Performances to Stream August 5-6, 2023
This weekend brings us performances from Vienna, Auckland, London, Lyon, Cesu, Salzburg, and Ansbach
Ludwig van Beethoven’s Fidelio from Auckland Live on Radio New Zealand Concert
Beethoven was a notorious perfectionist with his compositions. Many of his works (if not all of them) underwent revisions before becoming codified in the musical canon, and even today we have different versions of works from which to choose for historically informed performances. Beethoven’s only opera, however, is one of the most famous versions of this with no fewer than three separate revisions (and four different overtures!) between 1804 and 1814. Modern audiences generally hear the latest revisions with the various overtures Beethoven composed between scenes or as music in the concert hall. Previous versions from 1805 and 1806 are also occasionally heard under the original title Beethoven wanted, which was Leonore, but this title was eventually substituted by Fidelio in early performances to avoid confusion with near contemporary works of the same Leonore title. When Beethoven finally finished the work, he decided he had suffered enough to compose an opera despite initially being quite drawn to the process and never composed again for the opera stage. The work achieved moderate success during his lifetime. The premise for the story is that a woman, Leonore disguises herself as a man to enter the prison where her husband, Florestan, is held as a political prisoner. Pizarro, who controls the prison where Florestan is held, attempts to murder Florestan, but Leonore reveals herself and intervenes between her husband and his attempted assassin brandishing a gun. Pizarro is found out, and the minister Don Fernando takes him away for prosecution and punishment while the husband and wife are reunited in freedom.
The cast for this performance is Kirstin Sharpin as Leonore, Simon O'Neill as Florestan, Phillip Rhodes as Don Pizarro, Paul Whelan as Rocco, Natasha Wilson as Marzelline, Oliver Sewell as Jaquino, and James Ioelu as Don Fernando. Giordano Bellincampi conducts this performance from May 8, 2021. This broadcast will air at 7:00 AM GMT on Saturday, August 5, 2023, on Radio New Zealand Concert’s The Opera Season. It will not be available for future listening.
Richard Wagner’s Siegfried from the Cesis Concert Hall on Radio 3 Klasika
We certainly have heard a great deal of the Ring this year in many corners of Europe! As I seem to share a synopsis of these operas weekly, today’s synopsis coverage will be brief. Siegfried depicts the title character’s ascension to adulthood and foreshadows the ‘death of the gods’ in the final opera of the series. Siegfried, son of Brünnhilde and Siegmund, forges a new sword from the shards of Nothung, he kills the giant Fafner, who has adopted a dragon form courtesy of Alberich’s Tarnhelm, and takes the ring of power for himself as a mere trinket, confronts Wotan as a disguised wanderer and breaks the god’s spear, and frees Brünnhilde from her eternal enchanted slumber. Wagner is famous for his leitmotifs throughout the ring cycle. Listen for these unique musical passages to introduce characters throughout the story. Wagner is also known for helping to expand the orchestra beyond even what Beethoven’s music required for dynamics and variety of sound. He assisted in paving the way for Mahler, who would influence the size, shape, and sound of the modern orchestra into the 20th century.
The cast for this performance from July 29, 2023, included the talents of Michael Weinius as Siegfried, Andreas Conrad as Mime, Oliver Zwarg as Wotan, Vida Mikneviciute as Brünnhilde, Anna Larsson as Erda, Timo Riihonen as Fafner the Dragon, Armands Silins as Alberich, and Kristine Gailite as Woodbird with Tarmo Peltokoski conducting. This performance is scheduled to air at 5:00 PM GMT on Saturday, August 5, 2023, on Radio 3 Klasika’s Sestdienas vakars Operā. It will be available for further listening following the broadcast.
Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 in D Minor, Op. 125, with selections from Richard Strauss and Gustav Mahler from the Auditorium-Orchestre National de Lyon on Radio Classique
One of my dearest friends (she is worth a follow anywhere on the Internet) took to social media this week to marvel at the grandeur of Beethoven’s contributions to music and its continued gifts to our ears, and I was delightfully overjoyed at her observation despite her unfortunate reason for doing so involving a select class of individuals. This comes in contrast to the attitude one often encounters surrounding Beethoven these days, which is that his music is overplayed. I remember reading Renée Fleming’s The Inner Voice, a cherished book in my personal library, as a younger person and finding myself a trifle surprised when the soprano rhetorically asked just how many recordings of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony the world needs. My response to this is, “All of them.” Why, you ask? Every recording, every performance should bring the audience something new in its interpretation, and in a work as large as this, you can alter interpretation with a myriad of elements. Soloists can change, you can try to recreate the sounds a contemporary audience might have heard with an ensemble of period instruments, you can perform in a large space or a small space, the conductor can opt for a different edition of the score, or the conductor might be a proponent of and believer in whole beat metronome theory and try to recreate Beethoven’s (or Czerny’s) original tempo markings… the list continues. Any and all of these things will affect the recording or performance one will hear, and every one of the options keeps classical music utterly exciting for all of us. Indeed, Beethoven’s music for the time in which he lived was nothing short of remarkable. His music was composed in a time when classical music had far fewer boundaries than we associate with it today; for instance, the piano was not even a standardized instrument throughout Beethoven’s life, and he owned no fewer than five different instruments in pursuit of the keyboard that would fit the breadth of emotion he wanted his music to occupy. If you, too, stand in awe of Beethoven’s tremendous music, this latest entry in your performance diary of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 in D Minor is for you to enjoy this weekend.
This performance of Beethoven’s second-best-known symphony features soprano Miah Persson, mezzo-soprano Virgine Verrez, tenor Dovlet Nurgeldiyev, and bass-baritone Oliver Zwarg with the Orchestre National de Lyon under the direction of Nikolaj Szeps-Znaider. Gustav Mahler’s Blumine from his Symphony No. 1 and Richard Strauss’s Heimliche Aufforderung, op. 27/3, Zueignung, op. 10/1 (orch. Robert Heger), Morgen!, op. 27/4, and Cäcilie, op. 27/2 additionally appear on this program from June 15, 2023. This broadcast airs from Radio Classique on Saturday, August 5, 2023, at 7:00 PM GMT. It should be available for listening following the broadcast.
Georges Bizet’s Carmen from the Wiener Staatsoper on RTÉ Lyric FM
One of every mezzo-soprano’s dream roles is Bizet’s Carmen, the gypsy temptress who seduces Don José. Set in Seville, Spain, in the early 1800’s, Don José is a junior officer in the army, and he and his soldiers are stationed near a cigarette factory in the city. Micaëla is his girlfriend, and they plan to be married sometime in the not-too-distant future. During one of the most iconic scenes in all of opera, the guard changes, and the cigarette girls emerge from the factory on a break. Among them is Carmen, a feisty gypsy woman who immediately enchants most of the men she meets. She sings her habanera, the famous L'amour est un oiseau rebelle, and the crowd begs her to choose a lover from the men present. She throws a rose at Don José, but he is annoyed at her behavior and attentions toward him. Shortly after the cigarette girls return to the factory, a commotion ensues when Carmen is accused of stabbing another one of the girls. She is arrested, bound, and entrusted to Don José as Zuniga draws up the papers for her arrest and detainment. She enchants Don José with a dance, and Don José foolishly unties her hands. When guards return to take her to the jail, she is able to fight for an escape, and Don José is arrested for facilitating her flight. Months pass, and Don José comes across Carmen again at an inn for lovers and nefarious criminals. Don José professes his love, and Carmen challenges him to prove it by leaving with her and her smuggler associates. They are interrupted by Zuniga, who sought entertainment at the inn earlier, and he and Don José get into a fight over Carmen. Carmen summons her gypsy friends to take care of Zuniga, and Don José, who refused to leave with her earlier, now decides he has no choice but to join Carmen on her travels as he attacked his superior after his release from detention. Don José ventures into the criminal underworld, but Micaëla hopes she can talk some sense into the man she loves when she delivers the news that his mother is at death’s door. Carmen mocks him and tells him to scurry home to his mother. After starting a brawl with Escamillo who has revealed his own infatuation with Carmen, Don José elects to go with Micaëla, but he swears he will return to Carmen despite her making a fool of him. Return he does, and he confronts Carmen outside of the arena where Escamillo is fighting bulls for the crowd. She listens to him but utterly rejects him with disgust by throwing the ring he gave to her to the ground. Overcome with anger and desperation, Don José stabs and murders Carmen and confesses his sins to the crowd as they exit the arena.
This cast stars Anita Rachvelishvili as Carmen, Piotr Beczala as Don José, Erwin Schrott as Escamillo, and Vera-Lotte Boecker as Micaëla under the baton of Andrés Orozco-Estrada. This performance is from the series of opera broadcasts the Wiener Staatsoper made in 2021 without any audiences in the opera house due to the existence of COVID-19. May we never see such days for our cultural institutions again! This performance will air on RTÉ Lyric FM’s Opera Night at 6:00 PM GMT on Saturday, August 5, 2023. It will be available for streaming following the broadcast.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Sacred Selections from the Salzburg Mozarteum on Ö1
Hailing from the Salzburg Festspiele, this Sunday brings us the unusual splendor of an entire program of sacred music from Mozart. While Mozart was not the father of either the sonata or the symphony, he greatly expanded on his predecessor Haydn’s ideas and showed the world true genius for musical complexity and expression while retaining a sense of refreshment in his works. The Bachchor Salzburg and the Mozarteumorchester Salzburg join soloists soprano Nikola Hillebrand, mezzo-soprano Ema Nikolovska, tenor Maciej Kwasnkowski, and bass Tareq Nazmi with organist Michaela Aigner. All of these musical forces are led by Roberto González-Monjas in this live broadcast. The program includes Church Sonata for Orchestra and Organ in C Major, K. 278, Exsultate, jubilate, for soprano and orchestra, K. 165, Church Sonata for Orchestra and Organ in C Major, KV 329, Regina coeli, for soprano, mixed choir, orchestra and organ, KV 108, Ave verum, for mixed choir, orchestra and organ, KV 618, Missa in C Major, KV 317, 'Coronation Mass.’ This performance is scheduled to air on Sunday, August 6, 2023, at 9:00 AM GMT on Ö1. It should be available for future listening following the broadcast.
BBC Proms: Prom 29: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Johann Sebastian Bach, and Carl Philipp Emmanuel Bach from the Royal Albert Hall on BBC Radio 3
As hard as it might be to believe that we are already almost half way through the BBC Proms this year, here we are, and we have an exquisite concert for our ears on a Sunday! Johann Sebastian Bach’s Sinfonia in D Major, BWV 1045, opens the show followed by his cantata Singet dem Herrn, BWV 225. His son Carl Philipp Emmanuel takes the attention for a bit with his own cantata, Heilig ist Gott, H. 778. After the intermission, we are treated to Mozart’s Mass in C Minor, K. 427, to remind us of the progression from the music of Bach to Mozart in a mere couple of decades since the former composer’s death. John Butt leads the Dunedin Consort from the harpsichord with soloists sopranos Lucy Crowe and Nardus Williams, alto Jess Dandy, tenor Benjamin Hulett, and baritone Robert Davies. This performance is scheduled to air on BBC Radio 3 at 10:00 AM GMT on Sunday, August 6, 2023. It will be available for streaming following its initial airing.
Johann Sebastian Bach’s Johannespassion from St. Gumbertus Kirche on BR Klassik
One of Bach’s magnum opus works is his Johannespassion. Bach composed it during his first year at St. Thomaskirche in Leipzig. It was composed for the Good Friday Vespers service in 1724, and, thanks to Felix Mendelssohn and some others, congregations and audiences around the entire world hear this and Bach’s other passion works each year as if his works had never fallen out of favor with the public. Of course, it is nearly incomprehensible to imagine for us today that someone was in charge of replacing Bach’s service music with the work of a new composer, but such was business and worship as usual in Leipzig following his retirement from the post and more so his death in 1750. Nevertheless, the exquisite musicians of the Freiburg Barockorchester under the direction of Ludwig Böhme deliver this monumental musical feat to our ears yet again with soloists soprano Dorothee Mields, countertenor Terry Wey, tenor Patrick Grahl, and basses Thomas Laske and Tobias Berndt. This livestream from the Bachwoche Ansbach will be broadcast on BR Klassik on Sunday, August 6, 2023, at 4:00 PM GMT. It may be available following the initial airing.