Tea at Five with Wotan and friends

Season opener at La Scala season will be the first Ring opera Die Walküre (Rheingold is only a prologue).
This joint new production of La Scala and Staatsoper in Berlin will be directed by Guy Cassiers and conducted by Daniel Barenboim, and it will be premiered on Tuesday, December 7 starting at 5 p.m. (cet). The show will be live broadcast to many cinemas around the world, but also via ever more cool Mezzo-TV.

Nina Stemme (Brünnhilde) and Vitalij Kowaljow (Wotan)

While waiting to see this fantastic cast* in action (in an interesting production too!) you can follow the rehearsal vlog this link.


*Siegmund - Simon O’Neill, Hunding - John Tomlinson, Wotan - Vitalij Kowaljow, Sieglinde - Waltraud Meier, Brünnhilde - Nina Stemme, Fricka - Ekaterina Gubanova


UPDATES: 

(Dec 3) 

Simon O'Neill is apparently ill. Frank van Aken is covering for him. Alas,  during the stage rehearsal last Wednesday Frank fainted.  Wishing the best to Frank and to the whole production team!

(Dec 4)

1. Photos of the show taken during dress rehearsals added below [all photos ©AP]

2. Live radio broadcast will be provided by Rai-3 on this link, France Musique on this link...

The best Wagnerian conductor of our time?

You may have already realized that I'm not into old recordings and stuff remastered beyond recognition. To me the audio recordings are there like old photos -- to bring back the memories of the most memorable shows I've seen.

With Wagner's operas the story is a little different.  Not that I indulge myself into listening to hundreds of hours of old recordings, but because it is interesting to figure out the evolution of styles and approaches to conducting this music over the past 5-6 decades. Once you do that exercise you soon realize the difficulties today's conductors conducting Wagner's music encounter in preparing their performance: they should make their sound 'right' yet refreshing, deliver a distinguishable sound with peculiar timings, and display a profound understanding of the score.

Of all the active conductors, Daniel Barenboim comes on the top. He was the only one able to make that special moment to happen to me, when music almost materializes and detaches from the orchestra. It happens with his Staatskapelle and only sometimes, but when it happens it's the sound that marks you for life.  All Wagner operas conducted by Barenboim are special to me, but his Tristan is likely to remain unbeatable for a long-long time.

Second best to me is Hartmut Haenchen. This year I listened to his Flying Dutchman in Amsterdam and it was magnificent. His Parsifal in Paris --a couple of years ago-- remains an unforgettable musical shock. His Ring, that you can find on DVD, is brilliant as well.

Then comes Christian Thielemann, whose Ring is really special. His Parsifal was interesting too but  not as brilliant as Haenchen's, or even Gatti's or Honeck's. 

Heppnered Lohengrin at Deutsche Oper Berlin

Friday, January 29 2010
Going to Deutsche Oper Berlin (DOB), I felt I was lucky to have a ticket for this ausverkauft and very starry night of Lohengrin :

Lohengrin - Ben Heppner

Elsa- Ricarda Merbeth

Ortrud - Waltraud Meier

Telramund - Eike Wilm Schulte

Heinrich - Kristinn Sigmundsson

King's Herals - Anton Keremidtchiev 

Director - Goetz Friedrich

Conductor - Michael Schonwandt

 

In spite of the very snowy weather, freezing cold and ice on the pavements surrounding DOB, the theater was packed for the opening of the new run of Lohengrin.

Personally I was mostly interested in the DOB chorus, and maestro Michael Schønwandt (whose Copenhagen Ring I tenderly loved), but I think most of the opera-goers were answering to the buzz the PR staff generated about Ben Heppner (many interviews in the daily newspapers; plus huge posters "big voices return to Berlin") and about Waltraud Meier -who doesn't sing that often at DOB- who the Germans simply love.