Archive for the ‘Berlin Times’ Category
Thursday, October 24th, 2013
By Rebecca Schmid Whether Parsifal is a supremacist scripture or a mystic journey, we are used to seeing at least one appearance of the Holy Grail or Spear. Wagner, a man of the theater as much as a composer, left clear indications in his libretto about when and how these objects should be deployed in […]
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Tags: Agnieszka Zwierko, Gabriel Chmura, Henrik Vibskov, Hotel Pro Forma, Jerzy Mechliński, Jesper Kongshaug, Kirsten Dehlholm, Krzystof Bączyk, Mark Morouse, parsifal, Poznán Opera, Thomas Mohr, wagner
Posted in Berlin Times | Comments Off on Swings, Mimes and Flying Meteors: Parsifal in Poznán
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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Tags: Amnesty International, Anna Politkowskaja, Arte, Arvo Part, Berlin, Daniel Barenboim, Elsbeth Moser, Emmanuel Pahud, Gidon Kremer, Giya Kancheli, Greenpeace, Khatia Buniatishvili, Kremerata Baltica, Leonid Desyatnikov, Martha Argerich, Michail Chodorkowski, Mieczysław Weinberg, Osteuropa, Philharmonie, Pussy Riot, Reporters without Borders, Sergei Nakariakov, Sofia Gubaidulina, Svetlana Gannushkina, To Russia with Love, Vladimir Putin
Posted in Berlin Times | Comments Off on To Russia with Love
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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Tags: Bavarian Radio Symphony, Beethoven, Daniel Barenboim, Lutoslawski, Martha Argerich, Musikfest, Philharmonia Orchestra, Royal Concertgebouw, Staatskapelle Berlin, verdi
Posted in Berlin Times | Comments Off on Martha Argerich at the Musikfest
Friday, August 23rd, 2013
By Rebecca Schmid The season is already underway in flying colors at the Konzerthaus Berlin. Iván Fischer, following an enthusiastically received appearance at the Mostly Mozart Festival, unveiled his concert staging of Le Nozze di Figaro yesterday featuring much of the same cast alongside the Konzerthausorchester. It was a pleasure to see the concert house’s […]
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Tags: Andrew Shore, Ann Murray, György Kertész, Hanno Müller-Brachmann, Iván Fischer, Konzerthaus Berlin, Laura Tatulescu, Matteo Peirone, Miah Persson, Mostly Mozart, MusicalAmerica.com, Nozze di Figaro, Rachel Frenkel, Roman Trekel
Posted in Berlin Times | Comments Off on Opera on the Gendarmenmarkt: Iván Fischer’s ‘Marriage of Figaro’
Friday, May 17th, 2013
By Rebecca Schmid The tolerance of German audiences for extreme stage productions is a source of national pride and the envy of many abroad. But a production of Tannhäuser at the Deutsche Oper am Rhein which had to be stripped down to concert performance last week has set off a national debate about the sanctity […]
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Tags: Akademie der Künste, bayreuth festival, Burkhard C. Kosminski, Cicero, Der Spiegel, Deutsche Oper am Rhein, Düsseldorf, Hitler, Holocaust, Klaus Staeck, musical america, Patrice Chéreau, Rebecca Schmid, richard wagner, Sebastian Baumgartner, stefan herheim, Tannhäuser, World War Two
Posted in Berlin Times | Comments Off on Expunged ‘Tannhäuser’ opens Debate on Artistic Freedom
Tuesday, May 7th, 2013
By Rebecca Schmid The Deutsche Oper’s Tischlerei, a new wing for alternative music theater, hosted the results of Neue Szenen—a competition for composition launched by the Hans Eisler Conservatory—on April 8. Three young composers, Evan Gardner, Stefan Johannes Hanke and Leah Muir, emerged from a pool of 52 applicants with their musical settings of a […]
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Tags: Andrew Watts, Anna Politkowskaja, Annelie Sophie Müller, Baldur Brönimann, barrie kosky, Carsten Sabrowski, Chechnya, Chris Meritt, Christoph Nußbaumeder, Claudio Otelli, Czechoslovakia, Deutsche Oper, Echo Ensemble, Eir Inderhaug, Evan Gardner, Georg Bochow, Hans Eisler Conservatory, Julia Giebel, Katharina Thomas, komische oper, Le Grand Macabre, Ligeti, Manuel Nawri, Michael Höppner, MusicalAmerica.com, Neue Szenen, Peter Corrigan, Prokofiev, Rebecca Schmid, Robert Carsen, Sarah Palin, Stefan Johannes Hanke, Tamara Heimbrock, Tansel Akzeybek, Zoe Kissa
Posted in Berlin Times, Uncategorized | Comments Off on Catching up on the opera scene…
Friday, April 12th, 2013
By Rebecca Schmid If tradition means not preserving the ashes but fanning the flames, in the words of Gustav Mahler, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra is celebrating its 125th anniversary with one foot firmly planted in the past and the other striding fearlessly into the future. Between a tour of six continents this season, the orchestra […]
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Tags: Bavarian Radio Symphony, Berlin Philharmonic, Beyond the Score, Bob Zimmerman, Ernst von Siemens Prize, Gramophone, Janine Jansen, Lang Lang, Mahler, Mariss Jansons, musical america, New World Symphony, Prince Willem-Alexander, Princess Máxima, Prokofiev, Queen Beatrix, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Saint-Saens, Strauss, Tchaikovsky, Thomas Hampson, Vienna Philharmonic, wagner, Willem Mengelberg
Posted in Berlin Times | Comments Off on RCO Anniversary Extravaganza
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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Tags: Alessandro Manzoni, Berlin Times, Bernarda Fink, Daniel Barenboim, Daniela Barcellona, Fabio Sartori, Fesstage, Frank Xaver Süßmayer, La Scala, Maria Bengtsson, Maria Segreta, mozart, René Pape, Rollando Villazòn, Staatskapelle Berlin, verdi
Posted in Berlin Times | Comments Off on Requiem aeternam
Friday, March 22nd, 2013
By Rebecca Schmid Experimental Regie, free from the scrutiny of finicky patrons on the German opera scene, can in the best case scenario serve to illuminate hidden meanings of a score. In the worst case, it can drown out or obscure musical considerations. The Staatsoper Berlin’s Werkstatt (‘workshop’), a wing of the company’s temporary residence […]
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Tags: Beate Baron, Friederike Frerichs, Götz Friedrich, Gregor Fuhrmann, Hans Hirschmüller, Infinito Nero, Jenny Kim, Maria Maddalena de’Pazzi, Miss Donnithorne’s Maggot, Peter Maxwell Davies, Rebecca Schmid, Rowan Hellier, Salvatore Sciarrino, Sarah Maria Sun, Staatsoper Berlin, Vanitas, Werkstatt
Posted in Berlin Times, Uncategorized | Comments Off on Vanitas Vanitatum, Omnia Vanitas
Friday, February 8th, 2013
By Rebecca Schmid The Berlin Philharmonic is celebrating the centenary of Lutosławski with several concerts this month. The first of the series on February 7—featuring his Concert for Orchestra—opened appropriately with Anne-Sophie Mutter, who premiered one of his most important works, Chain Two, in 1988. In an interview I conducted two years ago, the violinist […]
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Tags: Anne-Sophie Mutter, Antonin Dvorak, Berlin Philharmonic, Bohumil Kubista, Carl Flesch, Chain Two, Manfred Honeck, Penderecki, Rebecca Schmid, Rihm, Witold Lutoslawski
Posted in Berlin Times | Comments Off on Berlin’s Lutosławski Tribute kicks off with Dvořák