More Must-See Medici.TV (Mozart and Beethoven)

Tristan and Luca

Luca Pisaroni as the Count in Le Nozze di Figaro. Do I really need to say more? 

The performances are quite good, and I really dig the Upstairs/
Downstairs theme (and set.) Having the Count, Countess, Figaro and Susanna all about the same age also makes sense. I am not sure I like seeing Luca as a bad guy. I mean he does it well, playing a textbook abusive husband, alternately loving and threatening. But, well...Luca's such a nice guy, I think he should always be the hero! The whole cast is pretty impressive*, including Zurich stalwart Martina Janková as Susanna, and Anett Fritsch (a cool Donna Elvira last season), and Adam Plachetka as Figaro. ...and the rest! Anyway, watch it while you can. 

Mozart: Le Nozze di Figaro – Dan Ettinger, Sven-Eric Bechtolf – Salzburg Festival on medici.tv.

*including a furry cameo by Luca's doxy Tristan as, appropriately, the Count's Dog. I am still waiting to see Lenny get a juicy opera role. 

While you're hanging out at medici.tv, be sure to watch the new Claus Guth production of Fidelio with Jonas Kaufmann and Adrianne Pieczonka. I’ve seen only a brief excerpt so far. But it looks pretty good. I mean, it's Claus Guth...and of course, there's JK and AP! (It also has dancer Paul Lorenger, and sign language artist Nadia Kichler who both appeared in Guth’s amazing staging of Handel’s Messiah.)

Fidelio: Beethoven – Claus Guth, Franz Welser­-Möst – Salzburg Festival – With Jonas Kaufmann on medici.tv.

Having missed all but Act 1 of Carmen, and barely catching the Bayerische Staatsoper Lulu** before it went off the web***, I am pledging to myself to re-watch Nozze and watch Fidelio from beginning to end before they disappear!!

**Marlis Peterson is amazing as Lulu. I thought Tcherniakov’s production was illuminating—in Acts 1 and 2. Act 3 seems to be a stumbling block for many directors. But MP is amazing—really the whole cast is impressive. If it turns up—ahem—elsewhere, do take time to watch it. I am looking forward to hearing MP in the new Met production. Speaking of Lulu at the Met, there is a really good article/appreciation of this opera in the latest issue of Opera News. Lulu (like Wozzeck, I guess, but I am not as big a fan) provides new insights (to the music and to the characters) with multiple hearings. 

***I left the browser window open for the past few days, and still was able to watch Act 3 today, even though technically it was no longer available.

Opera from Salzburg (and beyond) on Medici.TV

I tuned in to medici.tv this afternoon just in time to see the curtain calls (live) for Il Trovatore. But not to worry, it will be available in archive very soon. Some additional exciting opera performances from the Salzburger Festspiele are (or will be) on medici.tv this month. And they feature some of our favorite singers, including DR, LP, and MS.

I like what I've seen/heard so far of Don G. First of all, any production with Brando and Luca is going to look and sound good. And when Donna Elvira enters a muddy, torn wedding gown, immediately heads for the bar, skips the glass and goes straight for the bottle, you know it's going to be an interesting ride! (Not to mention Anna poking Ottavio in the chest with the knife that offed her father...she seemed to actually be holding the knife (trying to get it away from DG) when it killed her dad. I am interested to see where they go with that!)


Mozart: Don Giovanni

Lenneke Ruiten (Donna Anna) 

Anett Fritsch (Donna Elvira) 
Valentina Nafornita (Zerlina) 
Ildebrando D’Arcangelo (Don Giovanni) 
Luca Pisaroni (Leporello) 
Tomasz Konieczny (Il Commendatore) 
Andrew Staples (Don Ottavio) 
Alessio Arduini (Masetto)

Sommerakademie of the Vienna Philharmonic 
Philharmonia Chor Wien 
Wiener Philharmoniker 

Christoph Eschenbach conductor
Sven-Eric Bechtolf stage director
Rolf Glittenberg set designer
Marianne Glittenberg costumes
Friedrich Rom lighting
Ronny Dietrich dramaturgy
Walter Zeh chorus master

Verdi: Il Trovatore

Anna Netrebko (Leonora) 

Marie-Nicole Lemieux (Azucena) 
Diana Haller member of the young singers project (Ines) 
Francesco Meli (Manrico) 
Plácido Domingo (Count di Luna) 
Riccardo Zanellato (Ferrando) 
Gerard Schneider member of the young singers project (Ruiz) 
Miloš Bulajić member of the young singers project (A Messenger) 
Raimundas Juzuitis member of the young singers project (An Old Gypsy)

Members of the Angelika Prokopp Sommerakademie of the Vienna Philharmonic 
Concert Association of the Vienna State Opera Chorus 
Wiener Philharmoniker

Daniele Gatti conductor 

Alvis Hermanis stage director, set designer
Eva Dessecker costumes
Gleb Filshtinsky lightings
Ineta Sipunova video
Gudrun Hartmann associate director
Uta Gruber-Ballehr associate set designer
Ronny Dietrich dramaturgy
Ernst Raffelsberger chorus master

And Coming Soon:

Schubert: Fierrabras

Broadcast date : Aug. 25, 2014, 1 p.m. EST

Julia Kleiter (Emma)
Dorothea Röschmann (Florinda)
Marie-Claude Chappuis (Maragond)
Michael Schade (Fierrabras)
Georg Zeppenfeld (King Karl)
Markus Werba (Roland)
Benjamin Bernheim (Eginhard)
Peter Kálmán (Boland)

Members of the Angelika Prokopp 
Sommerakademie of the Vienna Philharmonic
Wiener Philharmoniker 

Ingo Metzmacher conductor 

Peter Stein stage director
Ferdinand Wögerbauer set designer
Annamaria Heinreich costumes
Joachim Barth lighting
Ernst Raffelsberger chorus master

This Just in from Switzerland:

There's also a quite nice concert performance of  Beethoven's Fidelio from the Verbier Festival. Nicely sung, and OKly acted. The singers did their best, I guess, but it looks like, with a little stage direction, they could have done so much more with the drama. I'd love to see a stage director have a bit of input in concert performances of opera. Although EN seems to be the biggest name there, I thought he was well outshone by Messers Gleadow and Jovanovich (hooray for North American singers) and Frau Brimberg (another exciting sound from Sweden.) The ingenues, the phantom baritone (Don F.), and M. Minkowski all did a great job, too. 

Ingela Brimberg (Leonore)
Brandon Jovanovich (Florestan)
Evgeny Nikitin (Don Pizarro)
Robert Gleadow (Rocco)
Sylvia Schwartz (Marzelline)
Bernard Richter (Jaquino)
Charles Dekeyser (Don Fernando)

Collegiate Chorale 
Verbier Festival Chamber Orchestra 
Marc Minkowski conductor 

200th Anniversary of the Premier of the Final Version of Fidelio

Knowing how persnickety Beethoven was, and how many permutations his poor opera went through, it’s surprising that anyone was able to determine an actual date of an actual premier of an actual final version. 

Be that as it may, Chris Tina Tengel figured it out, and presented an edition of Stimmen Hören on Fidelio and a few other Beethoven works. The 90-minute program features a multitude of singers, including Theo Adam, Sena Jurianc, Rose Pauly (the most celebrated Elektra of the 1930s), James King, Wolfgang Windgassen, Jessye Norman, and Helge Rosvaenge, to name a few.

The program was broadcast yesterday, so we have about six more days to listen. O namenlose freude!

Tribute to Maestro Claudio Abbado from France Musique

Last week's edition of the France Musique radio program Lirico Spinto is a 90-minute tribute to Claudio Abbado's work in the opera house.

Even if you have heard and/or have most or all of Abbado's opera recordings for Decca and Deutsche Grammophon, there's some great listening here. Excerpts from commercial releases include the entire Act 1 Finale of  Die Zauberflöte, and the Act 2 Finale of Fidelio. In addition, there are bits from live La Scala performances of Macbeth, Aida, and Boris Godounov. The Aida excerpt (from 1972) features Domingo and Arroyo; and it is particularly exciting!

In addition to the radio program listings, the web page contains embedded full-length videos (as seen on YT) of:

• Macbeth
• Il Viaggio a Reims
• Lohengrin
• Don Giovanni

It looks like this audio program will be available for two years (but my French comprehension is neither strong nor reliable.) Just in case the website is wrong (or I am), go listen ASAP!