Alban Berg: Wozzeck - Festival d'Aix-en-Provence 2023

Raised by a scheming dwarf and unaware of his true family origins, a young man embarks on an epic journey.

Captured live from Naples’ splendid San Carlo Theatre – the world’s oldest continuously running public opera venue – where it opened the company’s theatrical season, acclaimed director Dmitri Tcherniakov stages a new production of Dvořák’s beautiful, supremely romantic opera about a water sprite Rusalka who longs to find love.

In this strikingly modern 2016 production from the Zurich Opera House, Tcherniakov transposes the opera’s intrigue from forest and castle to living room and psychiatric office. The love story of the original work remains riveting, but Tcherniakov brings an unexpected psychological element to his mise en scène, with Prince Golaud as a psychiatrist and Mélisande as a young woman suffering from PTSD. You’ve never seen Pelléas like this!

Tosca is a melodrama of love, betrayal and death set in the revolutionary unrest of 1800. The story concerns the opera singer Floria Tosca who tries to save her lover, the painter Mario Cavaradossi, from the brutal chief of police, Scarpia. Through-composed and expertly orchestrated it contains some of Puccini’s best-known lyrical arias and remains one of his most performed operas. In this 2022 production, an eminent cast is directed by the acclaimed Australian director Barrie Kosky – ‘the Amsterdam audience was completely swept off its feet by Kosky’s stunning production’ (Opera News).

Opera based on the story of Edward II and Piers Gaveston. Music by George Benjamin, libretto by Martin Crimp. BBC broadcast of the 2018 premiere at the Royal Opera House, the composer conducting, prefaced by commentary and interviews.

Kirill Serebrennikov is staging *Das Rheingold* as a global post-apocalyptic drama for the 2026 Easter Festival. The director is known for his uncompromising productions. In this new interpretation, he transforms the material into a symbol-laden global theatre piece. Kirill Petrenko will be the musical director of *Das Rheingold*.

Simon Keenlyside smolders dangerously in the title role of Mozart’s version of the legend of Don Juan, creating a vivid portrait of a man who is a law unto himself, and all the more dangerous for his eternally seductive allure. Adam Plachetka is his occasionally unruly servant Leporello. It’s when Giovanni tangles with Donna Anna (Hibla Gerzmava) that things start to unravel, aided by the reappearance of Donna Elvira (Malin Byström), who is determined not to let her seducer go. With Paul Appleby as Don Ottavio, Donna Anna’s eternally steadfast fiancé. Principal Conductor Fabio Luisi leads the Met Orchestra and Chorus.

The Queen of the Night enlists a handsome prince named Tamino to rescue her beautiful kidnapped daughter, Princess Pamina. Aided by the lovelorn bird hunter Papageno and a magical flute that holds the power to change the hearts of men, young Tamino embarks on a quest for true love, leading to the evil Sarastro's temple where Pamina is held captive. The Pierre Audi production of Mozart's Die Zauberflöte was recorded live at the 2006 Salzburger Festpiele.

Kristine Opolais is the young woman whose conflicting desires for love and luxury lead to her tragic end, and Roberto Alagna plays the man who falls for her in Puccini’s early hit. Richard Eyre’s elegant production, which sets the action in 1940s occupied France, was one of the highlights of the Met’s 2015–16 season. Massimo Cavalletti as Manon’s brother and Brindley Sherratt as her aging admirer co-star, and Principal Conductor Fabio Luisi is on the podium.

For years, *The Magic Flute* has been one of the most frequently performed operas at the Aix-en-Provence Festival. After an eight-year absence, Mozart’s work is now back on the programme. Clément Cogitore interprets the plot as a modern coming-of-age story: Tamino and Pamina leave the world of childhood behind and enter a reality in which beauty is fragile and truth is uncertain.

The premiere of Benjamin Britten's Billy Budd in Madrid is undoubtedly one of the highlights of the Teatro Real's bicentennial celebrations. Its magnificent libretto, based on the novel of the same name by Herman Melville, tells the story of the sailor Billy Budd: a handsome, loyal, generous, strong, naive, and kind young man whose beauty and personality drive the ship's master-at-arms mad. Unable to control the situation, the master crucifies the naive young man without mercy. This new production by the Teatro Real is being presented for the first time in Madrid, in co-production with the Opéra national de Paris, under the direction of Deborah Warner, one of the great names in stage direction today.

A count has designs on his personal valet's fiancée and is determined to stop their wedding taking place. Meanwhile, the countess tries to regain her husband's love by any means necessary. Mozart's great comic opera is a tale of intrigue, misunderstanding and forgiveness. Christian Gerhaher plays the clever Figaro and Simon Keenlyside his aristocratic master in this revival of David McVicar's much-loved production at the Royal Opera House.

At first glance, Hofmannsthal's libretto ARABELLA is a comedy of mistaken identity which, had it been composed by Rossini, could have been a snappy buffo opera. But the music of Richard Strauss, who pulls out all the stops of his orchestral art, from the late romantic intoxication to the most modern discord, creates a subtle, colorful panorama of a society in transition, whose late-bourgeois values ​​are crumbling. One's own identity and interpersonal relationships have to be tested from scratch. Central is – even more than the title character, who oscillates between romance and rebellion – Arabella's younger sister Zdenka, who, disguised as a man by her parents for lack of money for girls' clothes befitting their status, has to struggle all the more desperately with her/his role as an outsider.

Daniele Gatti (then not yet as chief conductor) started a new chapter of this collaboration. Their spectacular 2017 production of Richard Strauss’ Salome is another highlight in the already impressive list. "If you were going to see just one Salome in your life, this would be a good choice" ***** Shirley Apthorp, Financial Times "What a magma of sound!" ***** Merlijn Kerkhof, Volkskrant "The level of precision and the way Gatti gradually increases the tension is almost unbearable… The effect is overwhelming and leaves the listener breathless." ***** Peter van der Lint, Trouw

Sir Simon Rattle, the Berliner Philharmoniker and the Rundfunkchor Berlin give an impeccable performance of the powerful biblical oratorio “The Gospel According to the Other Mary” by John Adams, one of the most renowned contemporary composers. The sophisticated score with a libretto by acclaimed theatre director Peter Sellars comes to life thanks to the Berliner Philharmoniker, whose intimate knowledge of Adams’s music stems from the composer himself: He attended the orchestra’s rehearsals. In the role of the Evangelist, Bubeck, Cummings and Medley lead through the narrative. A stunning highlight is Lazarus’s aria, sung by tenor Peter Hoare. But at the heart of the piece are Mary Magdalene and her sister Martha during the last days before Jesus’s death, impressively performed by mezzo-sopranos Kelley O’Connor and Tamara Mumford.

The impulsive and charismatic Don Giovanni travels through Europe seducing women, accompanied by his long-suffering servant Leporello. But when Don Giovanni commits murder, he unleashes a dark power beyond his control. Kasper Holten’s production is rich in both colourful comedy and exhilarating drama. Set designs by Es Devlin (Les Troyens) and costume designs by Anja Vang Kragh (Stella McCartney, John Galliano for Christian Dior), with video projections by Luke Halls and choreography by Signe Fabricius, portray the visually entrancing world of Don Giovanni. At the heart of the production are the beauty and invention of Mozart’s dazzling score, which ranges from gorgeous arias and dramatic duets to the brilliant layering of dance melodies that bring Act I to a virtuoso close.

Live performance from Salzburg Festival Opera, August 2007. The story tells of Cellini's love for Teresa, daughter of the Papal Treasurer Balducci. His rival, the Papal Sculptor Fieramosca, overhears Cellini plotting to run away with Teresa during the carnival.

Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk is a powerful work of raw emotional intensity. With themes of adultery and murder, the story follows the downfall of a bored provincial merchant’s wife who seeks solace and excitement in an extra-marital affair. With a bold and contemporary setting, the staging provides the perfect backdrop to this 20th-century opera’s unflinching approach to sex and violence.

Gala concert from Berlin the world famous Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Sir Simon Rattle, in Carl Orff's famous Carmina Burana, an intensely dramatic cantata that remains one of the most performed works of the twentieth century. With an extraordinary vocal line-up soprano Sally Matthews, tenor Lawrence Brownlee and baritone Christian Gerhaher. With Rundfunchor Berlin with Chorus Master Simon Halesey as well as the Knabenchor des Staats- und Domchores Berlin.

A major work from the remarkable partnership of playwright and poet Bertolt Brecht and composer Kurt Weill, Mahagonny was first performed in Leipzig in 1930. Its first ever Royal Opera staging, by Associate Director of Opera John Fulljames, is sung in English, and conducted by Mark Wigglesworth – recently announced as the successor to Edward Gardner as Music Director of English National Opera. Mahagonny is a satire on money, morality and pleasure-seeking among the dubious citizens of a fictional city. The richly varied, jazz-infused score, influenced by ragtime music, includes such irresistible melodies as the ‘Alabama Song’ and many dramatic ensembles. The superb cast includes Kurt Streit as the wild lumberjack Jimmy, Christine Rice as his sweetheart Jenny, Anne Sofie von Otter in a welcome return to The Royal Opera as the cunning Leokadja Begbick, and Peter Hoare and Willard W. White as her helpers and fellow-fugitives Fatty and Moses.

Live performance filmed at the Innsbrucker Festwochen on 6 October 2006 at the Festspielhaus in Baden-Baden of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's opera Don Giovanni. Marcos Fink, Werner Güra and Alexandrina Pendatchanska perform as the principals, while the Freiburger Barockorchester and the Innsbruck Festival Chorus provide accompaniment. Georg Wübbolt directs.

Suspecting her missing husband is being held as a political prisoner, a noblewoman disguises herself as a male prison guard. She discovers him weakened in the darkest dungeon, but will she be able to rescue him before it is too late?

In celebration of the 150th anniversary of Mahler’s birth and just one month short of his own 85th birthday, composer-conductor Pierre Boulez marked his forty-five-year collaboration with the Cleveland Orchestra by directing this very special Mahler-only concert at Ohio’s splendid Severance Hall. Following the Adagio from the unfinished Tenth Symphony, he presented Twelve Songs from Des Knaben Wunderhorn with soloists Magdalena Kožená and Christian Gerhaher, both much-sought-after opera and concert singers on the world’s leading stages.

Benjamin Britten’s opera Gloriana was written in 1953 for celebrations around the Coronation of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, to whom the opera is dedicated. It had its first performance at the Royal Opera House on 8 June 1953, in the presence of The Queen then just 6 days into her reign. The centenary in 2013 of Britten’s birth prompted this new Royal Opera production, in which director Richard Jones uses the setting of a celebratory pageant in 1953 to explore the work’s alternating splendour and intimacy. This theatrical, inventive and colourful staging has at its core the symbolic reflections between the Tudor Elizabethan and the New Elizabethan ages that characterize the opera. The juxtaposition of the modern and the archaic in William Plomer’s libretto is wonderfully amplified in music that artfully fuses the sounds and manners of Tudor England – from lute songs to courtly dances – with Britten’s own distinctive style.

The priestess Norma loves Pollione, leader of the occupying force suppressing her people, and has borne two children by him. But Pollione’s love has withered, and he now loves Norma’s fellow priestess Adalgisa. Meanwhile, the people urgently look to Norma to lead their rebellion.

Premiered in 1926, Leoš Janáček’s absorbing masterpiece Veˇc Makropulos reflects all the dominant musical styles of the early 20th century, from Bohemian tunefulness to big Straussian phrases, Berg-like jaggedness and primeval rhythms. With the “breathtakingly grandiose” (Salzburger Nachrichten) Angela Denoke in the lead role, this emotionallypowerful opera was given superior treatment at the hands of the Wiener Philharmoniker under Esa-Pekka Salonen. Recorded live at the Salzburger Festspiele on 8 & 30 August 2011. Angela Denoke stars as Emilia Marty, with Raymond Very as Albert Gregor, Peter Hoare as Vitek, Jurgita Adamonyté as Krista, and Johan Reuter as Jaroslav Prus. Esa-Pekka Salonen conducts the Wiener Philharmoniker.

“Kaufmann is performing the title role for the first time, and it’s hard to imagine him bettered. His striking looks make him very much the Romantic and romanticised outsider of Giordano’s vision. His voice, with its dark, liquid tone, soars through the music with refined ease and intensity: all those grand declarations of passion, whether political or erotic, hit home with terrific immediacy.” – The Guardian Presented in its Covent Garden premiere in January 2015, this staging – directed by David McVicar and conducted by the Royal Opera’s Music Director, Sir Antonio Pappano – shows a bloody tricolour daubed with the words “Even Plato banned poets from his Republic” – written by Robespierre on the death warrant of the historical Chénier, a poet and journalist sent to the guillotine in 1794 for criticising France’s post-revolutionary government.

Lucia’s brother Enrico is horrified to learn she has fallen in love with his sworn enemy Edgardo. He hastily arranges her marriage to his associate Arturo. Edgardo and Lucia privately exchange rings before he leaves to fight in France. Enrico tricks Lucia into believing that Edgardo has been unfaithful. Longing for death, she signs the contract with Arturo – moments before Edgardo returns. Lucia murders Arturo in their wedding bed. His death is followed first by Lucia’s, and then by Edgardo’s.

Since it's premiere in a tiny suburban theatre in Vienna, Die Zauberflote has delighted audiences young and old for over 200 years. Mozart's Singspiel seamlessly alternates seriousness and jollity, and combines philosophical ideas with a fairytale world of wondrous animals and magical musical instruments. Emanuel Schikaneder's original production was theatrically inventive, and this new interpretation from director Simon McBurney emulates that in fresh and current terms. Fusing music, technology and stagecraft, this exciting production gives Die Zauberflote a refreshing new treatment that is both thrilling and simple in it's approach. Following an overwhelming success on stage, McBurney's unique production received five-star reviews in the Dutch press: 'a feast for the eyes and the ears' (Het Parool) and 'Delicious!' (Trouw).

New 2019 version of the Kasper Holten’s 2014 production of Don Giovanni for the Royal Opera offers a glimpse inside the mind of one of opera’s most notorious seducers. With a spectacular revolving set by award winning designer Es Devlin, ingenious video projections by Luke Halls, and an ‘ideal cast on world beating form’ (The Independent), this staging brings Mozart’s dazzling score to life, in all its wit, glamour, and darkness.

It is about nothing less than love. This is what the Wartburg singing community asks for, and this is what Tannhäuser also seeks: he finds almost endless lust with the goddess of love Venus, and hopes to attain bliss with the "pure" Elisabeth. In his vacillation between satisfaction and renunciation, between guilt and protest, in being torn between fulfillment and exaltation, he corresponds entirely to the grammar of the Romantic age - and still speaks directly to us today.

Herod lusts after his stepdaughter Salome and insists on seeing her dance. Salome longs to kiss the mouth of the imprisoned John the Baptist – a prophet of doom who loses himself in hate speech.

Johann Sebastian Bach’s St John Passion with the Berliner Philharmoniker and Sir Simon Rattle was one of the outstanding events of the past season. As before with the St Matthew Passion, star director Peter Sellars succeeded in creating a staging which made the spiritual and dramatic content of the Passion story even more intensive. The New York Times also praised the “brilliant and energetic” playing of the orchestra, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung the “haunting, almost unsurpassable singing of all those involved.”

Strauss’s elegant romance brings the glamour and enchantment of 19th-century Vienna to cinemas worldwide in a sumptuous production by legendary director Otto Schenk that “is as beautiful as one could hope” (The New York Times). Soprano Rachel Willis-Sørensen stars as the title heroine, a young noblewoman in search of love on her own terms. Radiant soprano Louise Alder is her sister, Zdenka, and bass-baritone Tomasz Konieczny is the dashing count who sweeps Arabella off her feet.

A young man ignorant of everything, including his own name, arrives at the Kingdom of the Holy Grail. Is he the ‘pure fool, enlightened by compassion’, who, it has been prophesied, will purify the realm? OperaVision is live from Bergen for a concert staging of Parsifal, Richard Wagner’s final music drama which is unlike anything that went before or has come since. It can feel more like a ritual ceremony than an opera – grand yet intimate, somehow occupying its own space and time. At the heart of Parsifal is a curious, magical treatment of the symphony orchestra that appears to give the voices above it all the space and autonomy they need.

Sir Simon Rattle was in no doubt: the performance of the St Matthew Passion which he realised together with the Berliner Philharmoniker and the Rundfunkchor Berlin in 2010 was for him “the single most important thing we ever did here”. Critics around the world agreed. They praised the semi-staged “ritualization” by American star-director Peter Sellars, as well as the outstanding musical performances by the soloists, including Magdalena Kožená, Christian Gerhaher, Thomas Quasthoff and Mark Padmore as the Evangelist.

The tetralogy of four operas that form Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung) explores the conjunction of love and power in a mythic landscape in which true power resides in possession of the Ring. Composed over more than a quarter of a century, monumental in scale, and structured after the precedent of Greek drama, the cycle was first performed in 1876. Staged by the award-winning director Stefan Herheim, this innovative new production from Deutsche Oper Berlin features a leading international cast conducted by Sir Donald Runnicles.