1997-02-01
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Known as a creator of astonishing images, stage director and visual artist Robert Wilson delivers a magnificent production of Mozart’s adaption of Handel’s Messias. Mozart was commissioned by Gottfried van Swieten to modernise the score fifty years after Handel’s popular composition (1742), mainly by arranging the wind parts and partially re-composing them. With Marc Minkowski a conductor has been engaged who understands perfectly how to combine baroque style with the tonal possibilities of an orchestra of the classical period like the Musiciens du Louvre. The excellent soloist quartet with Elena Tsallagova, Wiebke Lehmkuhl, Richard Croft and José Coca Loza merges perfectly into Wilson’s enormous flood of images.
Glyndebourne's Saul stole the summer and had critics raving. The Guardian (****) applauded virtuoso stagecraft from director Barrie Kosky in his debut production there, calling the show a theatrical and musical feast of energetic choruses, surreal choreography and gorgeous singing. For The Independent, which ranked it amongst five top classical and opera performances of 2015, there was no praise too high for the cast. The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment under Ivor Bolton sparkles from the pit with period panache, and designer Katrin Lea Tag's exuberant costumes (The Times ****) set the Old Testament story in Handel's time, with a witty twinge of the contemporary.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is a remarkably talented young Viennese composer who unwittingly finds a fierce rival in the disciplined and determined Antonio Salieri. Resenting Mozart for both his hedonistic lifestyle and his undeniable talent, the highly religious Salieri is gradually consumed by his jealousy and becomes obsessed with Mozart's downfall, leading to a devious scheme that has dire consequences for both men.
Jenny is young. Her life is over. She killed someone. And she would do it again. When an 80-year-old piano teacher discovers the girl’s secret, her brutality and her dreams, she decides to transform her pupil into the musical wunderkind she once was.
Le Villi is an opera-ballet in two acts composed by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Ferdinando Fontana, based on the short story Les Willis by Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr.
A spectacular production of Aida filmed at Bregenz Festival's lakeside stage in 2009, with Carlo Rizzi conducting the Vienna Symphonic Orchestra and the Polish Radio Choir.
Classical music doesn’t exactly have a reputation for being hip. For too long it’s been seen as a stuffy genre for the high cultured elite. WHAT WOULD BEETHOVEN DO? follows a number of renegades, from composers flirting with modern mediums, to young musicians dedicated to changing the narrative, to a man who’s bringing turntablists and orchestras together. Notable artists such as, Bobby McFerrin, Benjamin Zander and Eric Whitacre add their voices to the debate about why classical music is still relevant today.
Laerte, a talented violinist who after failing to be admitted into the OSESP Orchestra is forced to give music classes to teenagers in a public school at Heliopolis. His path is full of difficulties, but the transforming power of music and the friendship arising between the teacher and the students open the door into a new world.
As Aragon descends into unrest, a count jealously fights for a noble lady's heart. But she has already given it to a passionate troubadour whose mother holds a terrible secret.
Recorded live in June 2017 at the magnificent Liceu Theatre in Barcelona, this DVD is the companion to Joyce DiDonato’s award-winning album In War and Peace: Harmony through Music. Seeking answers to the existential question “In the midst of chaos, how do you find peace?”, it makes a compelling piece of music theatre as DiDonato journeys through arias by Handel, Purcell, Monteverdi, Leo and Jommelli with Il Pomo d’Oro and conductor Maxim Emelyanychev. On stage, In War and Peace: Harmony through Music makes a compelling piece of music theatre. In Barcelona, as on the European and North American tours she made in late 2016, DiDonato was joined by the baroque orchestra Il Pomo d’Oro and its principal conductor Maxim Emelyanychev. May and June 2018 bring further performances in Portugal, France, Germany, Turkey and Hungary.
Film version of the Verdi opera about lovers on the run after the accidental death of the girl's father.
The chamber opera One represents a new kind of music multimedia drama. Michel van der Aa's poetic production of technological virtuosity fuses libretto, video, live music and soundtrack with the soprano voice and stage presence of Barbara Hannigan into One. Projected images and electronic sounds add emphasis to the onstage performance of the protagonist, while the recorded and live voice interact with incredible synchronicity.
After a successful South African tour in 2010, the Vrijthof concerts were all about Africa that year. André invited the South African soloists from the tour to take part in this summer’s Vrijthof concerts: the fantastic young soprano Kimmy Skota from Cape Town, the Bloemfontein Children’s Choir and the children from the Hout Bay Music Project provided a real South African atmosphere. This fabulous summer evening concert also featured the sopranos Mirusia Louwerse and Carmen Monarcha, the Platinum Tenors and the Berlin Comedian Harmonists. The evening has an upbeat end with a guest appearance from DJ Ötzi. This is a truly fantastic concert that you really can’t miss!
In the forest, the animals and insects are playing and dancing. The Forester enters and lies down against a tree for a nap. A curious Vixen Cub inquisitively chases a frog right into the lap of the surprised forester who forcibly takes the vixen home as a pet. Time passes and we see the Vixen, now grown up into a young adult tied up in the forester's yard with the conservative old dachshund. Fed up with life in confinement, the vixen chews through her rope and runs off to freedom.
Tchaikovsky's much-loved opera Eugene Onegin, a story of love, rejection and tragedy based on Pushkin's verse drama of the same name.
The oratorio concerns the Christian martyr Theodora and her Christian-converted Roman lover, Didymus.
With its cast of hundreds, thrilling score, and sweeping tale of love and heroics in ancient Egypt, Verdi’s Aida has long been a fixture on the stages of every major opera house in the world. For the 2018 revival of Sonja Frisell’s monumental production of this grand masterpiece, the Met assembled a truly all-star cast. Soprano Anna Netrebko takes on the title role for the first time at the Met, and mezzo-soprano Anita Rachvelishvili plays her rival, the conniving princess Amneris. Tenor Aleksandrs Antonenko is Radamès, the warrior that both women love, and Quinn Kelsey lends his robust baritone to Aida’s father, the fallen king Amonasro. Maestro Nicola Luisotti is on the podium to conduct this epic performance, filmed as part of the Met’s series of Live in HD cinema transmissions.