Recommended Streams: Week of March 23, 2020. A Free Listing.

Listing is current as of March 24. Please note that Central European Time (CET) is currently five hours ahead of U.S. Eastern Time. Contact editor@musicalamerica.com to add to the list.

Monday, March 23

Noon CET: Staatsoper unter den Linden. Staatsoper für alle. Open Air Concert, September 30, 2017. Beethoven Symphony No. 9. Conductor: Daniel Barenboim. Starring Diana Damrau, Okka von der Damerau, Burkhard Fritz, René Pape, Staatsopernchor Staatskapelle Berlin. Available free for 24 hours.

7 pm CET: Vienna Staatsoper streams Puccini’s Tosca (performance of February 17, 2019) conductor: Marco Armiliato | director: Margarethe Wallmann with Sondra Radvanovsky (Floria Tosca), Piotr Beczala (Mario Cavaradossi), Thomas Hampson (Baron Scarpia). Sign up for free and view here.

7:30 pm ET: Nightly Met Opera Streams presents Tristan und Isolde (the first installment of an all-Wagner week). Conducted by Simon Rattle, starring Nina Stemme, Ekaterina Gubanova, Stuart Skelton, Evgeny Nikitin, and René Pape. Transmitted live on October 8, 2016. Go to www.metopera.org on the day.

Tuesday, March 24

Noon CET: Staatsoper unter den Linden. Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake. Conductor: Daniel Barenboim, Staatsballett Berlin, Staatskapelle Berlin. Available free for 24 hours.

7 pm CET: Vienna Staatsoper streams Donizetti’s L’Elisir d’Amore (performance of February 26, 2017) conductor: Marco Armiliato | director: Otto Schenk, with Olga Peretyatko (Adina), Dmitry Korchak (Nemorino), Alessio Arduini (Belcore), Adam Plachetka (Doktor Dulcamara), Ileana Tonca (Giannetta). Sign up for free and view here.

7:30 pm ET: Nightly Met Opera Streams presents Das Rheingold (part of an all-Wagner week, and the first part of a complete Ring Cycle). Conducted by James Levine, starring Wendy Bryn Harmer, Stephanie Blythe, Richard Croft, Gerhard Siegel, Dwayne Croft, Bryn Terfel, Eric Owens, and Hans-Peter König. Transmitted live on October 9, 2010. Go to www.metopera.org on the day. From the MA archives, see The Met's Rheingold: The Critics Weigh In.

7:30 pm ET: 92nd St. Y presents composer/pianist Conrad Tao performing Frederic Rzewski's epic The People United Will Never Be Defeated – 36 variations on a Chilean protest song and anthem of unity. Streaming live from his apartment. LIVE

Wednesday, March 25

Noon CET: Staatsoper unter den Linden. Verdi's Falstaff. Conductor: Zubin Mehta; director: Mario Martone; starring Michael Volle, Barbara Frittoli, Alfredo Daza, Nadine Sierra, Francesco Demuro a.o., Staatsopernchor, Staatskapelle Berlin. Available free for 24 hours.

5 pm CET: Vienna Staatsoper streams Rossini’s La Cenerentola (performance of Nov. 10, 2016) conductor: Speranza Scappucci, director: Sven-Eric Bechtolf, with Maxim Mironov, Alessio Arduini, Renato Girolami, Eri Nakamura, Catherine Trottmann, Elena Maximova, Michele Pertusi. Sign up for free and view here.

7:30 pm ET: Nightly Met Opera Streams presents Die Walküre (part of an all-Wagner week, and the third part of a complete Ring Cycle). Conducted by James Levine, starring Deborah Voigt, Eva-Maria Westbroek, Stephanie Blythe, Jonas Kaufmann, Bryn Terfel, and Hans-Peter König. Transmitted live on May 14, 2011. Go to www.metopera.org on the day. From the MA archives, see The Machine Grinds On.

Thursday, March 26

Noon CET: Staatsoper unter den Linden. Rameau’s Hippolyte et Aricie. Conductor:
Simon Rattle; director: Aletta Collins; designer: Ólafur Elíasson; starring Anna Prohaska, Reinoud Van Mechelen, Magdalena Kožená, Elsa Dreisig, Gyula Orendt, Staatsopernchor, Freiburger Barockorchester. Available free for 24 hours.

5 pm CET: Vienna Staatsoper streams Puccini’s Tosca (performance of June 23, 2019) conductor: Mikko Franck, director: Margarethe Wallmann, with Karine Babajanyan, Piotr Beczala, Carlos Álvarez. Sign up for free and view here

7:30 pm ET: Nightly Met Opera Streams presents Siegfried (part of an all-Wagner week, and the third part of a complete Ring Cycle). Conducted by Fabio Luisi, starring Deborah Voigt, Jay Hunter Morris, Gerhard Siegel, Bryn Terfel, and Eric Owens. Transmitted live on November 5, 2011. Go to www.metopera.org on the day. From the MA archives: Siegfried Meets the Machine

7:30 pm ET: 92nd St. Y presents Jonathan Biss. “One of his generation’s most serious musical thinkers” (The New York Times) brings his rich insight and commanding technique to Beethoven’s last three piano sonatas. Written, as Beethoven said, “in a single breath,” these pieces represent the apotheosis of his piano writing, showing his mastery of the variation form (in Op. 109), his expertise in the forms of the musical past (the fugue, in Op. 110), and an ability to be cutting-edge (considering Op. 111 as a whole, but especially the famous ‘boogie woogie’ moments in the second movement). Streaming live from his apartment. LIVE

Friday, March 27

Noon CET: Staatsoper unter den Linden. Bizet’s Carmen. Conductor: Daniel Barenboim; director: Martin Kušej; starring Anita Rachvelishvili, Michael Fabiano, Lucio Gallo, Christiane Karg, Staatsopernchor, Staatskapelle Berlin. Available free for 24 hours.

5 pm CET: Vienna Staatsoper streams Mozart’s La Le Nozze di Figaro (performance of September 15, 2017) conductor: Adam Fischer, director: Jean-Louis Martinoty, with Carlos Álvarez, Dorothea Röschmann, Andrea Carroll, Adam Plachetka, Margarita Gritskova, Ulrike Helzel, Ryan Speedo Green. Sign up for free and view here.

12 pm ET: Faithful Friday with Angel Blue. The acclaimed American soprano presents a new topical talk show web series broadcast live every Friday on Facebook and Instagram. Episode #2 “The Psychology of Fear” with special guest: Dr. Heather Ahrens, MA, CFT.

6 pm ET: Cellist Jan Vogler leads Music Never Sleeps NYC, a 24-Hour livestream marathon by New York–based artists including Adele Anthony, Inon Barnatan, Alessio Bax, Benjamin Beilman, Brentano Quartet, Lucille Chung, Anthony Roth Costanzo, Jeremy Denk, Bela Fleck, Zlatomir Fung, Paul Huang, Colin Jacobsen, Eric Jacobsen, The Knights, Tessa Lark, Nathan Meltzer, Midori, Nico Muhly, Aoife O’Donovan, Sandbox Percussion, Tiffany Poon, Pablo Sáinz Villegas, Gil Shaham, Arnaud Sussman, Chris Thile, Michael Thurber, Nina Totenberg, Danbi Um, Mira Wang, Abigail Washburn and Kevin Zhu.  Proceeds will go to New York–based charitable causes with more artists to be added in the coming days. Social distancing will be strictly observed in content creation! Visit www.musicneversleepsnyc.com for details.

7:30 pm ET: Nightly Met Opera Streams presents Götterdämmerung (part of an all-Wagner week, and the final part of a complete Ring Cycle). Conducted by Fabio Luisi, starring Deborah Voigt, Wendy Bryn Harmer, Waltraud Meier, Jay Hunter Morris, Iain Paterson, Eric Owens, and Hans-Peter König. Transmitted live on February 11, 2012. Go to www.metopera.org on the day. From the MA archives, see The Planks Plunk On.

Saturday, March 28

6 am ET: More from Jan Vogler’s Music Never Sleeps NYC, a 24-Hour livestream marathon (see March 27). Visit www.musicneversleepsnyc.com for details.

Noon CET: Staatsoper unter den Linden. Verdi's Macbeth. Conductor: Daniel Barenboim; director: Harry Kupfer; starring Plácido Domingo, Anna Netrebko, Kwangchul Youn, Fabio Sartori, Staatsopernchor, Staatskapelle Berlin. Available free for 24 hours.

5 pm CET: Vienna Staatsoper streams Wagner’s Götterdämmerung (performance of January 20, 2019) conductor: Axel Kober, director: Sven-Eric Bechtolf, with Stephen Gould, Iréne Theorin, Falk Struckmann, Jochen Schmeckenbecher, Waltraud Meier, Tomasz Konieczny, Anna Gabler. Sign up for free and view here.

7:30 pm ET: Nightly Met Opera Streams presents Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (part of an all-Wagner week). Conducted by James Levine, starring Annette Dasch, Johan Botha, Paul Appleby, and Michael Volle. Transmitted live on December 13, 2014. Go to www.metopera.org on the day. From the MA archives, see

8 PM ET: Third Coast Percussion with Clarice Assad performs selections from Archetypes, a solo work by Assad; Philip Glass's Perpetulum, commissioned by and composed for the ensemble; and BEND by Peter Martin. Streaming live from TCP's studio in Chicago. 

Sunday, March 29

Noon CET: Staatsoper unter den Linden. Massenet’s Manon. Conductor: Daniel Barenboim; director: Vincent Paterson; starring Anna Netrebko, Rolando Villazón, Alfredo Daza, Christof Fischesser, Remy Corazza, Staatsopernchor, Staatskapelle Berlin. Available free for 24 hours.

5 pm CET: Vienna Staatsoper streams Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette (performance of February 1, 2017) conductor: Plácido Domingo, director: Jürgen Flimm, with Aida Garifullina, Juan Diego Flórez, Rachel Frenkel, Rosie Aldridge, Carlos Osuna. Sign up for free and view here.

7:30 pm ET: Nightly Met Opera Streams presents Tannhäuser (the final instalment of an all-Wagner week). Conducted by James Levine, starring Eva-Marie Westbroek, Michelle DeYoung, Johan Botha, Peter Mattei, and Gunther Groissböck. Transmitted live on October 31, 2015. Go to www.metopera.org on the day. From MA archives, Met Tannhäuser Returns, but the Time Has Come...

Other Organizations Offering Free Stuff

These have been made freely accessible during the current crisis:

Apollos Fire: “Music for the Soul”
The Cleveland-based baroque orchestra founded by Artistic Director Jeannette Sorrell is offering a series of video streams entitled “Music for the Soul” to be updated each Tuesday and Friday. The series features archival and new videos as well as program notes. The first episode on March 17 was dedicated to St. Patrick’s Day; new episodes are posted here.

Arte.tv
German language Arte.tv is offering some free content, including this performance of the Wiener Symphoniker of Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony conducted by Phillippe Jordan (recorded earlier this year).

Bayerischer Staatsoper
After the cancellation of all performances at the Bayerische Staatsoper from March 11 to April 19, individual performances will be available as live stream (see above) or as video-on-demand. Currently availabilities include Bluebeard’s Castle with John Lundgren and Nina Stemme, and Il Trovatore with Anja Harteros and Jonas Kaufmann. Visit www.staatsoper.de/en/stream/. From March 23, there will also be a series of Monday Concerts each starting at 8:15 pm (CET) live and free of charge. Programs will consist of lieder, solo instrumentalists, chamber music and dance. Over the coming Mondays, musicians from the Bayerisches Staatsorchester, dancers from the Bayerisches Staatsballett and artists closely associated with the Bayerische Staatsoper, such as violinist Julia Fischer, soprano Hanna-Elisabeth Müller, baritone Christian Gerhaher, pianist Gerold Huber, tenor Jonas Kaufmann, baritone Michael Nagy and bass Tareq Nazmi will be taking part. A detailed program as well as the availability of a video-on-demand will be announced here.

Berlin Philharmonic
The BPO has made its Digital Concert Hall free of charge. Use the password BERLINPHIL. The Digital Concert Hall remains free of charge for 30 days from the time of activating. Available are over 600 orchestra concerts covering more than ten years, including 15 concerts with the orchestra’s new chief conductor Kirill Petrenko, interviews, backstage footage.

Boston Symphony Orchestra
The Boston Symphony will present BSO at Home, which includes self-produced videos from BSO musicians and conductors featuring anecdotes, personal reflections and insights, and short informal performances, as they stay at home during the coronavirus outbreak, to be released periodically through the BSO’s social media channels. There will also be six weeks of daily curated audio offerings available each weekday morning at 10 a.m. through www.bso.org/athome. These will include BSO music directors (Andris Nelsons, Seiji Ozawa, Erich Leinsdorf, Charles Munch, Serge Koussevitzky), March 23-29; guest soloists (Van Cliburn, Isaac Stern, Rudolf Serkin, Leonard Bernstein, Doriot Anthony Dwyer), March 30-April 5; masterworks of the Classical period (Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven), April 6-12; musical landmarks (Copland, Shostakovich, Bartók), April 13-19; the French tradition (Debussy, Ravel, Berlioz, Bizet), April 20-26; the Romantic Age (Tchaikovsky, Brahms, and Strauss), April 27-May 3. For a complete list of audio offerings, click here.

Budapest Festival Orchestra Quarantine Soirées
Hungarian conductor Ivan Fischer has created a new concert series in response to the worldwide musical shutdown. The Quarantine Soirées are LIVE and free to view online chamber music concerts given nightly at 7:45 pm. Visit www.bfz.hu/en/media/quarantine-soirees/ for details of upcoming concerts. LIVE

London Symphony Orchestra
The LSO has announced “Always Playing,” a digital program of archive concerts to be streamed free via its YouTube channel across March and April 2020. Starting Sunday, March 22, there are concerts conducted by the LSO’s family of conductors, including Music Director Sir Simon Rattle, Principal Guest Conductors Gianandrea Noseda and François-Xavier Roth, and guest conductors Semyon Bychkov, Sir John Eliot Gardiner, and Valery Gergiev. Guest artists include pianists Kristian Bezuidenhout, Seong-Jin Cho, Katia and Marielle Labèque, violinists Janine Jansen and Isabelle Faust, and singers Daniela Barcellona, Barbara Hannigan, Christiane Karg, Anna Larsson, Francesco Meli and Michele Pertusi. During this time the LSO’s social media will also be filled with clips from past performances, artists interviews, curated playlists and new recordings from the Orchestra’s Grammy Award-winning in-house label, LSO Live. Details and access here.

New World Symphony
Beginning the week of March 22, the New World Symphony will debut a web-based series called NWS Archive+.  Artistic Director Michael Tilson Thomas will moderate discussions with NWS Fellows, alumni, guest artists and visiting faculty about recorded performances from our archives. Their personal reflections will offer unique insights into the streamed concerts. Performances will be available at www.NWS.edu. Beginning Friday evening, March 20, at 7 pm, New World Symphony Fellows will play live, informal chamber music concerts from their homes in Miami Beach. New World Symphony Fellows: Live from our Living Room will be broadcast via Facebook Live. In addition, the New World Symphony’s ground-breaking online archive allows visitors to explore, engage, and excel with NWS performances, master classes, tutorials and town halls. MUSAIC can be found at www.musaic.NWS.edu. Finally, for the past 10 years, the Fellows have prepared and performed a series of one-hour concerts for local school children. In the coming weeks, these concerts and preparatory material will be available free of charge to students and parents. NWS Educational concerts can be found at www.musaic.NWS.edu.

Olyrix
French opera streaming site Olyrix is making its content free throughout the COVID-19 crisis. Not all content is watchable in the U.S., but there are many fascinating productions and concerts from top-notch opera companies, from Purcell’s The Indian Queen from Opéra de Lille to Korngold’s Violanta from Teatro Reggio Torino. A really well-curated collection. Visit www.olyrix.com/videos/spectacle/1404/lopera-en-streaming-ne-ferme-pas-ses-portes

Opéra National de Paris
The Opéra national de Paris has partnered with France Télévisions’ Culturebox to make some of its emblematic productions accessible for free, online and worldwide, on operadeparis.fr and on france.tvculturebox. These broadcasts are also available on the Paris Opera Facebook page and france.tvculturebox. In addition, Octave, the Paris Opera’s online magazine, is posting articles, videos and interviews with artists in the shows on www.operadeparis.fr/magazine.

OperaVision
OperaVision livestreams five Mozart operas from five different European companies every Tuesday and Friday between March 17 and March 31. Each opera will remain available online for six months.
March 17: Don Giovanni from Finnish National Opera
March 20: Die Entführung aus dem Serail Glyndebourne. David McVicar’s stroke of genius is to set his production in Mozart's time, exploring the tension between the Pasha (a convert to Islam – a fact usually cut) and Europeans whose ideas of freedom are challenged by a seductive captivity. Konstanze must choose between a decent—and here very sexy man—and a contracted marriage to a bit of a stuffed shirt. This is an Entführung raised to the psychological level of a Così. **
March 24: Lucio Silla from La Monnaie / De Munt
March 27: Le nozze di Figaro from Garsington Opera
March 31/03/2020 | Il sogno di Scipione from Teatro La Fenice

San Francisco Symphony
San Francisco Symphony are making all documentary and concert episodes of Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony’s groundbreaking Keeping Score project available for unlimited free streaming on the Symphony’s YouTube channel. Episodes will be released beginning in four batches, every Wednesday through April 8, 2020. This seriously impressive and groundbreaking project traces the lives of eight influential composers from around the world. Michael Tilson Thomas explores the motivations and influences behind major classical works by Tchaikovsky, Beethoven, Copland, Stravinsky, Berlioz, Ives, Shostakovich, and Mahler. Each episode is accompanied by a one-hour concert program by the San Francisco Symphony. Unmissable. **

Silkroad Home Sessions
The Silkroad collective has come together to develop a virtual concert mini-series. Most nights, Silkroad artists will be sharing short, musical performances on Facebook and Instagram, bringing music of comfort and joy directly from their homes into ours. There’s a preliminary schedule below and more dates will be added. Following the live stream, videos will be posted to Silkroad's website for later viewing.

Teatro Regio di Torino
The Teatro Regio di Torino will post streamed operas daily at 6 pm CET. The company will showcase dress rehearsals from the current and past seasons, which will be available act by act on their YouTube channel. Verdi’s Nabucco conducted by Donato Renzetti and directed by Andrea Cigni was posted March 14 followed by Il Matrimonio Segreto on March 15. The list will be updated daily.

Other Paid Digital Arts Services

Medici TV
Stream thousands of classical music videos available by subscription, as well as hundreds of events that are broadcast live for free each year, available for 90 days. Subscriptions cost $83.85 per year or $12.99 per month. www.medici.tv

Archived Recent Performances

The following broadcast events have occurred since the start of the COVID-19 crisis and are still available for viewing:

March 12
The Philadelphia Orchestra and Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin performed BeethovenNOW: Symphonies 5 & 6 as well as Iman Habibi’s Jeder Baum Spricht to an empty Verizon Hall for live broadcast. An outstanding concert captured in excellent visuals and sound. www.philorch.org/live

March 12 & 13
An ad hoc ongoing series. Igor Levit performed Beethoven’s Waldstein Sonata (March 12) and Frederic Rzewski’s bravura hour-long The People United Will Never Be Defeated! (March 13) from his home in Berlin. Fascinating, if challenging sound. Check out his Twitter feed @igorpianist

March 14
Canadian pianist Garrick Ohlsson played an impressive selection of works by Beethoven, Prokofiev (the Sixth Sonata), and Chopin to an empty house at New York’s 92nd Street Y. www.92y.org/archives/garrick-ohlsson-piano

Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, in their final concert before the shut down, presented Dohnányi's Serenade, Bartók's Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion, and Tchaikovsky's Souvenir de Florence. Available here.

March 16
In front of an empty auditorium (very visible thanks to excellent camerawork) Melbourne Symphony Orchestra was conducted by Forth Worth Symphony Music Director Miguel Harth Bedoya in dynamic performances of Bloch's Schelomo with soloist Timo-Veikko Valve, and Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade. Available here.

 

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