Anna Netrebko, Dresden's cover girl

 
Semperoper Dresden, 28 December 2010

German TV's big New Year's Eve event is the annual concert on the ZDF channel. For many years it was the preserve of the Berlin Philharmonic. But their escalating pay demands led to the baton being passed this year to the less financially-demanding Staatskapelle Dresden.

The change has not exactly gone smoothly. First, when Dresden's then-music director Fabio Luisi discovered ZDF wanted future (from 2012) director Christian Thielemann to conduct the concert, he resigned in a fit of pique.

Then a few weeks ago Thomas Hampson dropped out, unable to fit initial rehearsals into his schedule. That left Renee Fleming, pencilled in to sing extracts from Die lustige Witwe with Hampson's replacement Christopher Maltman. But the Beautiful Voice has been trapped all week in the New York snow, leaving her unable to fly to Germany for rehearsals.

Fortunately, Anna Netrebko has agreed to step in to the final rehearsal at the last minute - together with bonus hawtness in the form of hubby Erwin Schrott.

It's a blessing for all concerned. Netrebko and Schrott together are the biggest deal going in the German-speaking world. She and Thielemann have reputedly wanted to work with each other for some time. You know she's going to whip off her shoes and twirl around the stage, and isn't that what New Year's Eve should be all about?

The plan is that Netrebko and Schrott will sing at the dress rehearsal today, 30 December. This show will be filmed and extracts will be shown during the live broadcast tomorrow, which will feature Fleming and Maltman as planned. Will the two divas be held in separate cages until filming is over? Let's just say I can't find one single photo of them together.

The arrangement allows busy Netrebko and Schrott to fit in their appearance as the 'surprise' guests in the Vienna Staatsoper's Die Fledermaus, broadcast live on New Year's Eve.

The last minute switch will undoubtedly help ZDF in the ratings war against the ARD network. They're pitching in to the crowded New Year's Eve market for the first time just a few minutes apart in a crazy schedule clash. ARD are going with the tried-and-tested Berliner Philharmoniker and the more experimental choice of Gustavo Dudamel (no, not Herr Rattle as has been reported elsewhere).

Who will win? 

Not the German licence payer, who's financing both, but will only be able to watch one.

Comments

[Neil Headley]

Interesting news, but there is no scheduled listing of Austrian TV showing a live performance of "Die Fledermaus" on New Year's Eve. (They are showing the old 1962 film in the afternoon). Even so, I will have my videos set to capture both the ARD Berlin and the ZDF Dresden concerts. And don't forget ARD is also showing the New Years's concert with Jonas Kaufmann from Baden Baden on 1 January.

[marcillac]

Damn Mezzo!!

Even a bit of a throwdown between Trebs/Renee/Garanca. Throw in some Schrott/Maltman and be have the makings of the odd DonG/Figaro expert - trans time/space/orchestra/of course. What fun? Of course we on this side of the pond won't have direct access but will be able to console ourselves with a sufficiently compelling Bowl Schedule.

(Incidentally, we attended Sir Simon and Lady Rattles current activities in New York last week and found the proceedings interesting but on the whole rather overrated and a tad boring.

[Steven Rowland]

Apologies for the epic-scale URL, but there is a picture of Fleming and Netrebko together. And they're with Messrs Domingo and Gergiev for good measure!

http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://www.panachemag.com/Web/BeSeen/WhiteNights/images/wn1_01.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.panachemag.com/web/beseen/whitenights/whitenights.asp&usg=__vBMWdOAxvwNVLFQy7mV4Kpd3KV8=&h=194&w=267&sz=18&hl=en&start=1&zoom=1&um=1&itbs=1&tbnid=UzOxBojG11S8pM:&tbnh=82&tbnw=113&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dfleming%2Bnetrebko%2Bdomingo%2Bgergiev%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dsafari%26sa%3DN%26rls%3Den-us%26tbs%3Disch:1">http://www.panachemag.com/Web/BeSeen/WhiteNights/images/wn1_01.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.panachemag.com/web/beseen/whitenights/whitenights.asp&usg=__vBMWdOAxvwNVLFQy7mV4Kpd3KV8=&h=194&w=267&sz=18&hl=en&start=1&zoom=1&um=1&itbs=1&tbnid=UzOxBojG11S8pM:&tbnh=82&tbnw=113&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dfleming%2Bnetrebko%2Bdomingo%2Bgergiev%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dsafari%26sa%3DN%26rls%3Den-us%26tbs%3Disch:1">http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://www.panachemag.com/Web/BeSeen/WhiteNights/images/wn1_01.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.panachemag.com/web/beseen/whitenights/whitenights.asp&usg=__vBMWdOAxvwNVLFQy7mV4Kpd3KV8=&h=194&w=267&sz=18&hl=en&start=1&zoom=1&um=1&itbs=1&tbnid=UzOxBojG11S8pM:&tbnh=82&tbnw=113&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dfleming%2Bnetrebko%2Bdomingo%2Bgergiev%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dsafari%26sa%3DN%26rls%3Den-us%26tbs%3Disch:1

[Christy]

Looking forward to seeing this - the 31st concert is scheduled for a DVD release. Netrebko apparently didn't sing anything from Merry Widow, which was the original program and which Renee will sing.

Anyone seen any reviews of Trebs?

BTW, Austria's Festspiele Magazin released their 2010 rankings, placing Fleming first and Netrebko second - as Renee's website nicely tells us. :) Fleming's been all over Germany, Scandinavia, etc. this year.

http://www.reneefleming.com/img/buzz/FM_Ranking2010.pdf

[Helen Baumer]

Unfortunately, Jonas Kaufmann cannot appear in the New Year's concert from Baden-Baden on ARD since he is unwell. His duet partner, Anja Harteros, will be singing the concert alone. I, for one, wish him "Gute Besserung"!

[Lauren]

As one of those frustrated licence payers, tell me about it! I'm typing this as I'm channel surfing, Idiotic programming, and I don't have any way to record one of the concerts.

Thus far, Dresden has the better scenery.(It looks like they've gone for some sort of budget version of the Vienna Phil's New Year's Day flowers in Berlin - not a good look.) Something dodgy about Dresden lighting - it looks even yellower than all the gold paint in the Semperoper can account for.

I can't quite get over Thielemann conducting more light-hearted music, but he's fond of it according to a radio interview (see below) this morning, and I do concede it's well-suited to NYE. Dudamel's getting some nice sounds out of the Berliners, but needs a haircut!

Update: Spanish encores in Berlin; I like Maltmann more than Fleming (funny facial expressions) in Dresden.

Wait - blerk - Fleming's doing "I feel pretty". I'm going with Garanca in Berlin.

(BTW, same NDR radio programme mentioned earlier also said that the previous Berlin-ZDF contract was actually negotiated back in the Karajan days.)

Helen, thanks for the info re: the Baden-Baden concert. Now, will I tune in without Jonas?

[L]

We were fortunate to see both performances on 30 and 31 so it was a bonus to see Anna & Erwin - they were incredibly cute together on stage and both Anna and Erwin sounded absolutely amazing. The actual substitute for Renee in the Merry Widow part was really good so that again was a bonus if you were fortunate enought to be able to see both performances and quite frankly if you only saw it on the 30th, I would say Renee was not in top form on the 31st and the substitute was actually better - we are Renne fans but she was not at her best on the 31st.