Wednesday 30 November 2011
A Liberal's Libretto: Is it time for Peter Gelb to appoint a Director of...
A Liberal's Libretto: Is it time for Peter Gelb to appoint a Director of...: Peter Gelb in the HD control truck. Photo by Ken Howard. Much has been cussed and discussed over the last year+ regarding James Levine '...
De Klara's 2011 zijn uitgereikt!
| En de winnaars zijn: Jonge belofte van het jaar | ||
 | Anneleen Lenaerts Topharpiste, draait al een tijdje internationaal mee. In december 2010 werd zij geëngageerd als soloharpiste bij de Wiener Philharmoniker. Dit jaar verscheen haar 3e cd, met werken van Chopin en eigen bewerkingen van Franz Liszt (in het Liszt-jaar!).
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Musicus van het jaar | ||
 | Het Collectief Vijf gedreven musici spelen samen sinds 1998. Repertoire vertrekkend vanuit Tweede Weense School, tot de allernieuwste experimentele stromingen. Drukke concertagenda, interessante invalshoeken, referentieopname Pierrot Lunaire.
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Muziekpersoonlijkheid van het jaar | ||
 | Peter de Caluwe Begon dit jaar aan een tweede termijn als directeur van De Munt. Door het gezaghebbende operablad Opernwelt onlangs uitgeroepen tot 's werelds beste operahuis. Dit vooral dankzij de indrukwekkende uitvoeringen van Wagners Parsifal (regie: Romeo Castellucci), de creatie van Toshio Hosokawa's Matsukaze en Les Huguenots van Meyerbeer. Les Huguenots kreeg bovendien de prijs voor de beste productie van het jaar (Olivier Py.Marc Minkowski). Peter de Caluwe is zopas verkozen tot voorzitter van Opera Europa.
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Muziekevenement van het jaar | ||
 | Klara4Kids Voor de vijfde keer al organiseert Klara i.s.m. het Paleis een muziekfeest voor kinderen van 4 tot 12. Een schot in de roos, binnen de kortste keren telkens uitverkocht. Tegelijkertijd nu ook voor de vijfde keer een cd met klassieke muziek voor kinderen, gebundeld onder thema's uit hun leefwereld (Prinsen en Prinsessen, Ezels en Elfen, Poppen en Soldaatjes, Van aap tot zwaan, Toeters en Bellen). Luxe-uitgave met tekeningen van Gerda Dendooven. I.s.m. EMI. Oplage: 6000 ex. Bijhorend Educatieve fiches, gratis downloadbaar.
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Vlaamse CD-productie van het jaar | ||
 | Cecus - Graindelavoix Een verzameling van polyfonie rond het onderwerp 'blindheid'. 'Cecus non judicat de coloribus' is de titel van een motet van Alexander Agricola, een driestemmig werk zonder tekst. Hierop voortbouwend koos dirigent Björn Schmelzer werken die te maken hebben met 'blindheid', en dit in de ruimste zin van het woord. Zo voegt hij er een aantal werken aan toe die triestheid, rouw en ellende oproepen zodat de (blinde) ogen zich met tranen vullen.
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Carrièreprijs 2011 voor Philip Catherine
Sinds de jaren zeventig is Philip Catherine een van de bekendste musici uit de Belgische jazz en behoort tot de internationale top. In zijn 40-jarige carrière heeft hij alle groten van de Europese en Amerikaanse jazz begeleid.
Catherine werd geboren uit een Engelse moeder en een Belgische vader. Hij is afkomstig uit een familie van muzikanten en ontdekte op 14-jarige leeftijd Georges Brassens en Django Reinhardt. Om in de voetsporen van zijn idolen te treden kocht hij een gitaar en beluisterde hij alle grote jazzmuzikanten van die tijd.
In de jaren zestig begeleidde Catherine door heel Europa bekende musici als Lou Bennett, Dexter Gordon en Stéphane Grappelli. Eind jaren zestig richtte hij met zijn vriend Marc Moulin een jazzrock-groep op. In 1971 nodigde de beroemde Franse violist Jean-Luc Ponty hem uit bij zijn kwintet Experience te komen spelen. In 1974 en 1975 nam Catherine zijn eerste eigen platen op: September Man en Guitars. Hij ondernam nadien tournees met zijn eigen formaties, maar bleef ook actief als begeleider van jazzlegendes als Charles Mingus, Benny Goodman, Toots Thielemans, Charlie Mariano en Chet Baker. Daarnaast speelde hij in een duo met Larry Coryell en in een trio met Didier Lockwood en Christian Escoudé. Met het trio dat hij vormde met trompettist Tom Harrell en basgitarist Hein van de Geyn nam hij drie platen op : I remember You in 1990 en Moods I & II in 1992.
In 1997 tekende Catherine een contract bij Dreyfus Records en bracht hij Philip Catherine Live, Guitar Groove en Blue Prince uit. Hij was intussen zelf een grote jazznaam geworden en kreeg in de loop der jaren diverse onderscheidingen waaronder "The most Promising Duo, Record Jazz Award Winners" en "Artist of the Year" (1978) van de Deutsche Phono Akademie. Eind 1988 kende de Belgische Vereniging van Jazzcritici hem eenparig de "Saxe"-prijs toe voor zijn album "Transparence". In 1995 kreeg hij de "Django d'Or" van Sabam en in 1998 ontving hij in Parijs de Django d'Or als "Beste Europese jazzmuzikant". Zijn meest recente bekroning tot dusver is de titel van "Maestro Honoris Causa" van de Conservatoriumstichting van Antwerpen. Zijn album Summer Night, uitgebracht in oktober 2002, werd in Jazz Magazine verkozen tot "Disque d'Emoi" .
Arrtikel overgenomen van Wikipedia.
Klara Info
Flanders Festival and SonicAngel join forces on a project to support young, classical talent using a new model
| Press release: Flanders Festival and SonicAngel join forces on a project to support young, classical talent using a new model | |||||||||||||||||||
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Tuesday 29 November 2011
La Monnaie is crowned Europe's best | Xpats | The Bulletin
La Monnaie is crowned Europe's best
Nov 29, 2011
It’s official: the daring, magic and beauty that light up the stage of Brussels’ opera house night after night earn top honours
Opera house of the year! That’s the title recently bestowed upon Brussels’ Royal Opera La Monnaie by the world’s leading opera magazine, Opernwelt. It’s like winning an Oscar, as La Monnaie’s director Peter de Caluwe jubilantly exclaimed when he heard the news, which was made all the sweeter by being compounded with the award for best production. That honour went to Olivier Py’s staging of Meyerbeer’s opera Les Huguenots, which premièred at La Monnaie last June.
An international jury of 50 critics have a say in who gets Opernwelt’s coveted annual award. Several members of this year’s panel have told me that the choice of La Monnaie was unanimous. They praised the team spirit, the choice of conductors, stage directors and singers, and the perfect planning and execution. « No doubt about it, » reads their tribute, « under Peter de Caluwe’s leadership, the Théâtre de la Monnaie has reached a peak in our time and in its rich history ». What makes the award all the more significant is that this is the first time the prize has been awarded to an opera house outsidethe German-speaking world.
De Caluwe, 48, has been general manager of La Monnaie since 2007. When congratulated, he hastens to credit his predecessors’ achievements. Gerard Mortier, who now heads the Teatro Real in Madrid, pioneered innovative productions of the mainstream repertoire, from Mozart to Verdi ; and Bernard Foccroulle, currently in charge of the Festival of Aix-en-Provence, hired the brilliant and young conductor Antonio Pappano as music director (Pappano is now music director of the Covent Garden opera in London) and brought in Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker’s dance company Rosas as artists-in-residence. Foccroulle also commissioned new operas from leading Belgian composers such as Philippe Boesmans and Benoît Mernier.
De Caluwe worked at La Monnaie with Mortier in the mid-1980s. From that experience, he tells me, «I learned how important it is to develop a team spirit in an opera house. When we embark on a new production, all departments – from chorus members to stage hands – must have the feeling that we are in the adventure together. »
De Caluwe’s willingness to take risks is perfectly illustrated by his choice of stage directors. In March 2009, he invited the cutting-edge theatre company La Fura dels Baus to produce Ligeti’s Le Grand Macabre, a notoriously difficult opera to stage. I suspect that at the time, the Monnaie team must have felt unsure about the prospect of collaborating with such a resolutely avant-garde group. But as it turned out, the production was a huge popular and critical success. I confess that I had never seen a convincing performance of the work until I saw theirs, which won me over. And so when de Caluwe announced that La Fura would be returning this autumn to stage George Enescu’s Œdipe, his colleagues’ reaction was a mixture of delight and impatience to get started.
Œdipe is typical of de Caluwe’s refreshingly unconventional programme planning. Although the four-acter is considered a masterpiece of 2Oth-century music, it has rarely been performed even in Enescu’s native Romania since its Paris première in 1936. The version created last month by La Fura dels Baus, with its sets more evocative of ecological disaster than of ancient Greece, was an eye-opener. Producer Alex Ollé saw a parallel between the spreading of the plague in legendary Thebes and the tide of red, toxic mud that swept over a region west of Budapest in October 2010. Suddenly, Enescu’s opera appeared relevant to the present day. De Caluwe scored an even more astonishing coup with Romeo Castellucci’s production of Parsifal. The Italian theatre director and set designer had never staged an opera before and came up with a radically new interpretation of Wagner’s hallowed work in which all the pseudo-religious baggage was thrown overboard.
Each of the three acts was based on a breathtaking visual concept. The Knights of the Holy Grail in the first part were a bunch of frightened hunters lost in a primeval forest. Kundry’s attempted seduction of Parsifal in the second act took place in a blindingly white psychiatric clinic amid scenes of Japanese-style bondage. The greatest shock came in the last scene : far from being hailed as a redeemer, Parsifal was just one in a crowd facing the public and marching on a moving walkway. When the curtain fell there was a moment of total silence, then the audience erupted in wild applause.
Familiar classics such as La Bohème have also been given a welcome facelift, and in this regard, Krzysztof Warlikowski’s stagings deserve a special mention. The Polish artist has presented a vigorously updated version of Verdi’s Macbeth, with uniformed generals in a high-tech war room, and in Cherubini’s Medea he introduced a contemporary subtext of intercultural tensions. Die-hard operagoers may sometimes wince, but the new approach fostered by the Monnaie has overwhelmingly found acceptance in Brussels. We are now in mid-season, and the upcoming productions look exciting indeed. Next month, French stage director Laurent Pelly will put a fresh spin on Jules Massenet’s Cendrillon, an all-time favourite since its 1899 première in Paris. After seeing Flemish director Guy Joosten’s spine-chilling staging of Richard Strauss’s Elektra at La Monnaie in 2010, I can hardly wait to discover his portrayal of Strauss’s Salome. In April, Ghent-born René Jacobs, in my view the supreme interpreter of 18th-century opera, conducts Handel’s spectacular Orlando, with staging by Pierre Audi.
Unlike many other European opera houses, La Monnaie has long championed contemporary dance. Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker’s company Rosas continues to enjoy high visibility there (her new work Cesena has just made its Belgian debut at La Monnaie), and Antwerp-based dancer and choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui found an early supporter in de Caluwe, who remains an avid admirer of his work. Cherkaoui’s Three Duets will première at La Monnaie this coming March. Karlsruhe-born Sasha Waltz, another inspirational choreographer, will present in June a work for 24 dancers based on Edgard Varèse’s volcanic score Arcana.
Also this spring, legendary conductor Pierre Boulez will conduct the London Symphony Orchestra on two successive evenings. A radical composer who has mellowed in recent years, the Frenchman, who is 86, is revered for his laser-like precision and tireless promotion of 2Oth-century music. To accommodate the very large audiences that are expected, the concerts will be held in Bozar’s larger facility, but the occasion is co-produced by La Monnaie.
Speaking of conductors, this January, Ludovic Morlot, 37, will take over as chief conductor of La Monnaie’s orchestra. The Lyons-born musician’s arrival is eagerly anticipated, and all the moreso since the search for the right musician to fill the position has lasted three years. The very first time Morlot took up his baton at La Monnaie, the orchestra members knew they had found what they were looking for, and his limited experience conducting opera doesn’t faze them in the least.
La Monnaie is crowned Europe's best | Xpats | The Bulletin
Monday 28 November 2011
'A Dangerous Method,' 'Melancholia' take cues from Richard Wagner - latimes.com
Filmmakers have been borrowing and adapting the music of Richard Wagner since the dawn of cinema. The 19th century German composer's lush, dramatic music often serves as a kind of emotional hormone for the screen, providing an adrenaline rush in action sequences and surges of romantic feeling for scenes of passion.
But sometimes a soundtrack is more than just a soundtrack. In the case of two recent films -- David Cronenberg's "A Dangerous Method" and Lars von Trier's "Melancholia" -- Wagner pervades the scores as well as the story lines, informing the psychology of the characters while adding crucial sonic subtext. To fully understand both films requires an immersion in Wagner's music and ideas.
In Cronenberg's "A Dangerous Method," the Swiss psychoanalyst Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender) enters into an adulterous affair with Sabina Spielrien (Keira Knightley), a young Russian patient suffering from hysteria. Their relationship takes root in a shared fixation on Wagner's "Ring" cycle operas. While they both prefer "Das Rheingold," the first opera in the cycle, it is the third opera, "Siegfried," that plays a key role in the movie.
Wagner's Siegfried is a pure-blooded Aryan hero, the product of an incestuous union between brother and sister. In the movie, Sabina internalizes the myth to an obsessive degree. "The idea was that she would have a sinful relationship with Jung and then give birth to this hero, this heroic Siegfried," Cronenberg explained in a recent interview.
Cronenberg said he researched psychoanalytic circles of the early 20th century. "One of the unique things about these people is that they kind of mythologized themselves," he said. "Their intellectual passions were not just abstract -- they tried to embody them, they tried to bring them into their own lives and live out of them. And so they could very easily see themselves being characters in a Wagnerian opera."
Howard Shore, the Oscar-winning film composer, has scored most of Cronenberg's films. For "A Dangerous Method," he based the soundtrack on Wagner's "Siegfried." "It follows the opera in terms of its overall structure -- I used the bones, if you will, of the opera to create the structure and the arc of the music," Shore said in an interview.
In one sequence, Jung's wife, Emma (Sarah Gadon), gives birth to their first son. But instead of a celebratory scene, the movie cuts to Jung meeting Sabina for an amorous assignation. The sequence is scored to the section of the opera known as the "Siegfried Idyll," which Wagner originally wrote as a gift for his wife, Cosima.
Shore said he chose the "Siegfried Idyll" to show that Jung was a loving man, despite his faults. "He had this strong desire to be with Sabina, but he loved is wife and his family life," he said. For the movie, Shore used a piano arrangement of the "Siegfried Idyll," and the piece is performed by pianist Lang Lang on the soundtrack.
"A Dangerous Method" was written by Christopher Hampton, adapting his play "The Talking Cure," which itself was inspired by the 1993 nonfiction book "A Most Dangerous Method" by John Kerr. As explained in Kerr's book, Sabina's "Siegfried complex" was a complicated neurosis that "stood simultaneously for the son [Sabina] would give Jung and for Jung himself."
In Hampton's original play, Jung says at one point that he admires Wagner's music but not the man himself. For the movie, Cronenberg changed the line so that Jung expresses his admiration for all of Wagner, which would implicitly include the composer's anti-Semitism. (Spielrein was Jewish -- and so, of course, was Sigmund Freud, played by Viggo Mortensen, who ended up mentoring both Spielrein and Jung.)
"David and I had a very long discussion about this," Hampton recalled in an interview. "It was the only single line for which we had a long discussion."
Cronenberg said he had no agenda when it came to the characters: "I have read a lot of Jung and I do not get the impression that he had any problem with Wagner and in particular his anti-Semitism. ... I don't think Jung would be at all bothered by his anti-Semitism because he had a bit of it himself. In the context of the times, you wouldn't think that Jung was anti-Semitic, but in the context of our times, you might well."
The filmmaker added: "We're not trying to rehabilitate [these characters]. If Jung behaved badly in a certain way, then so be it. In other words, we're not looking to create a character who's likable if he's not."
"Melancholia," the latest movie from Lars von Trier, takes its thematic inspiration from a different Wagner opera, "Tristan and Isolde." The futuristic movie follows a new bride, Justine (Kirsten Dunst), and her sister, Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg), through a disastrous wedding reception followed by a cataclysmic end-of-the-world scenario in which a rogue planet named Melancholia crashes into Earth.
A sense of impending annihilation pervades "Melancholia." Von Trier begins the movie with an overture sequence set to the mournful prelude of "Tristan," and he repeats sections of the prelude throughout the film. On the story level, "Melancholia" fully absorbs the opera's themes and ideas, though not in a literal sense.
"Tristan" begins with an unwilling bride being taken to her wedding; "Melancholia" likewise introduces Justine on her way to the wedding reception where it is soon revealed that she suffers from depression and can barely tolerate her new husband (Alexander Skarsgard).
Wagner's opera is a nocturnal reverie -- the illicit lovers meet under cover of night and consummate their love in the small hours of the morning. "Melancholia" is also obsessed with nighttime, with key scenes taking place in the deep of twilight, including the wedding reception, Justine's nude frolic by the water and the first awe-inspiring encounter with the planet Melancholia.
Most significantly, "Melancholia" borrows the opera's central theme of "Liebestod," or "love-death." In the opera, the protagonists escape the mundane by sublimating their love through death. In "Melancholia," Justine reaches a plane of transcendence just as the rogue planet nears Earth and human life is threatened with total destruction. In both cases, death offers the characters a form of extreme emotional release and all-consuming catharsis.
Von Trier has been connected to the music of Wagner before. The Danish filmmaker was supposed to direct the 2006 production of the "Ring" cycle at Bayreuth but eventually withdrew.
For "Melancholia," adapting the music from "Tristan" fell to Kristian Eidnes Andersen, the sound designer and music arranger on the movie.
Andersen said that Von Trier initially wanted a lot of sad music but eventually settled on the "Tristan" prelude. The music "puts people in a fragile emotional situation ... you open up people's feelings and to the greatness of the world," Andersen said.
The "Tristan" prelude was performed for the movie by the City of Prague Philharmonic. Andersen said that he had a soloist dub over the cello section to provide a more unified sound and to "get more into the emotions." He added that Von Trier wanted to repeat the "Tristan" prelude over the end credits, but they ended up using the opera's Act 3 prelude instead.
"I think people should have after-thoughts and needed a less complex piece," Andersen explained. "This prelude from Act 3 is much simpler."
Andersen acknowledged the movie's debt to Hitchcock's "Vertigo," the soundtrack of which is also based on Wagner's "Tristan."
"[Hitchcock] started it and then we followed," Andersen said. The opera "has big emotions but it's personal. That's what you need in a film score."
RELATED:
Terrence Malick's 'Tree of Life': The classical music factor
Critic's Notebook: 'Shutter Island' as a new-music haven
John Adams lends his music to 'I Am Love,' starring Tilda Swinton
-- David Ng
Photos: Top, Keira Knightley and Michael Fassbender in "A Dangerous Method." Credit: Liam Daniel / Sony Pictures Classics. Bottom, Kirsten Dunst in "Melancholia." Credit: Magnolia Pictures
'A Dangerous Method,' 'Melancholia' take cues from Richard Wagner - latimes.com
Barihunks: NY Times: Dan Kempson-Zachary Altman wedding announcement
NY Times: Dan Kempson-Zachary Altman wedding announcement
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| 3 Barihunks: Dan Kempson (L), Justin Hopkins (C) & Zachary Altman (R) |
Dan Kempson and Zachary Altman
By ROSALIE R. RADOMSKY
Published: November 26, 2011
Alexander Mackay-Smith Kempson and Zachary Clayton Altman, both baritones, were married Saturday evening at the Tribeca Rooftop, an event space in New York. Dona D. Vaughn, a Universal Life minister who taught them in the opera program at the Manhattan School of Music, officiated.
The couple met in 2007 at the music school, from which Mr. Altman graduated and from which both received master’s degrees in voice.
Until May, Mr. Kempson (left), who is 26 and known professionally as Dan Kempson, was a resident artist with the Pittsburgh Opera, where last year he sang the role of Figaro in “The Barber of Seville.” He performed the role of the Baritone in “Hydrogen Jukebox,” by Philip Glass and Allen Ginsberg, with the Fort Worth Opera last May. He graduated from Johns Hopkins.
He is a son of Catharine Mackay-Smith Kempson and Kenneth E. Kempson of Wilton, Conn. Until June, his mother was the president of the League of Women Voters of Wilton. His father is a senior tax counsel for General Electric in Stamford, Conn. He is a trustee of the Wilton Library.
Mr. Altman, 27, is a private voice teacher in New York. Last year, he performed the role of Hermann Augustus in “Candide” with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. He appeared in a Sarasota Opera production of “La Bohème” earlier this year.
He is the son of Nancy Crueger Altman and Brett H. Altman of Wyndmoor, Pa. His mother is on the board of Concert Operetta Theater in Philadelphia. His father is a partner in the Altman Group of Companies in Fort Washington, Pa., which operates a general contracting business, manages housing and is involved in real estate development. He is on the board of Federation Housing Inc. in Philadelphia, a nonprofit developer of housing for the elderly.
The couple began dating in 2008, a year after they met. The next year they appeared in a Manhattan School of Music production of “Die Fledermaus,” directed by Ms. Vaughn. Mr. Altman sang the part of Dr. Falke and Mr. Kempson Gabriel von Eisenstein (normally a tenor part). Both characters were vying for the affection of Rosalinde.
In real life, Mr. Altman recalled, “we were pretty entrenched in our relationship at that point.”
He said that Ms. Vaughn lightheartedly reminded them, “You need to make gaga eyes at Rosalinde, and not each other.”
Barihunks: NY Times: Dan Kempson-Zachary Altman wedding announcement
Salzburg Festival 2012 | Preview | classical | musicOMH
| Preview: Salzburg Festival 2012 | |||||||||||||
| by Melanie Eskenazi | |||||||||||||
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Salzburg Festival 2012 | Preview | classical | musicOMH
Sunday 27 November 2011
Friday 25 November 2011
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Thursday 24 November 2011
The Wagnerian: In Memoriam: Sena Jurinac
Thursday, 24 November 2011
In Memoriam: Sena Jurinac
“The lad himself is played by Sena Jurinac, who has one of the most beautiful voices at the Vienna State Opera. She is charmingly natural both as the youthfully bewildered lover and as a rogue. The Cherubino-like nature of the character finds particularly delightful expression when playful amorousness turns to the tongue-tied awkwardness of the first real feeling of love.”
Karl Heinz Ruppel describing her Octavian, Süddeutsche Zeitung 1960
Sena Jurinac, born October 24 1921, died November 22 2011
Sena Jurinac, who has died aged 90, was one of the great lyric sopranos of the postwar years; she was a mainstay of the Vienna State Opera — notably in Mozart and Strauss — for almost 40 years, having first appeared there in the last days of the Second World War as bombs rained down and Russian soldiers ran amok.
It was her appearances in Mozart at Glyndebourne in the 1950s, however, that propelled her to the top of the profession. It has been suggested that Vienna, where she sang regularly with Herbert von Karajan, saw her in a fresh light after her triumphs in East Sussex.
Throughout her career Jurinac dazzled the critics, who scrambled to find superlatives to describe her performances: “phenomenally fluent, charming, gloriously musical” was the description of her Fiordiligi in Così fan tutte at Glyndebourne in 1951; the following year her performance in Idomeneo led another critic to remark that “as Ilia she is such a stylist that it would be difficult for any other singer to appear advantageously with her on the same stage in Mozart”.
Over the decades her voice evolved from one of purity and simple beauty into a mesmerising force. For example, she was until the mid-1960s an outstanding Octavian, the young trouser role in Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier; by the end of the decade she was donning the gown of the Marschallin, the aristocratic woman to whom, as Octavian, she used to make love.
She was born Srebrenka Jurinac at Travnik, in Yugoslavia (now in Bosnia), on October 24 1921 to a Croatian physician and his Viennese wife. After studying with Milka Kostrencic she made her debut in Zagreb nine days before her 21st birthday, singing Mimi in La Bohème.
In 1944 Karl Böhm engaged her to sing in Vienna, but three days after her arrival the city came under heavy bombardment. On one occasion — when she had still not sung a note in public — the 23-year-old Jurinac was only feet away from a steel fire door when a blast blew it off its hinges.
The advancing Russians demanded to be entertained; and so, with the Intendant forced at gunpoint to put together a production, she sang Cherubino (The Marriage of Figaro) under Josef Krips on May Day 1945. Performances took place in the afternoon, and she recalled in one interview how Irmgard Seefried (who was singing Susanna) would go out in the morning on her bicycle to collect potatoes for the cast. Meanwhile, Jurinac had adopted the diminutive “Sena” at the suggestion of Böhm’s secretary, who feared that the Austrians would not be able to pronounce her first name.
Two years later Böhm brought the Vienna company to Covent Garden with Jurinac as Dorabella in Così fan tutte — her greatest memory, she said, was fish and chips on Floral Street. Moran Caplat heard her and immediately engaged her to sing the same role with the Glyndebourne company at the Edinburgh Festival in 1948, under Vittorio Gui. She sang the part at Glyndebourne itself the following year, and delighted audiences in 1950 by moving up to the role of Fiordiligi in the same opera, a remarkable change of musical personality and temperament.
Encouraged by von Karajan to explore the Italian repertoire in more depth, Jurinac sang Cio-Cio-San in Madama Butterfly in Vienna in 1958 with remarkable success. “Butterfly, would you believe!” she later recalled. “I was not young. I was tall. It was extremely courageous of him.” Five years later she sang the title role when Karajan conducted L’incoronazione di Poppea, ranking it among the conductor’s finest achievements as artistic director in Vienna.
By the late 1950s she was moving on from Glyndebourne (Donna Anna in Don Giovanni in 1956 was her last appearance there), and indeed from her youthful Mozart roles.
She gave a distinguished account of Desdemona (in Otello) with Karajan at the Vienna Festival in 1957; an enchanting portrayal of Eva in Die Meistersinger at Bayreuth the same year; and scored a triumph in 1959 as Cio-Cio-San at Covent Garden (with Rudolf Kempe conducting), where she appeared on several occasions over the next few years, including her Marschallin debut in the Visconti production of Der Rosenkavalier conducted by Georg Solti .
Her recitals, at least in London, were few and far between. At Kingsway Hall in 1951 she demonstrated her enormous range of both pitch and colour; while at the Festival Hall with Gerald Moore in 1958 she showed the glory of her voice in repertoire that ranged from Handel to Strauss. A decade later she sang Berlioz’s Les nuits d’été with the Philharmonia under Sergiu Comissiona.
Undeterred by Kirsten Flagstad’s well-documented premiere of Strauss’s Four Last Songs in 1951, Jurinac recorded them just months later, reprising the work for the BBC Proms under Basil Cameron in 1954 and again under Malcolm Sargent in 1961.
Jurinac was occasionally heard in the United States, notably in Madama Butterfly in San Francisco in 1959; despite his best efforts, however, Rudolf Bing never managed to get her to the Met.
As recently as 1981 a faithful public packed the Festival Hall to hear her accompanied by Geoffrey Parsons: almost 40 years after her wartime debut, the voice had understandably changed, but her ability to hold an audience spellbound remained as intense as ever.
Appropriately enough, her final appearance was as Strauss’s Marschallin at the Vienna Staatsoper in 1982, which honoured her with the title of Kammersängerin. She retired to Augsburg in Germany, but would gladly take part in masterclasses. An exhibition devoted to the life and work of “Die Sena” is currently on show at the Vienna Staatsoper.
While Sena Jurinac leaves a modest legacy of recordings, including some wonderful archive film footage, she once — only half in jest — told an interviewer on Radio 3 that the biggest mistake in her career was not marrying a record producer.
In 1953 she married Sesto Bruscantini, her Don Alfonso at Glyndebourne (they sang together on the evening of their wedding and their Così was the first Glyndebourne production to be televised). They were divorced three years later, and in 1965 she married Josef Lederle.
By the late 1950s she was moving on from Glyndebourne (Donna Anna in Don Giovanni in 1956 was her last appearance there), and indeed from her youthful Mozart roles.
She gave a distinguished account of Desdemona (in Otello) with Karajan at the Vienna Festival in 1957; an enchanting portrayal of Eva in Die Meistersinger at Bayreuth the same year; and scored a triumph in 1959 as Cio-Cio-San at Covent Garden (with Rudolf Kempe conducting), where she appeared on several occasions over the next few years, including her Marschallin debut in the Visconti production of Der Rosenkavalier conducted by Georg Solti .
Her recitals, at least in London, were few and far between. At Kingsway Hall in 1951 she demonstrated her enormous range of both pitch and colour; while at the Festival Hall with Gerald Moore in 1958 she showed the glory of her voice in repertoire that ranged from Handel to Strauss. A decade later she sang Berlioz’s Les nuits d’été with the Philharmonia under Sergiu Comissiona.
Undeterred by Kirsten Flagstad’s well-documented premiere of Strauss’s Four Last Songs in 1951, Jurinac recorded them just months later, reprising the work for the BBC Proms under Basil Cameron in 1954 and again under Malcolm Sargent in 1961.
Jurinac was occasionally heard in the United States, notably in Madama Butterfly in San Francisco in 1959; despite his best efforts, however, Rudolf Bing never managed to get her to the Met.
As recently as 1981 a faithful public packed the Festival Hall to hear her accompanied by Geoffrey Parsons: almost 40 years after her wartime debut, the voice had understandably changed, but her ability to hold an audience spellbound remained as intense as ever.
Appropriately enough, her final appearance was as Strauss’s Marschallin at the Vienna Staatsoper in 1982, which honoured her with the title of Kammersängerin. She retired to Augsburg in Germany, but would gladly take part in masterclasses. An exhibition devoted to the life and work of “Die Sena” is currently on show at the Vienna Staatsoper.
While Sena Jurinac leaves a modest legacy of recordings, including some wonderful archive film footage, she once — only half in jest — told an interviewer on Radio 3 that the biggest mistake in her career was not marrying a record producer.
The Wagnerian: In Memoriam: Sena Jurinac
Sena Jurinac, born October 24 1921, died November 22 2011
Sena Jurinac
Sena Jurinac, who has died aged 90, was one of the great lyric sopranos of the postwar years; she was a mainstay of the Vienna State Opera — notably in Mozart and Strauss — for almost 40 years, having first appeared there in the last days of the Second World War as bombs rained down and Russian soldiers ran amok.
Sena Jurinac in 'Der Rosenkavalier' Photo: ITV/REX
It was her appearances in Mozart at Glyndebourne in the 1950s, however, that propelled her to the top of the profession. It has been suggested that Vienna, where she sang regularly with Herbert von Karajan, saw her in a fresh light after her triumphs in East Sussex.
Throughout her career Jurinac dazzled the critics, who scrambled to find superlatives to describe her performances: “phenomenally fluent, charming, gloriously musical” was the description of her Fiordiligi in Così fan tutte at Glyndebourne in 1951; the following year her performance in Idomeneo led another critic to remark that “as Ilia she is such a stylist that it would be difficult for any other singer to appear advantageously with her on the same stage in Mozart”.
Over the decades her voice evolved from one of purity and simple beauty into a mesmerising force. For example, she was until the mid-1960s an outstanding Octavian, the young trouser role in Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier; by the end of the decade she was donning the gown of the Marschallin, the aristocratic woman to whom, as Octavian, she used to make love.
She was born Srebrenka Jurinac at Travnik, in Yugoslavia (now in Bosnia), on October 24 1921 to a Croatian physician and his Viennese wife. After studying with Milka Kostrencic she made her debut in Zagreb nine days before her 21st birthday, singing Mimi in La Bohème.
In 1944 Karl Böhm engaged her to sing in Vienna, but three days after her arrival the city came under heavy bombardment. On one occasion — when she had still not sung a note in public — the 23-year-old Jurinac was only feet away from a steel fire door when a blast blew it off its hinges.
The advancing Russians demanded to be entertained; and so, with the Intendant forced at gunpoint to put together a production, she sang Cherubino (The Marriage of Figaro) under Josef Krips on May Day 1945. Performances took place in the afternoon, and she recalled in one interview how Irmgard Seefried (who was singing Susanna) would go out in the morning on her bicycle to collect potatoes for the cast. Meanwhile, Jurinac had adopted the diminutive “Sena” at the suggestion of Böhm’s secretary, who feared that the Austrians would not be able to pronounce her first name.
Two years later Böhm brought the Vienna company to Covent Garden with Jurinac as Dorabella in Così fan tutte — her greatest memory, she said, was fish and chips on Floral Street. Moran Caplat heard her and immediately engaged her to sing the same role with the Glyndebourne company at the Edinburgh Festival in 1948, under Vittorio Gui. She sang the part at Glyndebourne itself the following year, and delighted audiences in 1950 by moving up to the role of Fiordiligi in the same opera, a remarkable change of musical personality and temperament.
Encouraged by von Karajan to explore the Italian repertoire in more depth, Jurinac sang Cio-Cio-San in Madama Butterfly in Vienna in 1958 with remarkable success. “Butterfly, would you believe!” she later recalled. “I was not young. I was tall. It was extremely courageous of him.” Five years later she sang the title role when Karajan conducted L’incoronazione di Poppea, ranking it among the conductor’s finest achievements as artistic director in Vienna.
By the late 1950s she was moving on from Glyndebourne (Donna Anna in Don Giovanni in 1956 was her last appearance there), and indeed from her youthful Mozart roles.
She gave a distinguished account of Desdemona (in Otello) with Karajan at the Vienna Festival in 1957; an enchanting portrayal of Eva in Die Meistersinger at Bayreuth the same year; and scored a triumph in 1959 as Cio-Cio-San at Covent Garden (with Rudolf Kempe conducting), where she appeared on several occasions over the next few years, including her Marschallin debut in the Visconti production of Der Rosenkavalier conducted by Georg Solti .
Her recitals, at least in London, were few and far between. At Kingsway Hall in 1951 she demonstrated her enormous range of both pitch and colour; while at the Festival Hall with Gerald Moore in 1958 she showed the glory of her voice in repertoire that ranged from Handel to Strauss. A decade later she sang Berlioz’s Les nuits d’été with the Philharmonia under Sergiu Comissiona.
Undeterred by Kirsten Flagstad’s well-documented premiere of Strauss’s Four Last Songs in 1951, Jurinac recorded them just months later, reprising the work for the BBC Proms under Basil Cameron in 1954 and again under Malcolm Sargent in 1961.
Sena Jurinac was occasionally heard in the United States, notably in Madama Butterfly in San Francisco in 1959; despite his best efforts, however, Rudolf Bing never managed to get her to the Met.
As recently as 1981 a faithful public packed the Festival Hall to hear her accompanied by Geoffrey Parsons: almost 40 years after her wartime debut, the voice had understandably changed, but her ability to hold an audience spellbound remained as intense as ever.
Appropriately enough, her final appearance was as Strauss’s Marschallin at the Vienna Staatsoper in 1982, which honoured her with the title of Kammersängerin. She retired to Augsburg in Germany, but would gladly take part in masterclasses. An exhibition devoted to the life and work of “Die Sena” is currently on show at the Vienna Staatsoper.
While Sena Jurinac leaves a modest legacy of recordings, including some wonderful archive film footage, she once — only half in jest — told an interviewer on Radio 3 that the biggest mistake in her career was not marrying a record producer.
In 1953 she married Sesto Bruscantini, her Don Alfonso at Glyndebourne (they sang together on the evening of their wedding and their Così was the first Glyndebourne production to be televised). They were divorced three years later, and in 1965 she married Josef Lederle.
Sena Jurinac, born October 24 1921, died November 22 2011
Sena Jurinac - Telegraph
Wednesday 23 November 2011
Martin Scorsese’s ‘Hugo,’ With Ben Kingsley and Sacha Baron Cohen - Review - NYTimes.com
Movie Review
Jaap Buitendijk/Paramount Pictures
Asa Butterfield as Hugo Cabret in "Hugo."
Inventing a World, Just Like Clockwork
By MANOHLA DARGIS
Published: November 22, 2011
“Hugo,” an enchantment from Martin Scorsese, is the 3-D children’s movie that you might expect from the director of “Raging Bull” and “Goodfellas.” It’s serious, beautiful, wise to the absurdity of life and in the embrace of a piercing longing. No one gets clubbed to death, but shadows loom, and a ferocious Doberman nearly lands in your lap. The movie is based on the book “The Invention of Hugo Cabret,” but is also very much an expression of the filmmaker’s movie love. Surely the name of its author, Brian Selznick, caught his eye: Mr. Selznick is related to David O. Selznick, the producer of “Gone With the Wind” — kismet for a cinematic inventor like Mr. Scorsese.
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Mr. Scorsese’s fidelity to Mr. Selznick’s original story is very nearly complete, though this is also, emphatically, his own work. Gracefully adapted by John Logan, the movie involves a lonely, melancholic orphan, Hugo (Asa Butterfield), who in the early 1930s tends all the clocks in a Parisian train station. Seemingly abandoned by his uncle, the station’s official timekeeper (Ray Winstone), Hugo lives alone, deep in the station’s interior, in a dark, dusty, secret apartment that was built for employees. There, amid clocks, gears, pulleys, jars and purloined toys, he putters and sleeps and naturally dreams, mostly of fixing a delicate automaton that his dead father, a clockmaker (Jude Law), found once upon a time. The automaton is all that remains of a happy past.
Hugo has been repairing the automaton with mechanical parts salvaged from the toys he has stolen from a toy store in the station. All that he needs now to bring the windup figure to life — it sits frozen, with a pen at the ready, as if waiting for inspiration — is the key that will open its heart-shaped lock. After assorted stops and starts and quick getaways, Hugo finds the key during an adventure involving the toy-store owner and his goddaughter, Isabelle (Chloë Grace Moretz). A beloved, wanted child, she brings Hugo into her life, which is how he discovers that the cantankerous shopkeeper with the white goatee and sad, watchful eyes is Georges Méliès (a touching Ben Kingsley).
The name means nothing to Hugo and may not mean much to most contemporary viewers, but it means a great deal to this lovely movie. A magician turned moving-picture pioneer, Méliès (1861-1938) began his new career after seeing one of the first public film projections in Paris on Dec. 28, 1895. Until then, early moving pictures had been commercially exhibited on Kinetoscopes, peephole machines that enabled viewers to watch brief films, one person at a time. The image was tiny — less than two inches wide — and moving pictures didn’t become cinema as we know it until wizards like the French brothers Auguste and Louis Lumière created machines like the cinématographe, which projected larger-than-life images on screens that people watched as an audience.
While the Lumières dazzled with nonfiction films that they called actualités, Méliès enthralled with fantasies and trick films like “A Trip to the Moon” (1902). In this comic 16-minute science-fiction masterwork, a gaggle of scientists in knee breeches fly in a rocket to the Moon, where they encounter acrobatic creatures with lobster claws amid puffs of smoke and clever cinematic sleights of hand. In the film’s most famous image, the rocket lands splat in the eye of the Man in the Moon, causing him to squeeze out a fat tear. It was perhaps a prophetic image for Méliès, who, after falling out of fashion and into obscurity, ran a toy store in the Montparnasse station in Paris, which is where he was later rediscovered.
Mr. Selznick opens and closes his book with some soft pencil drawings of Earth’s Moon, that luminous disk on which so many human fantasies (the Man in the Moon included) have been projected. In the book the Moon is something of a screen against which Méliès’s most celebrated cinematic fantasy unfolds. Mr. Scorsese doesn’t exploit this lunar metaphor (perhaps he believes the Moon belongs to Méliès), yet he locates plenty of cinematic poetry here, particularly in the clock imagery, which comes to represent moviemaking itself. The secret is in the clockwork, Hugo’s father says to him in flashback, sounding like an auteurist. Time counts in “Hugo,” yes, but what matters more is that clocks are wound and oiled so that their numerous parts work together as one.
The movie itself is a well-lubricated machine, a trick entertainment and a wind-up toy, and it springs to life instantly in a series of sweeping opening aerial shots that plunge you into the choreographed bustle of the train station. The first time you see Hugo he’s peering out from behind a large wall clock at the human comedy in the station. He’s staring through a cutout in the clock face, an aperture through which he watches several characters who play supporting roles in a spectacle that is by turns slapstick, mystery, melodrama and romance, including the menacing station inspector (Sacha Baron Cohen), a friendly flower vendor (Emily Mortimer), a woman with a dachshund (Frances de la Tour) and her suitor (Richard Griffiths). When Hugo gazes at them, he’s viewer and director both.
Martin Scorsese’s ‘Hugo,’ With Ben Kingsley and Sacha Baron Cohen - Review - NYTimes.com
Castronovo as Roméo
Castronovo as Roméo
Nino Machaidze and Charles Castronovo in "Roméo et Juliette" (photo by Robert Millard)
On Saturday, tenor Vittorio Grigolo warned us that he had a bad cold and might not be able to sing the role of Roméo at the next day’s performance of Roméo et Juliette. Saturday also happened to be the evening of the “Placido Domingo & Friends 25th Anniversary Gala.” One of the guest performers was tenor Charles Castronovo, a longtime LA Opera favorite who had created the title role in last season’s world premiere of Il Postino. We asked him if he would consider staying an extra day in Los Angeles, just in case, and he agreed. Sadly, Grigolo was indeed forced to cancel on his doctor’s orders, but we now had another world-class tenor, who had performed Roméo earlier this year in Dallas, ready to go on. With just two hours to learn the staging and the tricky fight scene, and with fantastic onstage assistance from Nino Machaidze as Juliette, Castronovo gave a beautiful, heroic performance that stunned our audience. We are grateful for his appearance and congratulate him on a job well done!
Castronovo as RoméoA Tale of Divergent Styles at the English National Opera - NYTimes.com
Allan Clayton and Sophie Bevan in a scene from "Castor & Pollux."
By GEORGE LOOMIS
Published: November 22, 2011
LONDON — You wouldn’t know it from the scant opportunities to see his work on stage, but Jean-Philippe Rameau was one of the great opera composers.
He was also a late bloomer — 50 years old when his first opera, “Hippolyte et Aricie,” triumphed at its premiere in 1733, an event that caused the composer André Campra to exclaim: “My Lord, there is enough music in this opera to make 10 of them; this man will eclipse us all!”
“Castor et Pollux” was less successful at its 1737 premiere, but made a huge impression when it returned to the Paris Opéra in revised form in 1754. By that time a controversy raged in France over the respective merits of French and Italian opera. The opera appealed to Italian tastes, especially with “ariettes” akin to Italian da capo arias. Yet Rameau’s “lyric tragedies” remained essentially faithful to the tradition established by Jean-Baptiste Lully, even as they provoked conservatives with their expressive harmonies and other complexities.
One ought to jump at the chance to see the English National Opera’s new “Castor & Pollux” (as it is billed in light of the company’s policy of performing operas in English), the company’s first ever Rameau staging.
But unfortunately, the opera, which deals with the tender love between two half-brothers, each in love with the same woman, was entrusted to the director-producer Barrie Kosky, general director-designate of Berlin’s Komische Oper, and his production seriously misfires.
I have admired some of Mr. Kosky’s prior work, but here he seems both stymied by the aesthetic of French Baroque Opera and determined to prove to the Komische Oper (of which this “Castor” is a co-production) his radical stripes as a producer. Playing in a bare-box set by Katrin Lea Tag that flouts France’s tradition of visual splendor, the staging is full of trendy clichés like having choristers mimic disco dancing while singing jaunty music or having characters experience epileptic fits at crucial dramatic moments.
Because Pollux resolves to take Castor’s place in death after the latter is slain in battle, with the aim of allowing a resurrected Castor to live happily with Télaïre, who returns his love (but not Pollux’s), the opera has important underworld scenes. They must have been the impetus for the mound of dirt on stage that characters play around in, like children in a sandbox. There are also heavy doses of nudity and gratuitous violence.
Matters are better musically, though hardly perfect. The conductor Christian Curnyn, conducting a somewhat altered version of the 1754 score, sets well-judged tempos but could have worked harder to attain from the E.N.O.’s modern-instrument orchestra a performance with the litheness and crispness of a period instrument band. A couple of the choruses also lack the proper bite, possibly because of the English translation.
Sophie Bevan sings beautifully in Télaïre’s great aria of mourning “Triestes apprêts” (to use its French title), but neither she nor the drama benefit from assigning ariettes in the divertissement scenes to the principal characters; she tired toward the end. Laura Tatulescu sings vividly as Télaïre’s conflicted sister Phébé, who also loves Castor. Allan Clayton’s sweet tenor voice serves Castor’s music well, and Roderick Williams is an articulate Pollux. Henry Waddington, who sings Jupiter with a cloth in front of his face, is not the only singer to look silly in Ms. Tag’s costumes. Yes, the dazzling sight of Jupiter is supposed to blind mere mortals, but still.
After the frustrations of “Castor & Pollux,” Deborah Warner’s engrossing new production of “Eugene Onegin” at the E.N.O. comes as a tonic.
Tchaikovsky’s opera is one of the most emotionally powerful in the repertoire, and after a series of several high-profile deconstructive interpretations, most recently Stefan Herheim’s distorted staging in Amsterdam, a production that recognizes this fundamental fact is long overdue.
A Tale of Divergent Styles at the English National Opera - NYTimes.com
Wagner-Festspiele am Ring gehen weiter | kurier.at
Nach dem triumphalen "Ring des Nibelungen" ist nun die "Tannhäuser"-Wiederaufnahme an der Staatsoper zu sehen. Mit Franz Welser-Möst am Pult.
An Goulds Seite gibt die Sopranistin Anne Schwanewilms eine vokal sichere, teils auch beeindruckende Elisabeth; Hausdebütantin Iréne Theorin (Sopran) singt die Venus mehr als passabel. Sehr gut agiert Sorin Coliban als auch stimmlich mächtiger Hermann; Matthias Goerne ist ein nur manchmal in Nöte kommender Wolfram. Solide: Herbert Lippert, Alexandru Moisiuc, Peter Jelosits, Il Hong und Ileana Tonca als Hirte. Überraschend Repertoire-tauglich wirkt die Inszenierung von Claus Guth.
Wagner-Festspiele am Ring gehen weiter | kurier.at
Die "Tannhäuser"-Inszenierung von Claus Guth hatte vergangenen Juni in anderer Besetzung Premiere.
Eben erst hat Dirigent Christian Thielemann mit seiner fantastischen Interpretation von"Der Ring des Nibelungen" für Furore gesorgt; schon dürfen sich Wagnerianer über das nächste Großereignis freuen. Denn bei Wagners "Tannhäuser" (Reprisen: 23., 27. November) steht Generalmusikdirektor Franz Welser-Möst am Pult des fabelhaften Staatsopernorchesters und darf ebenfalls berechtigten Jubel ernten.
Welser-Möst schlüsselt Wagners komplexe Partitur sehr fein auf, kostet dennoch die melodischen Linien aus, ist den Sängern ein sehr guter und stets verlässlicher Partner, der auch um die Schönheiten dieses Werkes bestens Bescheid weiß. Sein "Tannhäuser" hat Kraft, ohne je ins Kraftmeierische abzudriften.
An Goulds Seite gibt die Sopranistin Anne Schwanewilms eine vokal sichere, teils auch beeindruckende Elisabeth; Hausdebütantin Iréne Theorin (Sopran) singt die Venus mehr als passabel. Sehr gut agiert Sorin Coliban als auch stimmlich mächtiger Hermann; Matthias Goerne ist ein nur manchmal in Nöte kommender Wolfram. Solide: Herbert Lippert, Alexandru Moisiuc, Peter Jelosits, Il Hong und Ileana Tonca als Hirte. Überraschend Repertoire-tauglich wirkt die Inszenierung von Claus Guth.
Wagner-Festspiele am Ring gehen weiter | kurier.at
Wiener Staatsoper Der Ring Des Nibelungen Wrap-Up
The set design was very mediocre. In the first three operas of the cycle it tended toward the abstract without actually going all the way down the rabbit hole. It is respectable that designers want to get away from the massive, grand sets and costumes with horns and metal bras. I imagine that there is a feeling among designers that they just can't top a "period" Ring set and that this well is dry. Nonetheless, if the decision is to go abstract, then full abstraction is probably requisite, rather than trying to make a literal interpretation feel abstract. This just leads to a sense that things were left out or skimped upon. Perhaps the greatest failing in the first three operas was the use of projected images that were downright hokey. Götterdämmerung went in the direction of purer abstraction and was consequently better, if still not entirely impressive (it also dropped the projected images). Some of hte costuming and some of the symbolism was appreciable, but in all this did not atone for the sins of the overall design concept.
The singing throughout the cycle was solid, if not stellar. Tomasz Konieczny in the earlier operas impressed as Alberich. Katarina Dalayman, before being taken by illness, was a winsome, youthful Brünnhilde. Christopher Ventris was a strong, heroic Siegmund. Linda Watson's Götterdämmerung Brünnhilde ended with a bang. Perhaps the most impressive singer, however, was Albert Dohmen in the roles of Wotan and Der Wanderer. As I've mentioned before, his voice might not have been the very biggest for the role, or even the most godlike and imposing. Still, he perfectly characterized a god who, while still acting with will and strength, was wearied of the world and his place in it, seeking reprieve. These were perhaps the highlights of the cycle, with the rest of the singers varying in their skill but often feeling (as is not unusual in Wagner repertoire) as though they were getting through the roles.
The last word must go to Christian Thielemann and the various orchestras of the Wiener Staatsoper. It is easy to focus on singers, sets, and direction, since it is these elements that are most visible. Underlying this, however, is Wagner's music. Singers and sets are on stage for a while, but change and have moments of rest. The orchestra plays for every moment of the cycle. Indeed, it is important to remember that one of Wagner's great inspirations was Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, impressing him as a symphony with voices added to it. In this light, the orchestra and the base music are the foundation of Wagner's Ring Cycle, unlike some other composers who, at least to an extent, composed from the voice backward. Christian Thielemann's direction was immaculate, bringing out the leitmotifs, seeking subtlety in the music, and giving the orchestra its own definitively distinct voice when the singers fell silent. It was truly appropriate that the entire orchestral company took a bow at the end of Götterdämmerung, because if there was one mind blowing star in this production, it was Thielemann and his orchestra.
The Passion of Opera: Wiener Staatsoper Der Ring Des Nibelungen Wrap-Up
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