(Credit: Julia Wesely) After a performance of “Elektra” on August 17, 2020, conductor Franz Welser-Möst was awarded with the Ruby Festival Brooch at the Salzburg Festival. The award was presented to the conductor on his 60th birthday by Salzburg Festival President Helga Rabl-Stadler. Welser-Möst made his debut with the Festival back on August 29, 1985 in a concert featuring works by {…}
(Credit: Salzburg Festival / Bernd Uhlig) Entering the dark Felsenreitschule hall of the Salzburg Festival, carved into the rock of a mountain, you feel uncomfortably crammed inside the mountain – in a terribly unfamiliar space that hides something in the distance of the stage. So far you can’t see or hear anything but in the air, you feel uncertainty, tension, {…}
We are deep into the summer, but opera has not stopped. We are getting live performances throughout Europe and still getting full slates of online opera offerings. So for this week’s recommendations, we are looking at a wide range of options, including a few classic works, a recital from two major opera stars, and a lot of new operas. As {…}
(Credit: Dario Acosta NY) German mezzo-soprano Tanja Ariane Baumgartner is one of the most sought-after opera singers of our time. Baumgartner has been a member of the ensemble at Oper Frankfurt since the 2009-10 season. During her time in Frankfurt, Tanja Baumgartner made appearances in numerous operas including “Carmen,” “Giulio Cesare in Egitto,” “Don Carlo,” “Medea,” “Die Frau ohne Schatten,” {…}
(Credit: Anne Zeuner / Salzburg Festival) Strauss’ opera “Elektra” will open this year’s Festival in Salzburg, in quite unique circumstances due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Conductor Franz Welser-Möst and stage director Krzysztof Warlikowski discussed their views of the production in a recent press release from the Salzburg Festival. “The danger of becoming inebriated with the opulence of sound and losing {…}
(Credit: Official Website Aušrinė Stundytė / P Gasiunas) The Salzburg Festival has announced that it will record its production of Strauss’ “Elektra“ via ORF, 3sat, ZDF/ARTE and UNITEL in collaboration with the Vienna Philharmonic and the Salzburg Festival and will be broadcast as followed. The company will then stream the production over the course of several days via some a {…}
(Credit: Ruth Waltz) The Salzburg Festival is set to open this week in a reduced edition with various concerts and two new operas including R.Strauss’ “Elektra.” The new production will be headlined by an all-star cast that includes rising star Asmik Grigorian in the role of Chrysothemis. The new production will mark the soprano’s third appearance at the festival following {…}
The Royal Opera House continues its #OurHouseToYourHouse program with a screening of ZooNation’s family-friendly “The Mad Hatter’s Tea Party” on Friday, July 31 at 7:00 p.m. BST. ZooNation: The Kate Prince Company, a British hip-hop influenced dance company, reimagines Lewis Carroll’s classic tale with a 21st-century twist, zeroing in on perceptions of mental illness and the concept of “normality.” ZooNation {…}
(Credit: Ken Howard) The Metropolitan Opera has unveiled week 6 of its streaming service which features an all-star gala and six operas with such stars as Sonya Yoncheva, Anna Netrebko, Nina Stemme, Renée Fleming, Natalie Dessay, Joyce DiDonato, and Juan Diego Flórez, among others. Here is a breakdown. Monday, April 20 – Strauss’s Elektra Starring Nina Stemme, Adrianne Pieczonka, Waltraud Meier, {…}
(Credit: Lynn Lane) The Vienna State Opera will live stream R. Strauss and Hofmannsthal’s “Elektra” on Feb. 15, 2020. The opera will star Christine Goerke in the title role with Waltraud Meier as her mother Klytämnestra, Simone Schneider as Chrysothemis, Norbert Ernst as Aegisth, and Michael Volle as Orest. Semyon Bychkov will conduct with Uew Eric Laufenberg directing. The stream {…}
(Credit: Miguel Lorenzo / Mikel Ponce) Richard Strauss’ “Elektra,” one of the most audacious and darkest operas in the entire repertory, is a massive undertaking for any opera company. In the case of the Palau de Les Arts, the Robert Carsen production of the gripping opera was presented with great intensity further amplified by the appearance of Irene Theorin in {…}