With the war raging in Europe, and a mere five days after the D-Day invasion which precipitated the eventual end of the conflagration in the European theater, this performance on a much smaller, less consequential but on its own terms no less historic theater stage in Vienna of Richard Strauss’ Ariadne auf Naxos was given and recorded. Despite the troubling facts that orbit these wartime performances more generally, for those who know operatic history, the singing cast, including Irmgard Seefried, Paul Schöffler, Max Lorenz and Maria Reining is truly a legendary one, as is the conductor Karl Böhm.

Richard Strauss: Salome, Op. 54, TrV 215 (Live)

Classical Music

Classical Music

Strauss: Salome, Op. 54, TrV 215 (Live)

Strauss: Der Rosenkavalier

The Richard Strauss Project: Complete Works for Piano Solo,

Richard Strauss: Elektra, Op. 58, TrV 223 (Recorded 1957) [L

United States Marine Band: Music of Richard Strauss

STRAUSS, R.: Daphne

Also available on Blu-ray

Richard Strauss’s last stage work is an opera about opera as an art form, depicting the creation of a music drama in a wise and witty way. Which came first – words or music? That is the question that Strauss and his librettist Clemens Krauss address through the story of a Countess torn between a composer and a poet. “Renée Fleming is a world-class Countess, moving and intense … All around her there is luxury casting: Bo Skovhus as the Count, Michael Schade as Flamand, Markus Eiche as Olivier, Kurt Rydl as the theatre director La Roche, the wonderful Angelika Kirchschlager as Clairon – all strike exactly the right note, as do the singers in the smaller roles, turning this Capriccio into an event of the first importance.” (Der Kurier, Vienna)

Subtitles: G, E, F, Sp, Kor, Jap, Chin
Booklet: E, G, F
No. of Discs: 2
Run time: 166 MINS
Picture: NTSC, 16:9
Audio: PCM Stereo, PCM 5.1

-----

REVIEW:

The greatest pleasure of the performance undoubtedly comes in the wonderful playing of the Staatsoper orchestra, the sweet, tender strings and the mellifluous horns in particular; and Christoph Eschenbach conducts a leisurely and loving account of Strauss's gorgeous score.

– MusicWeb International

Ondine is pleased to announce the new release of legendary Strauss-singer Soile Isokoski. A multiple award-winner, her recording of Strauss Four Last Songs won a Gramophone Award in 2002. The rarely recorded Three Hymns are coupled with opera arias from Ariadne auf Naxos, Der Rosenkavalier and Capriccio. All of those arias are part of Soile Isokoski's standard repertoire, performing those roles regularly at opera houses like Vienna State Opera, Covent Garden, and Milan’s La Scala.

This CD features Finnish star soprano Soile Isokoski and her longstanding duo partner Marita Viitasalo, piano, with a selection of Lieder by Richard Strauss. Soile Isokoski is hailed as one of the finest singers in the world whose recordings have been praised as top-choice and garnered the highest distinctions at the BBC Music Magazine Awards, Gramophone Awards and MIDEM Classical Awards.

Richard Strauss composed a career total of more than two hundred songs, most of them for a high female voice. The master repeatedlyw as inspired by sopranos, and the fact that he married one of these ladies, Pauline de Ahna, is proof of his intimate association with this wonderful art. Maria Bengtsson's fine selection from all his compositional periods demonstrates the versatility of Straussian composition, and in Sarah Tysman she has a piano partner whose subtle interpretations far transcend mere accompaniment. Commenting, illustrating, harmonizing- Strauss indeed assigns very important tasks to the piano. In "Morgen!" it is more the case that the voice accompanies the piano; thunder and storm are experienced in "Schlechtes Wetter"; and in "Standchen" we can even feel the youth's jittery nerves. The writer's shout verging on bitonality at the end of "Fur funfzehn Pfennige" shows what undiscovered possibilities lie in store in traditional harmony; of course, until the end of his long life, Strauss rejected all atonal advances. Maria Bengtsson meets these challenges with the natural magnificence of a virtuoso also schooled on Strauss's theatrical oeuvre. And her teamwork with Sarah Tysman can be experienced in impressive transparency above all in this meticulously produced album.

Also available on Blu-ray

The city of Dresden and the Staatskapelle Dresden have a special relation to Richard Strauss. Many of his compositions had their world premiere in Dresden and the composer dedicated his Alpine Symphony to its orchestra. The program on this DVD, led by Christian Thielemann, includes Strauss’s aforementioned Alpine Symphony as well as his Four Last Songs and Wolfgang Rihm’s Ernster Gesang, sung by soprano Anja Harteros, as well as the German premiere of the last completed Strauss song "Mallows" in an orchestral version, arranged specifically for Dresden by Mr. Rihm.

Classical Music

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)

Also available on Blu-ray

Richard Strauss
DER ROSENKAVALIER

Feldmarschallin - Krassimira Stoyanova Baron Ochs - Günther Groissböck
Octavian - Sophie Koch
Faninal - Adrian Eröd
Sophie - Mojca Erdmann
Leitmetzerin - Silvana Dussmann
Valzacchi - Rudolf Schasching
Annina - Wiebke Lehmkuhl
Sänger - Stefan Pop

Salzburg Festival Children’s Chorus
(chorus master: Wolfgang Götz)
Vienna State Opera Chorus
(chorus master: Ernst Raffelsberger)
Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra
Franz Welser-Möst, conductor

Harry Kupfer, stage director
Hans Schavernoch, set designer
Yan Tax, costume designer
Jürgen Hoffmann, lighting designer

Recorded live at the Großes Festspielhaus, Salzburg, 08–14 August 2014

Picture format: NTSC 16:9
Sound format: PCM Stereo / DTS 5.0
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Subtitles: English, German, French, Spanish, Chinese, Korean, Japanese Running time: 146 mins
No. of DVDs: 2 (DVD 9)

This Blu-ray Disc is only playable on Blu-ray Disc players and not compatible with standard DVD players.

Also available on standard DVD

Classical Music

DON JUAN

Although it plays second fiddle on the international stage to the universally popular operetta Die Fledermaus, the glorious musical score of Die Zigeunerbaron by Johann Strauss II (“The Waltz King”) is no less brilliant than his most famous work. Videoland, purveyor of the finest in filmed middle-European operetta, here offers up a performance of The Gypsy Baron staged during the 2011 Seefestspiele Moerbisch Austria Festival. Starring Daniel and Harald Serafin, Evelin Novak, Lucien Krasznec and Wolfgang Bankl, with legendary mezzo Brigitte Fassbaender in charge of production.

Hovhaness' admirers often tend to overlook the piano works in favour of his big orchestral statements. Nevertheless there's much to enjoy in these compact pieces which are here drawn from a wide time frame, spanning Op.36 to Op.390. The Twelve Armenian Folk Songs were composed around 1943 but not published until two decades later. The melodies are attractive in themselves but, more than that, they are most attractively played by Alessandra Pompili who shows a very strong affinity with all the music in this 52-minute disc. She plays the 'unfamiliar melodies' - in the composer's words - with simplicity and a real degree of affection in an acoustic that tends to the dry, though on balance I'd rather that than a billowing sound in these pieces.

Ghazal and Ghazal-Sufi date from 1938 and here the bass line underlies a weaving lyric right hand melody line. The former, which is the longer, has a tolling, melancholy-sounding motif whilst the latter is the more rarefied in expression. This is, it would seem the first ever recording of both pieces. Composed in 1959 whilst Hovhaness was in the Kashmir, Shalimar reflects his huge enthusiasm for Indian music. Formally, he introduced the idea of borders in this suite in an attempt to suggest the carpet-like designs of Moghul gardens. As much as rhythm drives this music, there is a huge amount of nature painting involved, the composer evoking the now-silent fountains through the memory of their music. Much is coolly flowing, beautifully expressive and often hypnotically rhythmic but there is also the Bachian element of the Third Interlude. Helpfully each incident - there are eight in all - is separately tracked.

The 'Cougar Mountain' Sonata, Op.390 dates from 1985 and returns to his love of nature - of vistas and expanse. As well as a slow opening movement there is a lament, a slumber song and, as finale, a dance. There are hints of Ravel in the early part of the sonata and the stomping dance with which the sonata ends certainly generates considerable dynamism. Its compact nature still allows a rich sense of characterization to emerge. The Fantasy, Op.15 - again this is a first recording - was written in 1938 but was later re-worked and absorbed into the Blue Job Mountain Sonata, Op.340. It's an unusually alternating work for Hovhaness, in which lyricism and percussiveness sit on opposite sides of the equation. Finally there is Dark River and Distant Bell which, with its oriental mood, was originally intended for harpsichord or clavichord. This is its first appearance on disc in piano guise.

Pompili, then, is a splendid young exponent of Hovhaness' music. That dry sound does help to clarify and centralize the piano writing without sounding off-puttingly objectified. Liner notes are in Italian and English and worth a detour, as indeed is this disarmingly well-played disc.

– MusicWeb International (Jonathan Woolf)

Premiered in Vienna for the celebration of his artistic golden jubilee in 1893, Strauss' Princess Ninetta enjoyed seventy-six performances and critical approval: "The libretto was a success in the true sense of the word.

Featuring: Marc Clear; Gideon Singer; Evelyn Schorkhuber; Anton Steingruber; Mirjana Irosch; Wilhelm Gartner; Ingrid Habermann; Christian Baumgartel; Markus Heinrich; Christine Bath; Chor und Statisterie der Seefestspiele Morbisch; Ballett der Seefestspiele Morbisch

Live performance from 1999
Language: German
Subtitles: English
Run Time: 126 minutes

Richard Strauss’s opera at the Salzburg Festival, staged by Romeo Castellucci at the Felsenreitschule, was nothing short of a sensation! Debuting in the title role, Asmik Grigorian propelled herself to international stardom with her mesmerizing singing and acting abilities. The exceptional soprano recently won the International Opera Award as best singer. To witness Maestro Franz Welser-Most performing together with the Wiener Philharmoniker and an outstanding cast “makes you think you are hearing the piece in its most perfect incarnation yet” (Financial Times). “Asmik Grigorian sweeps all in her wake in the title role of Strauss’s opera. […] Here is a Salome to end all Salomes. […] In total, it is stunning…" (Financial Times) “thrilling” (Spiegel Online) “A breathtakingly dense, musically epoch-making […] Salome, which brought the house down!” (Neue Zurcher Zeitung)

 

Richard Strauss summed up his two-act opera Intermezzo as a 'bourgeois comedy with symphonic interludes'. The soprano role of Christine with it's shimmering cantilenas represents Strauss's wife Pauline, while the successful Kapellmeister Robert Storch serves as Richard Strauss himself in a domestic drama that was avant-garde for it's time but now resonates with the accessibility of today's reality shows. This production from the Deutsche Oper Berlin was acclaimed for it's lush orchestral sound and superbly characterful cast led by a formidable central performance from Maria Bengtsson.

Classical Music

EIN HELDENLEBEN & TOD UND VERK

Just after the 150th anniversary of Richard Strauss's birth, CPO are releasing a concert performance of his rarely performed sung poem "Feuersnot" under the baton of Ulf Schirmer. The satirist Ernst von Wolzogen, who wrote the libretto for this "Bavarian burlesque" founded the first literary cabaret in Berlin, the Ueberbrettl.