First performed in 1896, Andrea Chénier is rightly regarded as one of the key works of verismo. With his melodrama about the historical poet André Chénier during the upheavals of the French Revolution, the composer Umberto Giordano created an undisputed masterpiece, an emotionally charged work in which a great love that triumphs over class differences and social discord finds fulfilment only in death. Previously unseen at Munich’s Nationaltheater, Giordano’s opera entered the repertory in 2017 in a production by Philipp Stölzl, who was making his debut with the Bayerische Staatsoper.

Stölzl’s is a household name in the German-speaking world both as a filmmaker (Baby, North Face, Goethe!, The Physician and Winnetou – Der Mythos lebt) and as a director of plays and operas, including Benvenuto Cellini at the Salzburg Festival, Rigoletto at the Bregenz Festival and Turandot at the Berlin State Opera. Both before and since then he has demonstrated his imaginative, detailed and powerfully expressive approach to direction. And it was this conviction that formed the basis of his concept for his Munich Andrea Chénier: “My ideas emerge from the piece itself. I work outwards from the inside. Any director needs to find something to latch on to in history. I want to narrate what’s there. I don’t need to invent anything. The characters function as they do because they act within fixed historical images. My aim as a director is to discover this panorama and reveal it to my audiences.”

The cast is a spectacular one. Jonas Kaufmann and Anja Harteros have been seen as the operatic dream couple since they appeared together in Lohengrin in 2009. This is the fourth time that they have worked together on a new production in Munich. A fortunate set of circumstances meant that it was possible to record two revivals later that same year. Like the first night, all were completely sold out. This record of a thrilling and inspiring operatic interpretation is now available on DVD and Blu-ray.