The Staatskapelle Dresden have arranged a memorial concert to honour the late Sir Colin Davis, their conductor laureate. On 9 May, Sir Colin's protege Robin Ticciati will conduct an apposite selection of Elgar, Berlioz and Mozart.
All tickets are free.
Although a number of UK concerts have been or will be dedicated to Sir Colin, no equivalent event has as yet been announced in the country of his birth, residence and career.
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Dresden Semperoper are expected to announce soon that Lyon's Serge Dorny will take over as Intendant in 2015. The position has been vacant for over a year while Dresden searched for someone to match the skills, ambition and vision of the late Ulrike Hessler. Have they found their man in the London Philharmonic Orchestra's former chief executive and artistic director?
Dorny is widely credited with turning Lyon into France's most exciting opera house. A quarter of the audience are under-25, and thanks to a bold box office initiative which raised top prices by 50% while reducing the cheapest tickets to as little as €5, Lyon has hit average 96% occupancy (ENO take note).
On top of his financial and access achievements, the former assistant to Gerard Mortier maintains a strong artistic focus in Lyon, nurturing François Girard's recent Met Parsifal amongst other highly-praised productions. He was widely tipped for the Paris job eventually nabbed by Stéphane Lissner, and some thought he might be on his way to Berlin's Staatsoper. But it looks like Dresden got there first.
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Staatskapelle Dresden/Christian Thielemann - Großes Festspielhaus Salzburg, 29 March - 1 April 2013
The shadow of Herbert von Karajan still hangs over Salzburg. Nowhere more creepily than in this souvenir shop window.
After Simon Rattle's mildly experimental stewardship (by Salzburg standards), the Easter Festival baton passed this year to Christian Thielemann, who seems keener to preserve Karajan's tradition of tradition. 2013 focused on three big guns - Beethoven, Brahms and Wagner.
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In Berlin, the Staatsoper renovations are running three years late (and counting). In Bayreuth, in anniversary year, Wahnfried is closed for building work and the Festspielhaus is covered in scaffolding. I can also report that, contrary to myth, German trains rarely run on time.
Leave it to Dresden to uphold Germany's reputation for efficiency. The new Wagner museum in the suburb of Graupa opened according to schedule earlier this year, and it's managed to do much with few resources.
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An awkward alcove has been turned into a place of pilgrimage at Dresden Semperoper. To celebrate Wagner's bicentennial, a corner at the end of the upstairs foyer has been fitted out with six new plush seats. Each has a shiny brass plaque naming one of the composer's operas - and more importantly a set of headphones, on which you can listen to extracts from Staatskapelle Dresden recordings.
While I was there, everyone was doing the very German thing of ignoring the whole set up entirely - until one brave person sat down and plugged in, that is. Swiftly followed by a rush for the remaining seats and an orderly queue for the leftovers.
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Orlando - Semperoper Dresden, 3 March 2013
Since Fabio Luisi abandoned ship three years ago, Dresden Semperoper has been without a music director. (Christian Thielemann is chief conductor of the Staatskapelle orchestra, a position technically without opera or management responsibilities). And for more than a year there’s been no artistic director either; when the late Ulrike Hessler’s illness became serious, her place as Intendant was ‘temporarily’ filled by the commercial director, a position he still holds.
This artistic management void must go some way toward explaining the colossal balls-up that is Dresden’s new production of Handel’s Orlando. Its only redeeming quality is the touching commitment of the performers.
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You don't expect to find Christian Thielemann, guardian of alles that is deutsche, conducting Puccini. But Manon Lescaut is what he picked for his first new opera production since taking the Dresden reins, in the Stefan Herheim staging first seen in Graz.
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They smell like toilet cleaner so I wouldn't want to guess what they taste like, but the free cough sweets provided by Dresden Semperoper - help yourself, no questions asked - are surprisingly popular. They don't quite ensure a silent house, but the furtive rustle of waxed paper beats a barrage of hacking any day.
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Die Zauberflöte - Semperoper Dresden, 1 March 2013
Imagine genetically-modified Teletubbies frolicking in a giant children's colouring -book, and you've got Achim Freyer's Dresden Zauberflöte, revived for what must be about the 100th time. Originally seen at the Schwetzinger Festspiele, it's the designer/director's third production of the opera closest to his heart, though you'd be hard-pushed to find much difference between each one.
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Dresden's 2013 - 14 season is now available for inspection on their website (no fancy launches for the sensible Saxons).
The highlight has to be a new Elektra, directed by Barbara Frey, in January. Christian Thielemann conducts a dream cast - Evelyn Herlitzius, Anne Schwanewilms, Waltraud Meier and Rene Pape.
It's part of a Richard Strauss season that includes early rarities Guntram (in concert) and Feuersnot (staged outdoors in the palace courtyard). There are revivals of Rosenkavalier (conducted by Thielemann), Ariadne auf Naxos and Salome, and the Staatskapelle Dresden are joining in the celebrations with a series of Strauss concerts.
Thielemann also conducts a new Simon Boccanegra, with a cast including Zeljko Lucic, Kwangchul Youn, Maria Agresta and Ramon Vargas. Other new productions include Purcell's King Arthur, Carmen, and Cosi fan tutte.
Since the direct flights from London were withdrawn, Dresden is no longer easy to visit for the odd night. But, as ever, just about every well-known opera you could name is revived at some point during the Semperoper's long season, so with a little planning, a long weekend is feasible.
***UPDATE*** I have been informed that Air France are starting a daily service to Dresden from City Airport, beginning on 28 March. Let's see if they last any longer than the previous operators.
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It's fair to say orchestra director Jan Nast is pretty excited about Christian Thielemann taking the reins as principal conductor of the Staatskapelle Dresden. Just look at the slogan on the Staatskapelle's website (above). Not to mention the 'Arrived' posters he's had plastered over Dresden bus stops (below).
Continue reading "Shall I compare thee to a microchip plant?" »
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As Christian Thielemann prepares to take the reins of the Staatskapelle Dresden, the Semperoper today unveiled their strongest season in years.
The 31 operas on the 2012-13 calendar include 9 premieres. Most eagerly awaited will be Manon Lescaut, conducted by Thielemann and directed by Stefan Herheim.
Andreas Kriegenburg (of new Munich Ring notoriety) directs Handel's Orlando, and Wieler and Morabito tackle La juive. For Hans Werner Henze, a composer long associated with the house, there are new productions of Wir erreichen den Fluss and El cimarrón.
Der fliegende Holländer, Idomeneo, Das geheime Königreich by Ernst Křenek and Dorina e Nibbio by Domenico Sarro (updated by Lucia Ronchetti) complete the list of premieres. There's also a concert version of Spontini's La vestale.
Prominent among the many revivals is Der Rosenkavalier, conducted by Christian Thielemann. Soile Isokoski/Anne Schanewilms, Daniela Sindram/Elina Garanca and Joseph Calleja join a starrier than usual cast for the Semperoper (who rely mostly on their own ensemble). Thielemann is also down for Lohengrin with Robert Dean Smith, Soile Isokoski and Wolfgang Koch.
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"Too much sex" was the verdict of Lisa (16) on Berg's opera about, er, sex.
Lisa was one of fifty one 16 to 17 year old students invited by the Semper Oper to view Stefan Herheim's Lulu in an attempt to renew the audience (current average age = 55).
Instead of the schools matinees we get in London, Intendant Dr Ulrike Hessler gave the Dresden students the best seats in the house together with five weeks of study classes on the basis that "We must think about the future!" And it seems to have worked - none of them left in the breaks of the four hour show, all applauded, and despite Lisa's reservations, she said she'll definitely visit the opera again.
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For the second year in a row, the Dresden Staatskapelle have won the New Year's Eve TV ratings war against the Berlin Philharmonic.
The much-criticised decision of broadcasters ZDF and ARD to air their classical offerings in direct competition with each other didn't deter more than 2 million viewers from tuning in to the early evening slot. 1.22 million (5.8% of the total) went for Dresden on ZDF and just 980,000 for Berlin on ARD. Impressive though they are, these figures represent a small drop from last year's 1.67 million and 1.19 million.
After the late withdrawal of Anna Netrebko and Erwin Schrott, Dresden fielded Angela Denoke, Piotr Beczala and Ana Maria Labin. Their all-Lehár programme under the baton of Christian Thielemann was clearly calculated to capture the Andre Rieu audience.
Simon Rattle's Berlin choice was only marginally more cerebral, with Evgeny Kissin's Grieg concerto nestling amongst toe-tapping dances by the likes of Dvořák, Stravinsky and Richard Strauss.
You can watch the whole Berlin Philharmonic concert free for a limited period on Medici TV.
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Anna Netrebko and Erwin Schrott have withdrawn from their long-booked 2011 New Year's Eve and 30 December concerts at Dresden Semperoper, citing insufficient preparation time.
Having successfully stepped into last year's Dresden concerts with less than a week's notice, the excuse is an unexpected one.
They apparently hope the programme of of Franz Lehar operetta highlights can be rescheduled at a later date. That's a grain of comfort to ticket holders for the long sold out shows.
But the solution won't help the ZDF channel. They're due to broadcast the New Year's Eve concert in fierce competition with rivals ARD, who've snaffled the Berlin Phil. It's not clear at this stage whether ZDF had finalised contractual arrangements with Netrebko and Schrott.
Their replacements are Angela Denoke and Ana Maria Labin.
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The audience didn't seem to care much for the way the Staatskapelle Dresden played the opening number of their weekend concert, Busoni's Nocturne symphonique, granting it only tepid applause.
Neither it seems did conductor Christian Thielemann, who turned round and addressed them.
"You need to get exactly the right mood for this piece. It is one of the greatest works, so we will allow ourselves to simply play it again".
And so they did. This time round, reports Musik in Dresden, a more forceful approach created the right sort of nocturnal mood for the 8 minute starter. Followed by enthusiastic applause.
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Photo: © Siegfried Lauterwasser; Karajan Archiv
Salzburg Easter Festival have released initial programming details for 2013, when Christian Thielemann takes over as Artistic Director.
Parsifal will be directed by Michael Schulz, and the cast will include Johan Botha, Stephen Milling and Wolfgang Koch. Myung-Whun Chung will conduct one concert, and Evgeny Kissin will also appear. Big names go some way towards justifying high ticket prices, and so one Easter Festival tradition that appears unlikely to change is the starriness of its guest list.
Another help is the collaboration with the Staatskapelle Dresden, which has opened a useful cost-saving door for the Festival. Operas from 2013 onwards will be co-produced by Dresden Semperoper, where they will appear at a later date.
The spookily prescient photo above comes from the Festival website. Taken in 1982, shows Christian Thielemann (obvs in his Style Council phase) sitting next to the Festival's founder, Karajan, with the current Festival manager, Peter Alward, standing behind them.
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As widely predicted, Christian Thielemann and the Staatskapelle Dresden will be taking over the Berlin Philharmonic's Salzburg Easter Festival duties from 2013. The first year's opera will be Parsifal, to be followed by Arabella in 2014. The appointment runs to at least 2017.
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Rusalka - Semperoper Dresden, 17 May 2011
There’s no such thing as an innocent myth - it’s impossible to present Rusalka to a modern, thinking audience as your everyday interspecies romance. In Munich, Martin Kušej recently plunged his fork into the rampant misogyny beneath the opera’s sparkling surface with a dead deer-garnished tale of child abuse.
Stefan Herheim instead chooses to slither around it and examine the consequences of male desire from the guy's perspective. Setting the abused and silenced Rusalka to one side, his story is centred on the Waterman. Clever or cowardly? A few thigh boots, bouncy sex dolls, British bobbies and dancing kids in fish suits later it's easy to forget the question.
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