Posts Tagged ‘München’

Staatsoper Favors Local Fans

Wednesday, February 22nd, 2017

By ANDREW POWELL Published: February 22, 2017 MUNICH — Bavarian State Opera had a delicate problem. It was selling too many tickets online, more with each passing season. Its system, powered by CTS Eventim, was so robust and so fast that little was left to sell via phone or in person minutes after the 10 […]

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Bramall to Gärtnerplatz

Tuesday, December 6th, 2016

By ANDREW POWELL Published: December 6, 2016 MUNICH — London-born conductor Anthony Bramall, 59, has been appointed Chefdirigent of the Staatstheater am Gärtnerplatz here, effective next season. He succeeds Marco Comin. Bramall studied singing at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and conducting with Vilém Tauský. He has already led several productions with the […]

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Flitting Thru Prokofiev

Wednesday, November 30th, 2016

By ANDREW POWELL Published: November 30, 2016 MUNICH — As fluent as Valery Gergiev is in Prokofiev, he had precious little to say with a cycle of the symphonies here this month. Fluency meant wise tempos, a feel for the boldness in the scores’ structures, a facility in cuing the two orchestras on duty. It […]

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Concert Price Check

Saturday, September 3rd, 2016

By ANDREW POWELL Published: September 3, 2016 MUNICH — Visiting orchestras cost more for concertgoers. But why exactly? Several factors govern ticket prices on tours, often mitigating each other, and all have a bearing this month as three orchestras from this city hit the road: — Bavarian State Orchestra (BStO) with Kirill Petrenko, general music […]

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Bolton Saves Rameau’s Indes

Sunday, August 7th, 2016

By ANDREW POWELL Published: August 7, 2016 MUNICH — Two evenings after an “Allahu Akbar” eruption here cost nine mostly teenage, mostly Muslim, lives, it felt perverse to indulge in 280-year-old French escapism stretching to Turkey, Peru, Iran and the future United States. But there we were July 24 in the Prinz-Regenten-Theater for Bavarian State […]

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Harteros Warms to Tosca

Sunday, July 17th, 2016

By ANDREW POWELL Published: July 17, 2016 MUNICH — When Anja Harteros was singing her first Toscas three seasons ago, it was clear she had the vocal resources for the role, and the Mediterranean temperament. Even so, the portrayal didn’t quite compute. Enter Bryn Terfel, a Scarpia to rattle the aloofest, longest-legged of prima donnas. […]

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Mastersingers’ Depression

Tuesday, May 17th, 2016

By ANDREW POWELL Published: May 17, 2016 MUNICH — Beckmesser blew his brains out at the end of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg last night here in the Nationaltheater. That was after first aiming his gun at the back of the head of Sachs, and after a graphically brutal beating by David and bat-wielding apprentices had […]

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Gloom, Doom from the Arcanto

Tuesday, May 10th, 2016

By ANDREW POWELL Published: May 10, 2016 MUNICH — As if to unify its program of late Beethoven and Schubert last week (May 4) at the Court Church of All Saints, the Arcanto Quartet stressed gloom wherever possible. Playing of intensity and integrity supported this approach, and, to be sure, the Heiliger Dankegesang String Quartet, […]

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500 Years of Pure Beer

Saturday, April 23rd, 2016

By ANDREW POWELL Published: April 23, 2016 MUNICH — Before there was Food Babe, there was Duke Wilhelm IV of Bavaria (reign 1508–1550), a man who valued good music and liked his beer free of nettles, sawdust, roots, and other 16th-century “adjuncts,” as unwelcome food ingredients are now termed. Wilhelm made musical history in 1523 […]

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Petrenko Hosts Petrenko

Friday, April 22nd, 2016

By ANDREW POWELL Published: April 22, 2016 MUNICH — Vasily Petrenko’s debut at Bavarian State Opera this weekend prompts a glance at two Russian-born, modestly profiled conductors who have built distinct careers in Western Europe while sharing a last name. The guest from Liverpool will lead Boris Godunov, last revived two years ago by company […]

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