Posts Tagged ‘Kaufmann’

Fall Discs

Sunday, November 26th, 2017

By ANDREW POWELL Published: November 26, 2017 MUNICH — Post is under revision. Photos © Arthaus, BelAir Classiques, Querstand, Supraphon, Warner Classics Related posts: Winter Discs Time for Schwetzingen Ives: Violin Sonatas on CD Chung to Conduct for Trump Manon, Let’s Go

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Chénier Due in Video-Stream

Monday, March 13th, 2017

By ANDREW POWELL Published: March 13, 2017 MUNICH — Philipp Stölzl’s new and relatively sane production of Andrea Chénier will be video-streamed Saturday by Bavarian State Opera as part of a regular free service. — when: 2 p.m. EDT (11 a.m. PDT), March 18, 2017 — where: https://www.staatsoper.de/tv.html Omer Meir Wellber brings his inimitable visceral […]

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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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Ettinger Drives Aida

Wednesday, September 30th, 2015

By ANDREW POWELL Published: September 30, 2015 MUNICH — Bavarian State Opera’s irredeemably banal 2009 Aida has been spiffed up and its awkward action scheme apparently restudied for a fall run here. Even so, the honors at Monday’s performance (Sept. 28) belonged firmly with the musicians, instrumental and vocal. Mannheim-based conductor Dan Ettinger exerted a […]

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Winter Discs

Tuesday, March 31st, 2015

By ANDREW POWELL Published: March 31, 2015 MUNICH — Arts projects in Europe with any visual aspect to them nowadays migrate to DVD whether or not there is a need, partly to justify public subsidy through distribution. Many are operas filmed too often, like Nationaltheater Mannheim’s just-released Der Ring des Nibelungen, which joins DVD tetralogies […]

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Manon, Let’s Go

Thursday, December 11th, 2014

By ANDREW POWELL Published: December 11, 2014 MUNICH — Puccini lost even before the curtain went up Nov. 15 on Hans Neuenfels’ conceptual new staging of Manon Lescaut for Bavarian State Opera. Anna Netrebko, its titular star, abandoned the project in quiet disgust, understandably it turned out. Disaster did not follow, but the night and […]

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Kaufmann, Wife Separate

Thursday, April 10th, 2014

By ANDREW POWELL Published: April 10, 2014 MUNICH — Local tenor Jonas Kaufmann and his wife, mezzo-soprano Margarete Joswig, have jointly announced their separation. The musicians began their careers in the middle 1990s. Both sang early on for the Saarländisches Staatstheater and at the Brahms Days festival in Tutzing, just south of here. They have […]

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Kušej Saps Verdi’s Forza

Friday, December 27th, 2013

By ANDREW POWELL Published: December 27, 2013 MUNICH — Martin Kušej’s new staging of La forza del destino for Bavarian State Opera opened Dec. 22 and is due for streaming tomorrow. Well cast, it alas trivializes the feud and the questions of honor and destiny that excited Verdi and his librettist Piave, despite being the […]

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Return of the Troubadour

Wednesday, November 13th, 2013

By ANDREW POWELL Published: November 13, 2013 MUNICH — Olivier Py’s neon-lit vaudeville vision of Il trovatore is back, with cast adjustments. At the performance on Nov. 9, Krassimira Stoyanova introduced a cool-timbred Leonora of a certain age, her versatile and expressive top reflecting keen musicianship. Vitaliy Bilyy lurched about in hammy fits as di […]

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