)
Thank God I had heard the opera before, because I don’t think I would have been able to enjoy it quite as much otherwise. Because it certainly wasn’t like any Fidelio I had ever heard before! It in this case it made all the difference to be familiar with the general flow of things to let go of the same and just enjoy every single detail that came at you.
I’m glad there was nobody there to catch my face after the first few bars of music!! I only ever had a somewhat similar experience, many years ago, when for the first time I heard a different orchestra in a different house than the one I grew up with. It was the first time I sat in the ROH and heard the orchestra play live. It’s a feeling you can’t explain, as if you had been deaf and suddenly were blessed with hearing! (*)
Except this in Luzern was on a much bigger and deeper level! I can’t put the word perfect to it, because it is cold and it would mean comparing it with things imperfect.. it was just sheer joy, happiness .. the one word that comes to my mind is the French “ivresse”! The sound that came from this orchestra was of such heavenly beauty that it cannot be described! It was so over whelming that I just would have wanted to time to stand still and just be able to let the sound in my ear sink in somehow… And of course it has everything to do with Beethoven’s music!
This is not the perfect opera by any means. For one, there are those dialogues, which seem to induce directors to constantly play around with and try to improve upon. Ok, they are not that brilliant and sometimes may feel out of date. But I feel it’s not the words and phrases itself which are the problem, but the start and stop effect they create, especially during the first act. It probably creates a problem for the singers, to constantly have to switch between speech and singing, and it constantly interrupts the flow of music for the audience. You hardly get going, excited, you’re into it and then it stops. However, without them the plot is incomplete, so we do need them to fully follow the story. But the issue of the tension ebbing down and racking up with the stop and start of music comes also from the fact that singers generally don’t speak on stage or are no trained to do some with equal intensity. Usually as soon as they speak the volume drops significantly and since the music is gone you have to also fine-tune your own ear to catch what feels almost like whispers after the musical outbreaks.
In the Fidelio I saw two years ago in Paris, they overcame this by amplifying and prerecording some of the dialogues (which also were brand new and excessively long!). But it helped keep the tension up. This was a semi-staged last minute staging in which the dialogue where lightly rewritten. But as these were just two performances it was not expected that singers would know them by heart, not would this be necessary for the libretto and score itself. This was always scheduled as a concert version performance of Fidelio and nobody was really expecting anything else. So the dialogues were read from script and were not really that audible (no worries this will not be a problem for the final recording as there were of course recoding microphones). Neither would they be delivered in any particularly emotional or effective way, but again this was not a staged performance. And to be perfectly honest I didn’t catch much of them, nor did I make a particular effort to since I was basically lingering in the music through them, like a breath of oxygen taking me through to the next bits of music.
I don’t mean to criticise in any way, or diminish their value of the completeness of the piece, but I kind of knew what they were saying and it’s not those bits that I went all the way there to listen :-) (I do hope though that when next I see Fidelio whoever directs the staging will find a way to keep the audience interested throughout them, as that is really necessary I think or could add even further to the experience).
But, as everyone there we came to heard the orchestra play, the chorus and singers sing and see Abbado conduct! I don’t thing generally the bits of staging added anything important, but I did appreciate some touches.
The lighting I found particularly sensitive and enjoyable. There were candles strewn around the stage among the musicians (which creates a major fire hazard, but looks sooo beautiful!). And there was a big while balloon anchored on the ground which lit up with light of warm shades of white and pale yellow, helping create a wonderfully intimate atmosphere. This allowed for the hall itself to be hidden away in darkness and there were moments when the orchestra played under the mysterious shades created by just the candles and the tiny lights on their scores… beautiful! I wish somebody had captured that on a photo! Candles and an image of the globe and a blinking eye were alternatively projected onto the balloon.
I also liked the choreography around the prisoners’ chorus a lot! They moved around the stage slowly when singing and hunched or lay down around , allowing for a real connection to the actual actions in the libretto to emerge naturally. Very very well done! Which is also a good place to say how unbelievable good they sang!!!! Rarely have a heard such beautiful voices and such heartfelt singing! (**) I remember saying with friends in the interval just that, that for the prisoners chorus alone it would have been worth making the trip!
Photo Georg Anderhub
And we still have the singers!!! An absolutely brilliant cast with a pairing of Leonore and Florestan I sooo longed to hear. No secret I looooove Nina Stemme since hearing her Isolde at the ROH and there is nobody today who sings Florestan like Jonas! Who knows what Beethoven thought when he wrote the score for the singers??? It feels almost as if he wrote it just like for any other instrument, you go from A to B to C and it will create these harmonies and it will sound like this. If only it were that easy ;-))))) But then again sometimes it seems to be, or at least that is how it largely sounded on Sunday in Luzern. As natural as any instrument, as elegant and fine tuned.
The placing of the singers behind the orchestra was not ideal for the hall, as it es a wonderful concert hall, but not appropriate for any staging. This put some of the singers sometimes at a bit of a disadvantage, like Christof Strehl who’s sweet lyrical voice packs somewhat less of a punch. And Falk Struckmann was also better audible on the more energetic outbursts , where he was truly menacing ( not quite as impressive though as I found Alan Held in Paris!) It was nice to hear Christof Fischesser again (after the Lohengrin in Munich) and to hear that he not only has beautiful diction and is such an accomplished singer, but also has a totally dark and warm speaking voice! And he also seems to know what to do with it not only while singing! Rachle Harnisch was a lively Marzeline and she made a very well received effort to act as well as sing her role :-)
Peter Mattei honestly had way to little time on stage!!!! His is a beautiful instrument and I have always admired his agility and warmth. A luxury cast for Don Ferrando indeed! (Can we please invite him to sing at the ROH?? Please? :-)
And then there were Leonore.. Florestan :-) If everyone was excellent, these two were something more! I suspect for Nina Stemma and Jonas Kaufmann it wouldn’t matter if they sang from outside or while doing a hand stand or something ;-) I’m exaggerating of course, but the way those two rode the sound from the orchestra, immersed themselves into it and emerged at the same time from amongst it is incredible! I don’t remember a Fidelio where the harmonies in the orchestra were so perfectly mirrored in the voices. This must truly by what Beethoven has wished for! The way they effortlessly spiralled into agile and ringing heights within the chorus towards the very end was something exquisite! (***)
Theirs is the O, namenlose Freude which I truly believed! They made every word sound true and indeed full of joy!
Before they started the duet Leonore and Florestan looked at each other and smiled and then held hands and when they sang I really heard for the first time what “namenlose Freude!”, “ubergrosse Lust” and “himmlisches Entzucken!” can mean! There was a radio broadcast of the Fidelio on the 12 and I simply can’t stop listening to their O, namenlose Freude!
I’ve always loved this duet, but this time it gave you a feeling of total total unlimted happiness which was only picked up and continued by the final chorus.
And what a finale that was! It fitted with the whole in as it didn’t crash down on your ear to squash you as is the case in most interpretations. Abbado’s Fidelio as from beginning to end intimate and delicate, intricate and detailed, with every single note lovingly spun by each instrument into a dizzying concoction. I loved the fact that it didn’t weigh down on you to crush you with its might and force. More than once it reminded me of that hearty joy once feels with Mozart, very human, offered to be absorbed and shared. Abbado made the music approcheable and so was the final chorus, a celebreation of love and hope and freedom, heartfelt and very very intense, but not forceful.
I remember feeling crushed almost in Paris at the end, as if it was almost a declaration of war on something. Here it felt like the celebration of enlightment.
And now I know why everyone loves Abbado so, while these musicians travel to Luzern every year for the chance to make music, together! He’s a quite charmer, but a very powerful one :-)
And all this was topped with waves of applause, a rain of flowers that came gently down on orchestra, chorus, singers and conductor and by one of the most beautiful images I have seen at the end of a concert, ever! On the final applause, as this was their last performance together I guess for this year members of the chorus and orchestra literally fell in each others arms and we witnessed the most wonderful symphony of hugs! What can be more fitting to an ending of Fidelio? :-)
Beethoven: Fidelio (Finale) - Abbado, Kaufmann, Stemme 12 August 2010
Thanks TheHumperdinck for the video!
So this was: Beethovens „Fidelio op. 72“, in einer halbszenischen Aufführung Textbuch von Joseph Sonnleithner, Stephan von Breuning und Georg Friedrich Treitschke nach dem Libretto Léonore ou L’Amour conjugal von Jean-Nicolas Bouilly Gesprochene Dialoge neu eingerichtet von Tatjana Gürbaca
Mahler Chamber Orchestra LUCERNE FESTIVAL ORCHESTRA Arnold Schoenberg Chor Wien (Einstudierung Erwin Ortner) Claudio Abbado, Dirigent Peter Mattei: Don Fernando Falk Struckmann: Don Pizarro Jonas Kaufmann: Florestan Nina Stemme: Leonore Christof Fischesser: Rocco Rachel Harnisch: Marzelline Christoph Strehl: Jaquino Juan Sebastian Acosta: Erster Gefangener Levente Pall: Zweiter Gefangener
15. August 2010 Konzertsaal des KKL, Luzern Don’t be to bothered about the awful pics from my ageing and exceedingly crappy camera and enjoy the music!!
(*) There is actually one more of these… in Edinburgh a few years ago I heard Tatjana Vassiljeva play the Prokofiev cello sonata on a Stradivarius cello.. I still get blurry eyed just when I think of it … I have been looking for a recording of hers of it ever since, but with no luck :-(
(**) Which reminds me that I still have to share mu thoughts about the Meistersinger in Cardiff and the absolutely amazing chorus of the WNO!
(***) I am still amazed at how Jonas' full and rich voice travels so easily above such orchestration and its capacity to sort of expand and fill space like this has increased tremendously these years, how he does it I have no idea but it certainly is an almost physical phenomenon. I sometimes almost wish I had some kind of x ray vision to see the particles start vibrating away from him , touching the next and setting the wave in motion :-) And it’s a darn pity I can’t bottle those high notes at the end of Fidelio and roll them into a tight foil and smack them over the head of some of the absolutely daft critics I have read! I’d love them to feel those bright, shiny notes ringing in their ears!
If you can't wait from today you can preorder: in Germany from amazon.de , scheduled issue date 17 September! and in France from fnac.com , schedules issue date in France 27 September UPDATE! (thanks HM:-) and on amazon.co.uk now listed as well, with no details on date yet ....
Nothing so far in the UK, but there is nothing to stop you from ordering from the above (check international sending costs before you do though to avoid surprises).
So, Verismo! But what is on it???? One thing is sure, it ain't Puccini! So who is up for a bit of a guessing game? ;-)))
From information available publicly, mostly things Jonas himself mentioned throughout the year in interviews, here is a potential list in no particular order:
Francesco Cilea: ..because he is going to sing Maurizio soon :-))) Adriana Lecouvreur - L´anima ho stanca Adriana Lecouvreur - La dolcissimaeffigie
and because he's put a personal stamp on the next one... L'Arlesiana -IlLamentodi Federico
Pietro Mascagni: ..also because he said he would like to sing this.. CavalleriaRusticana - Mamma, quel vino e generoso
and this is also less known: Iris - Apri la tuafinestra
Umberto Giordano: ..well, can't have him without this gorgeous opera! twice if possible :-) Andrea Chenier - Undiall'azzurrospazio Andrea Chenier - Come unbeldìdimaggio Andrea Chenier - Vicino a te (this is certain!!! thanks Kende! of course ,the beautiful duet with Eva-Maria Westbroek!!)
Ruggero Leoncavallo: This is certain! :-) Pagliacci - Vesti la giubba
but there could also be this much lesser known La Boheme - Testaadorata
AmilcarePonchielli: If he is up than it must be this.. La Gioconda - Cielo e mar
but there has also been talk of this opera I lituani - which i have never heard yet and of which i don't know the tenor aria...
Riccardo Zandonai: ...with this beauuuutiful aria! also certain i would say :-) Giulietta e Romeo - Giulietta! son io!
LicinioRefice -Ombradinube This is certain as well ;-)
That is as far as my crystal ball would go :-)
Suggestions, ideas, comments? Anything to add or take away? Any favourites? Versions? Feel free too add your thoughts :-)
I am not the biggest fan of Versimo myself, but some of these i really like and others i expect to get to know :-) Let's put it this way.. if these two can't make me rethink Verismo for myself then i am a lost cause, which i am hoping will not be the case :-)
Suffering from an acute « Carmenitis » this weekend I have been in search of a fix :-)
All the way to Munich on a beautiful sunny day, the first true summer day and the first time this year I have been able to sit down in the sun and have a cold beer… the little pleasures in life! And there was some revisitation of Kaiserschmarn and other local “Leckerbissen”. It’s an absolutely enjoyable town, bursting with green from every corner after a long period of rain and I find myself falling under its almost Mediterranean charm again and again. Which is lucky I guess because it is also the place which gives me white hairs every single booking period and is the cause of endless frustration. But once I am there it’s all too easy to forget all that and just relax and enjoy! And by the time I leave I always look forward to the next visit, which is something I will try to keep in mind... for the next booking period ;-)))
And this time I had a Carmen to look forward to as well. Funnily enough I have listened to loads of them this year, especially from the Met and I missed seeing it live. It’s not easy to write about it and I have been trying to gain some distance from last night to put things into perspective for myself as well and filter out any elements that really had nothing to do with the show itself, even if they influenced my experience of it.
After all it had nothing to do with the music or the show that the place is a baking oven in the summer where oxygen is at scarce supply. Sitting around here at 16-18 degrees in the house with all your senses wide awake is how I am used to do things, not fighting for air on every breath and having to consider if I can physically sit through the 2nd part without having to disturb my neighbours because I have to go in search of air before I pass out… Silly as it might seem, being able to breath properly does influence your enjoyment of music :-( And having an evening I have been literally dreaming about for months and months jeopardised like that is not what I had been expecting.
Anyhow, nothing I can or could do about that, so I have been chewing down my frustration to find my way back to the music and what I would like to hold on to from last night.
The biggest draw was the singing and it was definitely the highlight of the evening!
There was even a surprise change of cast as Kyle Ketelsen made an early debut at the BSO as Escamillo replacing the ill Ildebrando. I’d say he made quite a splash ;-) The role seems to suit him very well, not only acting wise but also vocally, as he had those smooth warm lows that many miss in Votre toast. And he definitely had the personality to go with it! Finally a self-assured Escamillo, who managed to credibly be a people’s person as well. He has charisma and he worked it very well. And the French diction was really good. He deservedly received applause after his aria and an even more enthusiastic reception at the curtain calls. Congratulations to Kyle for his BSO debut! :-) (Maybe when he comes back to the BSO in February for his planned run of Escamillo he will even bring his own toreador costume with him, from an Amsterdam production I think he participated in. I would have loved to see that instead of what he wore last night ;-))))
Micaela is a bit of an ungrateful role but not when the singing is as skilled as Genia Kühmeier’s. Her tone is well crafted and even if sometimes the high notes can be on the hard side, her duet with Jose in the 1 act was one of the most beautiful moments in the entire evening! In fact of all the Carmen’s I have seen in the last year this is by far my very favourite! The way her and Jonas voice melded in the softest of piani was a joy! I wasn’t that blown away by her aria in the 3rd act, but the extra watered down music there made it feel unusually long and trying, by not fault of Mrs Kuhmeier whatsoever. She too would have deserved a nicer look, something more young and girlish, what they made her wear looked a tad too motherly… But I am quite taken with the way she sings and very curious of how her voice will suit lieder (she has a recital at Wigmore coming up) It’s likely to sound warmer on the smaller scale of lieder so I am quite looking forward to that and hoping I will be able to go listen.
Elina Garanca has been hailed as the best Carmen. I think it is a matter of taste, and it's not necessarily mine, however, she sings absolutely beautifully! And that is sooo much more than what you get from most Carmen’s today. And it all starts with singing the part well :-) I don’t think one has to have the deepest darkest voice ever to sing the role, in fact my own absolute favourite in the role is a soprano :-) Elina is a very good Carmen, there is no doubt about that, but I did like her more in the Met broadcast and definitely at the ROH than in Munich. Carmen is almost as much about personality and character than it is about singing. And as said I have seen her pull it off quite successfully at the ROH recently. Some details I had doubts about back then, but it was a question of direction at the time. This at the BSO I think was the same case, or rather lack of direction. The dancing was inexistent and she was on her own much more successful at mockery than at seduction. However having said that, I feel they didn’t make the best out of her skills in this production, not even musically. Her amazing singing skills are elegant and smooth and in this particular role the music needs to shape the contrasts and moods more, not smooth it out even more. Even if we know Elina is a wonderful belcanto singer, I know she can be a good Carmen and she can sound like Carmen! It felt unfair that her Habanera didn’t get any applause and that her card aria could have gotten much more. Especially the Habanera! This is THE showstopper, it is created as such, Carmen’s entrance is a big moment and her aria should make everyone fall under her spell… For me the conductor has no excuse for not making that happen! She had the goods, he prevented her from selling them :-( I mean he lingered it down to the point where the audience didn’t even wake up on time to clap. And no, the fact that he continued with the music is no excuse, it just makes it worse. A said, I am convinced this is supposed to stop the show, Bizet must have wanted it! Besides the public reacts to sparks, they certainly did after the toreador song and the flower song. I understand that this was not the only evening the Habanera didn’t really ignite and this should have been fixed. It is so import in setting the scene for Carmen, who she is, how she is, her charm, the fascination she breaths into people. Because it doesn’t really happen here, she has to work that much harder at it and it shouldn’t be necessary. Simply because she really is better than that and deserved her starry moment, just like all the other protagonists. Luckily, she is one determined women and she really drives Jose mad convincingly in the 3rd act and holds her own as well in the last one and the public appreciate her :-)
I’m not even going to bother commenting too much about how such a beautiful women can be made to wear what are surely one of the most awful and unattractive dresses I have seen in Carmen. And why she has to wear that stupid wig… there are naturally blond women in Seville! And gypsies have all kinds of colours of hair. But if she decides she would like to be dark for Carmen I think she should get a nice wig made especially for her to show off her beauty and prevent people from putting some of these monstrous things on her head:-S As I was saying, she deserves better. Photos from http://www.bayerische.staatsoper.de/
By the way, there was chemistry on stage between this Carmen and her Jose, maybe not of the intensely sensual kind, but there were good vibes. They were comfortable around each other and I kind off liked that she didn’t do some of the things that bothered me at the ROH and felt too exaggerated ; instead she gave Carmen a sometimes tender angle. During the seguedille and also in the scene with Jose in act two she touched his face in a tender gesture, almost caressing his cheeks. Now that felt 100% natural from her. And why shouldn’t she? She is in love with him, at least for some time. Carmen can after all be many things in many different ways. Maybe this more tender, fun loving type of Carmen works better for Elina. Set against a particular violent Jose, as was the case here it works well, as her mockery can easily be understood as a defence mechanism. After all it is not always clear who is the victim among the two, they actually both are to various degrees. Anyways, I thought this natural tenderness suited her more than what I have seen in her Carmens before and I wouldn’t mind seeing more of that, maybe it is the way to finding HER Carmen, rather than what people would expect her to be.
I for one am learning to really appreciate her singing and I am sure I will see her as Carmen again, I’ll be looking forward to it :-)
So, Jose…. I have seen Jonas' Jose only once before and it’s no secret it is why I went to Munich in the first place- to hear it again. The downside is it feels like having a spoon of water when you have been thirsty for the whole day! Not nearly enough! To be fair I have seen the Scala Carmen on TV and listened to the one from the Met on the radio, so technically I heard him sing it more often than I have seen it. What I find so fascinating about it (besides the singing ;-) is that each Jose was almost completely different from the others. The one from the ROH DVD was somehow the most balanced, the Zurich one was on a totally insecure extreme , the one at the Scala moved again towards the centre, but definitely had a more dangerous edge to him, the one at the Met sounded like a rougher character and this last one I have seen was likely the most unstable and volatile of all. The ending is not as extreme as at the ROH, but none were, however the build up here was scarier. This Jose has a screw loose and it is obvious. When Carmen first mocks him in the 2nd act he already brutally throws her on the floor in rage (I would have headed for the mountains at high speed right then and there if I was her!). When Zuniga appears, he nearly kills him, there is no sign of the scared solider anywhere and jealousy obviously transforms this Jose in an instant into a very dangerous man. During the fights in the 3rd act he repeatedly tries to throttle Carmen and draws his knife against defending gypsies. He managed to do it safely for Elina but so realistically that I positively felt uncomfortable watching it. That really is how domestic violence looks like and it actually is quite credible to think that Jose would be such a despicable character. Copyright BSO Photo
Lucky I have also the sweet duet with Micalea to think about, so as not be to completed scared by this Jose. Impeccable singing aside, it absolutely fascinating how well he projects his voice speaking. He was the only one who was equally audible and clear when speaking and singing, who sounded like he was really talking not struggling to remember some lines and rattling down like the rest. (really, I couldn’t hear most of what the rest had been mumbling in dialogues, much less understand the French).
One detail I liked very very much! And of course it would be one of the tender things rather than the pushing around-skillz ;-) You know when Jose and Carmen have their first fight in act 2 and she mocks him? It totally enrages him and he shuts her up and tells her to listen! He is totally out of control there and in fury, now how does he then mellow down in an instant to start the flower song so introspectively? Hard to believe he had a plan of what he would say when he was shouting at her. Now here he takes a handkerchief out of his pocket to wipe his forehead presumably and the rests of the flower fall out. And it is an instant, almost surprising in his rage, reminder of how enthralled he is with this women, how captive of her charms. And it is that instant realisation and introspection that triggers him into the flowersong. It was perfectly done and it now made total sense to me as well. (there is a similar gesture in the ROH DVD but there it feels more like he seeks out the flower to remind himself of what took him to prison in the first place, the promise of love from the women who now cruelly mocks him; here the gesture had a slightly different impact).
I also liked the fact that his first je t’adore I the 2nd act is said jokingly, as a reply to her question about being sorry to have been in prison for her beautiful eyes. It makes sense for it to be in this light tone, because actually until the flower song he doesn’t admit his love for her. And there are a million other details which make you look up and listen and show you how his moods swing and how he slides closer and closer to the precipice.
Vocally it’s divine! I mean there is no reason not to say he is indeed in absolute gorgeous vocal form and the best Jose around. And I couldn’t urge people enough who haven’t heard him sing it yet to do so. If there is a chance to have somebody sing this part with such engagement and such feeling you have to grab it with both hands and all ten fingers if you can! He can tell you how beautiful this opera can really be and what sheer depth of feeling lives within it. His Jose is special (as are many of the things he sings) and it is something you have to experience for yourself to understand.
At least I’ve not heard anyone before to make my cry when he sings: "Ah! il est temps encore.../oui, il est temps encore.../ O ma Carmen, laisse-moi/ te sauver, toi que j'adore!/ ah! laisse-moi te sauver/ et me sauver avec toi.../ O ma Carmen, il est temps encore... "
Each time when i think i’ve figured out what my favourite bit of his part of the score is, he puts some twist on some other bit and I get all confused again!
While the singing was amazing the other bits weren’t at the same level… Yes the production is old, but that is not the problem. The problem is it probably was bad when it first came on stage. I mean there is huge hill on stage, covering all of it and leaving about 2,max 3 meters free at the stage front for the action to develop… that is unless we count the stumbling down the hill and climbing uphill as action as well. Which of course doesn’t make all that much sense for people who have to sing, so most of the time somebody is sitting on that hill. And since the hill is a fixture, and it is perched behind the table in the 2nd act, dancing is limited to very close space. By the way it was the first Carmen I saw where one could not hear almost any footsteps at Lilas Pastia when people are dancing! Of course it is because they are perched on the hill busy holding on and singing. Bottom hill space is covered by some ballet number, totally out of place here in this supposedly earthy and low down place. Of course there is a lot of more of less involuntary front stage singing going on… but there is no place to go but front stage! While I understand that in an old production you may have ladies' dresses look like made out of curtains, or that flowers are made of plastic to last for years for throwing or considerations of proportions will have a plaza de torros at the back look like a playhouse whenever somebody stands next to it, people waving little Spanish paper flags at the fiesta in the end, etc there are contemporary details which are less understandable or easy to ignore. Is the crisis that bad that we can’t have in a whole production 1 natural flower for Carmen to throw at Jose? I mean those things will survive the atomic bomb, judging by how Jose kept trampling on them and playing football in rage with the ones on the floor without doing any visible damage to any.. now that is high quality plastic! But I doubt that any of those would have kept him warm in prison...I am not asking for bunches, just 1, please!
Then there was the infamous tent! Bottom hill in act 2 we have the table and on the hill several shabby tents. Now I was sat at the right and unless I twisted my head backwards the tents were inevitably in my visual field. Which I don’t mind, fair enough.. if only! If only somebody hadn’t decided that it was a good idea to have somebody make movements in the tent while Jose was singing his flowersong!!!! There is nothing as distracting as stupid movement on one side of the stage during the most sensitive of arias, which goes on at the other end of the stage! There is no way in hell I will be able to forgive this stupid distraction that couldn’t wait for 2 more min! Who had that idea????? Because I for one could have certainly done without it, it was pretty obvious why the tents were there anyway.
And somebody else also thought it was a good idea to perch a flower right on top of Elina’s head, which invariably looked funny at the worst time, in the end scene! Jose pulls her veil off and the indestructible flower stays stuck on the top of her head, like those silly adornments some use for babies. Why can’t we put the flower somewhere where Carmen will look nice with it, not silly? And poor women, why make her wear that dress that my great great grand mother might have worn and faded in time (mind you they also put the toreros socks in the washer with the dress because the dress only had a memory of colour while the socks had a suspicious pale pink colour…).
Anyways, old clothes and even big hills I may not like but I can live with it.. moving tents need to go!!!!
There were also some strange traffic light effects in the lighting, bam, bright, bam, dark, sudden flashes to suggest mood changes, but it was way too rough and it really didn’t do much to fill the empty space above the hill which was huge…. It was only towards the end that it struck me that I was missing a moon , some stars, anything in that empty space to suggest the sky.
I don’t know how the old Tosca at the BSO was, but I was talking with a friend and really they could have done with a new Carmen production in Munich instead, there can’t be that much wrong with an old Tosca as is wrong in this Carmen…
In retrospective I liked this Carmen because of the singers very much, but I much preferred the production in Zurich, even with all its peculiarities.
Another detail I absolutely loved and want to mention was the children’s chorus in the first act! It is the children’s chorus of the BSO; they have beauuuuuutiful voices and they sang absolutely perfectly and in an impeccable French (while at the same time hanging from those high metal gates). I was totally impressed and they deserve a HUUUUUGGEE Bravo!!, every single one of those little wonderful stars and their chorus master as well! :-)
The conducting was some said French. It wasn’t the marchy Carmen that some produce throughout, but it did have quite a few weaknesses as far as I am concerned, some of which I have mentioned. Bizet is not Gounod, nor does it need to be slowed down and lyricised to that degree, it doesn’t fit the story nor the place. And some bits where taken way too loud. Just because a singer like Jonas is capable of piercing through considerable orchestration doesn’t mind one should run totally wild with the incisive strokes at the end of act3 and make it extra difficult to get your voice into the noise! The whole point there is for us to feel how out of control he is, but we still need to hear what he is saying to feel the threat. We absolutely need to hear that he tells her she is his and that they will see each other again. Otherwise, with that noise drowning all out, he could be telling her to go to hell for all we know…. Never mind the introduction to the last scene which was not stylish, just loud. I really missed more shades, colours, moods, tensions in the music.
But I feel with Carmen that I am in a search of the proverbial lost time… Silly me I haven’t seen the ROH Carmen live when it was premiered and the DVD with Pappano’s conducting is there to haunt me again and again, as is the lively production, full of movement and colour, which may be over the top, but at least it can’t be accused of not making the most of every single note, every single second of the opera. Never mind that the more Carmens I see, the more fascinated I become with Anna Caterina Antonacci and the more i regret every single time, not having had the chance to see her and Jonas live with Pappano’s Bizet bathing my ears….
But I do have a bit of that heaven every single time I hear Jonas sing Jose and for that I am happy to have been cooking my soul out last night in Munich :-)
Carmen
Georges Bizet Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy
Nationaltheater Munich Sunday, 6 June 2010
Conductor Karel Mark Chichon Based on a production by Lina Wertmüller Set and Costumes Enrico Job Lighting Franco Marri Chorus Andrés Máspero Children Chorus Kinderchor der Bayerischen Staatsoper
Zuniga Christian Van Horn Moralès Nikolay Borchev Don José Jonas Kaufmann Escamillo Kyle Ketelsen Dancairo Christian Rieger Remendado Kevin Conners Frasquita Lana Kos Mercédès Anaïk Morel Carmen Elīna Garanča Micaela Genia Kühmeier
The Bavarian State Orchestra The Chorus and the children Chorus of the Bavarian State Opera
The timeslot allocated is 3h, so it should cover the interval interview with JK as well as any encores ;-)
Program Ludwig van Beethoven Leonoren-Ouvertüre Nr. 3 C-dur, op. 72a aus "Fidelio": "Gott, welch' Dunkel hier" – "In des Lebens Frühlingstagen"; Introduktion und Arie des Florestan, 2. Akt Wofgang Amadeus Mozart aus "Die Zauberflöte":Ouvertüre "Dies Bildnis ist bezaubernd schön"; Arie des Tamino, 1. Akt Nr. 3 Carl Maria von Weber aus "Oberon": Ouvertüre aus "Der Freischütz": "Nein, länger trag ich nicht die Qualen"; Rezitativ und Arie des Max, 1. Akt (Nr. 3) Richard Wagner aus "Lohengrin": Vorspiel, 3. Akt (mit Konzertschluss) aus "Parsifal": "Amfortas! Die Wunde! Sie brennt mir hier zur Seite"; Szene des Parsifal, 2. Aufzug Franz Schubert aus "Rosamunde, Fürstin von Zypern": Entr'acte nach dem 2. Aufzug, B-Dur Richard Wagner aus "Die Walküre": "Winterstürme wichen dem Wonnemond"; Szene des Siegmund, 1. Aufzug aus "Lohengrin": Vorspiel, 1. Akt "In fernem Land unnahbar euren Schritten"; Gralserzählung des Lohengrin, 3. Akt
Jonas Kaufmann, Tenor Münchner Rundfunkorchester Leitung: Michael Güttler
Remembering the Dusseldorf concert, which i saw live i am soooooo looking forward to hearing Wintersturme again :-)
By the way, for anyone wanting to watch the video recording of the concert in Berlin on the 16 May 2010: Berliner Philharmoniker Claudio Abbado Conductor Christianne Stotijn Mezzo-Soprano Jonas Kaufmann Tenor Herren des Rundfunkchors Berlin Simon Halsey Chorus Master Herren des Chors des Bayerischen Rundfunks Michael Alber Chorus Master Franz Schubert Gretchen am Spinnrade D 118 Franz Schubert Nacht und Träume D 827 Franz Schubert Erlkönig D 328 Arnold Schoenberg From Gurrelieder: Part 1 No. 11: Orchestral Prelude and Lied der Waldtaube Johannes Brahms Rinaldo Cantata
Here is your link to the digital concert hall of the Philarmonie, where you can enjoy it in very good sound and video quality for 10 euro.
Name: Sam Neuman NYC Tweet: Father is less than enthusiastic about son’s love affair with aging, bankrupt, terminally ill prostitute. Can you believe it? [La Traviata] Name: Micaela Baranello Princeton, NJ Tweet: Married girl in search of a good time accidentally causes moral collapse of Rome, influx of campy tenor nurses. [Coronation of Poppea]
Name: Daniel John Kelley NYC Tweet: So I wrote this guy this EPIC love letter & he’s like “No thanks”, but now I’m married & rich & he’s all “OMG I LURV U!!” WTF? [Eugene Onegin]
Name: Bryan Johnson NYC Tweet: You’d think after so many years of planning double murders she’d remember the axe. Instead, she dances with it and drops dead. [Elektra]
Name: James Harrington Nashville, Tennessee Tweet: Idealistic poets take note: apparently “I wish to end economic injustice” sounds a lot like “just go ahead and kill me” in french [Andrea Chenier]
:-)
For the runners up and more, check the link above :-)
And for all of us who didn't win the big prizes there is a little something for participating:
Click on this link from Miss Mussel's siteand get a download of Mein! from Jonas Kaufmann'sMullerin Cd :-))) Great choice! and thanks very much :-)))
I'm not dead! Well not yet anyway ;-) Almost tried death by work, but for the coming days i've got another "poison" of choice... MUSIC!!! And scrumptious loads of it!!
The cast is, in case you need a reminder ;-)
