Stefan Marton News
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2024-04-25
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2024-01-30 07:50:00
Back with vengeance: Nina Stemme in Richard Strauss' Elektra at Covent Garden
[…] in Glasgow was the first time it had been staged there since 1910).Then in 1988, I was lucky enough to catch Gwyneth Jones on terrific form in the very last revival of Rudolf Hartmann's 1953 production at Covent Garden. Hartmann was a director associated with Richard Strauss and he staged the premieres of Friedenstag and Capriccio, and his production seemed to echo the designs of the original ElektraThis was followed in 1990 by Götz Friedrich's production with Eva Marton and Deborah Polaski, since then Susan Bullock in Charles Edwards' 2003 production to name but a few. But it has always been Tinsley and Jones that stayed in the mind. Now, I can add another performance to the roster, that of Nina Stemme who returned to Christof Loy's new production at Covent Garden on 26 January 2024 with renewed vigour following a bout of illness. Antonio Pappano conducted, with Sara Jakubiak as Chrystothemis, Karita Mattila […]
2023-12-31 16:56:00
Since I am busy at work on my new book project, a two-volume study of the complete operas of Mozart in their eighteenth-century political and intellectual context, it seems fitting to have heard more music by Mozart than by any other composer this year. (For 'rules' on counting, please see my previous post.) Beyond my top four, Mozart, Wagner, Beethoven, and Strauss, I heard a good range of music from Alkan to Zimmermann and beyond.19 Mozart 12 Wagner 8 Beethoven, Strauss 7 Brahms, Schumann 6 Bach 5 Schubert, Byrd 4 Mahler, Prokofiev 3 Benjamin, Chopin, Ligeti, Liszt, Ravel 2 Berg, Bizet, Debussy, Dvořák, Handel, Haydn, Henze, Knussen, Puccini, Schoenberg 1 Alkan, Dieter Ammann, CPE Bach, Johann Christoph Bach, JCF Bach, Bartók, Beethoven, Berberian, Berio, Boismortier, Boulez, Busoni, Cage, Chausson, Cherubini, Unsuk Chin, Coleridge-Taylor, Crumb, Duparc, Elgar, Fauré, Francesco Filidei, Grisey, Saed Haddad, Hartmann, Hindemith, Holliger, Humperdinck, Ibert, Janáček, […]
2023-09-15 21:04:00
Musikfest Berlin (4) – Gerhaher/BPO/Petrenko: Xenakis, Illés, Hartmann, and Kurtág, 14 September 2023
Philharmonie Xenakis: Jonchaies Márton Illés: Lég-szín-tér (world premiere) Hartmann: Gesangsszene Kurtág: Stele Christian Gerhaher (baritone)Berlin Philharmonic OrchestraKirill Petrenko (conductor)Now this is what I call a programme. To have Xenakis and Kurtág on the same programme from the Berlin Philharmonic and Kirill Petrenko was extraordinary enough, yet together with a new piece from Márton Illés and Karl Amadeus Hartmann’s final work, the latter involving Christian Gerhaher as soloist, this would surely have been the envy of any hall and audience in the world; it certainly should have been. Iannis Xenakis’s Jonchaies, premiered in 1977 by the Orchestre National de France and Michel Tabachnik, may have been receiving its first performance by the Berlin Philharmonic, but it was a performance of security, commitment, and understanding belying any local novelty. The upward string sweep, not the last arresting string opening of the evening, sounded as if an aural concrete sculpture, turned by a giant […]
2023-06-21 14:00:58
A divided duty
Today’s Chris’s Cache features live recordings of Otello most noteworthy for their Desdemonas: (in chronological order) Teresa Stratas, Julia Varady, Eva Marton and Karita Mattila.
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- timeline: Lyrical singers.
- Indexes (by alphabetical order): M...