The first new opera production under the baton of Simone Young, director of the Hamburg State Opera and GMD of the Philharmonic State Orchestra, was a triumph. Hindemith’s Mathis der Maler requires a large opera house to use all of its resources; this is why it is very seldom staged.

This significant Hindemith opera is a rarity in CD catalogs as well – in contrast to the many available recordings of the “Mathis” symphony. OehmsClassics now releases a new complete recording, a live recording of the highly celebrated Hamburg premiere from September 25, 2005 with Falk Struckmann as Mathis.

REVIEWS:

Seventy years after its premiere, Mathis der Maler finally emerges here as one of the great operas of the 20th century. Wholeheartedly recommended to all!

Mathis is Matthias Grünewald, one of several names used by the painter of the Isenheim Altarpiece, but the opera is only incidentally about his painting. Rather it is about the artist’s place in, and conflicts with, a troubled society, subject matter that made it anathema to Nazi Germany (it was eventually premiered in Zurich in 1938). Mathis, at first content with his life as a painter, is drawn into the bloody Peasants’ War (1524–1526) between the common people and the nobility, for which Martin Luther’s challenge to the Catholic Church was also a driving force. After witnessing the horrific effects of war and gross inhumanity on both sides, the old painter withdraws completely from the world (seldom has such a vast, complex plot been so over-simplified). Other major figures are Hans Schwalb, the leader of the rebels, Albrecht von Brandenburg, a surprisingly freethinking Cardinal who employs Mathis, and Ursula, who loves him. This potentially tendentious opera is rescued by its wonderful music, Hindemith at his absolute peak. The climactic scene is a vocal/choral version of The Temptation of St. Anthony , the finale of the Symphony “Mathis der Maler,” and almost everything in the opera rises to a similar level.

...the Oehms [recording] boils along, teeming with life...the Hamburg Philharmonic is magnificent, realizing all of the music in a way that the Bavarians never did. The music and the drama are so powerful, so engrossing, that this listener was unaware of time passing. Getting up to change to CD 3, I thought, “Didn’t I just begin CD 2?” But the booklet insists that 67 minutes had passed. Kudos to Simone Young, general manager of the Hamburg State Opera and music director of the Hamburg Philharmonic!

The Oehms recording is worthy of this performance; everything is heard clearly, even in multi-voiced tutti passages. Producer Dirk Lüdemann and sound engineer Dominik Blech deserve star billing as well.

-- Fanfare

Classical Music

Every opera diva who thinks something of herself has a secret love – operetta. And this is completely justified, when one thinks of and listens to the immortal melodies of Johann Strauss, Karl Millöcker or Franz Lehár. And is not Dubarry the younger sister of Violetta from La Traviata, and Rosalinde from the Fledermaus the reincarnation of Mozart’s Countess Almaviva? They love, they suffer and they sing and dance through the great dreams of their audience, often with a substantial shot of irony added to the words and notes. And thus opera and operetta are two sides of the coin called life – the comic and tragic variants of human existence.

All these roles, selected with care, are included in the current repertoire of Noëmi Nadelmann. She has at her disposal all the attributes of a modern singer. Cosmopolitan simply by virtue of her half Russian ancestry, she was born in Switzerland, studied in America at Indiana University in Bloomington, where she allowed herself to become infected with the freedom to leave behind the boundary between serious and light music, between high art and that which the Americans so appropriately call entertainment, and simply to love and to present good music and powerful stage roles. Her biography reads like an oscillation between two poles: in Munich, she sang first at the Gärtnerplatz and later at the State Opera, in Berlin she has sung at all three opera houses, Hamburg, Cologne, Venice, Vienna, the Met, Paris, Chicago, Tokyo – she is in demand all over the world.

Her encounter with Harry Kupfer was determinative. He observed her carefully before he chose her as “his” Violetta, to conclusively win over the Berlin public. Inspirational success has come and continues to come from her collaborations with conductors such as Yakov Kreizberg, Gustav Kuhn, Christian Thielemann, Kurt Masur, Simone Young, René Jacobs, Nicolaus Harnoncourt and many others to whose hands she has trusted herself. Her repertoire is continuously being extended into the lyrical domain, and reaches from enchantresses from Handel´s operas such as Armida (Rinaldo) and the title role from Alcina, through Mozart’s Donna Anna and the Countess, to Lucia di Lammermoor and La Traviata. She always has many concerts and liederabends in her schedule as well – here also, in the broad palette from Schubert to Richard Strauss and Gershwin, whose wonderful songs she brought to CD in 1997.

After an aria CD under the direction of Gustav Kuhn and a recording with lieder by Franz Schreker, she has now turned her attention to operetta: the selection in this CD brings back the golden age of this genre. The two great phases of Vienna operetta – first Strauss, Zeller and Millöcker, then the somewhat later Kálmán, Lehár and Heuberger – also bring to expression with their glowing melodies and arrangements sides of life that we sometimes forget – passion, yearning, and an unbridled lust for life. From this point of view, we need operetta and its wonderful female characters more than ever – where else can one nowadays describe love as “Heaven on Earth” without being suspected of kitsch?

-- Andreas Richter

Classical Music

Classical Music

VIVA VERDI!

DIALOGUE: BAROQUE - MINIMAL

ANDREAS-SIBERMANN-ORGEL EBERSM

V 3: ROBERT SCHUMANN: PIANO WO

Classical Music

Classical Music

ROBERT SCHUMANN: DICHTERLIEBE

INSTRUMENTE IM MUNCHNER STADTM

Classical Music

Classical Music