Posts Tagged ‘Daniel Barenboim’

‘Il Trovatore’ at the Staatsoper Berlin

Friday, December 6th, 2013

By Rebecca Schmid While Il Trovatore counts as one of Verdi’s most gripping scores, the libretto’s sprawling tale of love and vengeance is not without dramaturgical challenges. A staging by Philip Stötzl which opened at the Staatsoper Berlin on Nov.29 featured several first encounters with the opera. Anna Netrebko, who attended the premiere of the […]

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To Russia with Love

Tuesday, October 8th, 2013

By Rebecca Schmid Vladimir Putin has given the western world much reason for protest over the past year. There is the law banning homosexual “propaganda.” Two members of Pussy Riot still sit behind bars. According to some residents (and ex-residents) of the former Soviet Union, Russia is reverting to a full-blown totalitarian dictatorship. The businessman […]

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Martha Argerich at the Musikfest

Friday, September 20th, 2013

By Rebecca Schmid The Musikfest, Berlin’s 20th-century music festival, took a welcome occasion to revisit the opus of Lutosławski upon his centenary this year. Following the appearances of guest ensembles such as the Royal Concertgebouw, Philharmonia Orchestra and Bavarian Radio Symphony, the Staatskapelle Berlin performed his Mi-Parti (1976) under Music Director Daniel Barenboim alongside works […]

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Requiem aeternam

Thursday, April 4th, 2013

By Rebecca Schmid The Festtage of the Staatsoper Berlin, founded by Daniel Barenboim in 1996, is not officially an Easter Festival. But while the Berlin Philharmonic left the Philharmonie for some mountain air (taking up residence for the first time this year in Baden-Baden), the maestro— between conducting the first full cycle of the Cassiers/Bagnoli […]

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‘The Magic Flute’ regains its Classical Garb

Friday, November 16th, 2012

By Rebecca Schmid As Regietheater becomes the norm on opera stages in Germany, it is a pleasant, if not shocking, surprise to see a production of Die Zauberflöte that looks like a throwback to the time of its world premiere. The Staatsoper Berlin has revived a 1994 staging modelled after designs by the nineteenth-century Prussian […]

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Infektion! ‘Europeras 3&4’ and Rihm’s ‘Dionysus’ at the Staatsoper

Thursday, July 12th, 2012

By Rebecca Schmid Infektion!, the name of the Staatsoper’s annual Festival for New Music Theater could easily extend to describe the presence of John Cage in Germany this year. No other country outside the U.S. has planned as many events for his centenary of his birth, and Berlin is in some people’s minds already ‘Caged […]

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Claus Guth’s Forest-bound ‘Don Giovanni’ at the Staatsoper; Musikfestspiele Potsdam’s new Pleasure Garden

Friday, June 29th, 2012

By Rebecca Schmid Few operas in history have gripped the human psyche to the same extent as Don Giovanni. Pushkin, Kierkegaard, and Bernard Shaw count among the literary figures to have written their own account of the daemonic seductor since Mozart and Da Ponte staged their ‘drama giocoso,’ a tragi-comedy, in Prague. Since the 19th […]

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Festtage 2012 as Barenboim Fiesta

Friday, April 13th, 2012

By Rebecca Schmid The Staatsoper’s annual spring Festtage has become an even more distinguished event now that Daniel Barenboim serves as music director to La Scala in addition to his Berlin opera house. The festival, originally launched by the maestro in 1996 with Harry Kupfer’s Ring, features coveted soloists and premiere productions, as well as […]

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Opening words…

Thursday, April 5th, 2012

By Rebecca Schmid The author Karl Scheffler famously described Berlin as condemned to forever becoming but never being. When I arrived here nearly two years ago as a DAAD grantee in journalism, the city sprawled out like an unfinished collage. The Philharmonie on the gleaming, rebuilt Potsdamer Platz where I heard Daniel Barenboim perform and […]

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