This one-act opera by Richard Strauss is presented here by NorrlandsOperan and the Catalan theatre art collective La Fura dels Baus. This production is unique in that it is an outdoor performance. Due to the use of cranes, mechanics, and special effects, this production is NorrlandsOperans largest and most complex production yet. “It was macabre, shocking and powerful in its great simplicity.” (Kulturkorren)

This 2CD collection of more than 200 selections taken from various song recitals given 1956-2010 is released in celebration of the 150th birthday of Richard Strauss. + No less than 18 exceptional Strauss singers perform here, listed below in the order they are heard in this edition: Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Lisa Della Casa, Irmgard Seefried, Nicolai Gedda, Christa Ludwig, Hermann Prey, Leontyne Price, Peter Schreier, Edita Gruberova, Jessye Norman, Edith Mathis, Marjana Lipovšek, Heinz Zednik, Frederica von Stade, Francisco Araiza, Thomas Hampson, Diana Damrau and Michael Volle. + The songs range from famous early songs such as Die Nacht and Zueignung via excerpts from the rarely heard Krämerspiegel to late settings of poems by Friedrich Rückert.

Classical Music

Soon after the end of the Second World War, works by Richard Strauss were taken back into the repertoire of the Dresden State Opera. As early as 1945 the provisional venue of the Tonhalle (later the “Kleines Haus”, the small auditorium of the Staatstheater) was the location for a new staging of Ariadne auf Naxos and at the same place in 1946, another sign of restitution was seen in the revival of Die schweigsame Frau, which had lasted for only a few performances after the premiere in 1935 on account of the Jewish origins of writer and librettist Stefan Zweig. The following year was memorable for the legendary 1947 staging of Salome in Kurhaus Bühlau. 1948 brought a new production of Rosenkavalier in the new and larger Staatstheater auditorium known as the “Grosses Haus”. At all these Strauss operas from 1945 to 1948, General Music Director Joseph Keilberth was in overall charge of the music. Subsequent to Keilberth’s departure, the next new Strauss production was directed by newly appointed GMD Rudolf Kempe: Daphne on June 11, 1950, the source of the performance to be heard on this album (a live recording of the broadcast that day by the Dresden station of Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk).

It took many hours of rehearsal for the Weimar Orchestra to get its lips and fingers around Richard Strauss’s tone poem "Don Juan" in the Autumn of 1889, even with the benefit of the composer himself in charge. Not much about this music was conventional. Certainly not its opening page. The piece launches, off the beat, with an elusive upward flourish metamorphosing into a string of motifs that spans more than three octaves. It is the libertine Don Juan leaping out in front of us, and the 25-year-old Strauss introducing himself to the world with the piece that would make his name.

-----

REVIEWS:

It showcases three of the composer’s most vividly pictorial works in performances shot through with the same sense of discovery and flexibility, and of conductor and orchestra thoroughly enjoying themselves. Tuck's playing is beautifully integrated and superbly eloquent. But it’s largely Petrenko’s conviction that makes the performance so special, with no bar allowed simply to play itself, the music’s descriptiveness vividly but never doggedly conveyed.

– Gramophone

The lunatic, the lover, and the joker are of imagination all infinite in these supremely vivid interpretations. Petrenko takes his time over the first unravelling of the melancholy knight’s wits. A shame the Oslo Philharmonic viola isn’t credited: this is the most golden tone I’ve heard for Sancho’s garrulousness. For this trio, there’s no better recommendation right now.

– BBC Music Magazine

This new release features three orchestral works by Richard Strauss written when he was a young man. His brilliance can already be heard in these early pieces, and these pieces have been far too rarely recorded. Grigorios Zamparas has received critical acclaim for his versatile performing career as recitalist, orchestra soloist and chamber musician in Greece, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, former Yugoslavia, Russia, and the US. He is a frequent guest at numerous festivals worldwide, having performed several times at the prestigious Newport Music Festival, the Mainly Mozart Festival, among others. He is joined here by the Bohuslav Martinu Philharmonic Orchestra with Jon Ceander Mitchell at the helm.

Classical Music

Classical Music

During the mid 18th century, there was a popular genre of painting called the capriccio. It featured imaginary topographical scenes in which various elemnts, largely architectural, were brought together as never possible in real life. They offered dazzling views and set the imagination in a spin. Hugo von Hofmannsthal and Richard Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier is the operatic equivalent, for in its recreation of ‘the old Vienna under the Empress Maria Theresia- the very period in which the genre of the capriccio flourished- it juxtaposes seemingly distinct elements, such as 18th-century social conventions, 19th century waltzes and 20th century thinking. Following Hofmannsthal’s lead, Strauss constantly switches between the lyrically symphonic and the downright bawdy in the opera. “Marc Albrecht, once again presented his platinum Strauss credentials… The Netherlands Philharmonic, playing with dreamline ease, tugged at the heart with airborne woodwinds and shapely violin lines, stopping a hair’s breadth away from full extravagance. This introspective restraint created a tenseness throughout, rendering the emotional climzxes all the more powerful.” (bachtrack.com)

Classical Music

Classical Music

Recorded in: Danish Radio Concert Hall, Copenhagen 18-23 & 25-29 August 1997 Sound Engineer(s) Jørn Jacobsen Producer(s) Brian Couzens Executive Claus Due

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music