Schedule

In 2012, Norwegian opera director Stefan Herheim brought Giacomo Puccini's opera La bohème to the stage of the Norwegian National Opera in Oslo. About his choice for this updated version, Herheim explained: “In bringing La bohème into a present-day setting with this new production we hope to revive the immediate power of suggestion and importance that this work at one time revelled in.” The opera about the Bohemian lifestyle of the poor seamstress Mimì and her artist friends is a fast-moving story, and offers some of the greatest arias Puccini ever wrote. Norwegian conductor Eivind Gullberg Jensen leads the Orchestra and Chorus of the National Opera Oslo. Among the soloists are Marita Sølberg (Mimì), Diego Torre (Rodolfo), Vasily Ladyuk (Marcello), and Jennifer Rowley (Musetta).

On January 27, 2006, Chinese virtuoso pianist Lang Lang celebrated WA Mozart's birthday with a performance of the Piano Concerto No. 24 in the Forbidden City Concert Hall of Beijing with the China Philharmonic Orchestram directed by Long Yu. The concert hall is located inside the walls of the Forbidden City, in the beautifully maintained gardens of Zhongshan Park, directly adjacent to Tiananmen Square. The program of the concert also includes the opening of Cosi fan tutte, Symphony No. 25, KV 183, "Hai gia came the causa!" from Le Nozze di Figaro, "Finch'han dal vino" from Don Giovannia, and Piano Sonata No. 10, K. 330.

Few Italian theatres can boast of being an absolute point of reference for national and world culture. The Teatro Regio in Turin is both a symbol of excellence in the national operatic tradition and a prestigious stage hosting operas, ballets, concerts, and musicals of great substance. This short documentary offers a behind-the-scenes tour of the Teatro Regio Torino and bears witness to the enviable reputation that has prevailed since its opening in 1740.

Andris Nelsons, together with his then-wife, the great soprano Kristine Opolais and the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig present a program dedicated to Antonin Dvořák, singing the melodies that the composer hid in all layers of his music with tender, warm, soft colors. Nelsons’ tempos remain calm and relaxed, allowing the omnipresent beauty of Dvořák’s music to unfold and flood the Gewandhaus. The program opens with Othello, a Concert Overture for Orchestra, Op. 93. Opolais performs “Song to the Moon” from Rusalka, “Songs my Mother Taught Me” from Gypsy Songs, Op. 55/4. This is followed by the Polonaise and 'O, marno, marno to je' from Rusalka and 'Dobrá! Já mu je dám!... Jak je mi?' from Smetana's opera Dalibor. The concert closes with a performance of Dvořák's Symphony no. 9 in E Minor, Op. 95 (“From the New World”). Recorded at the Gewandhaus, Leipzig in May 2017.

Mezzo-soprano Deepa Johnny (Canada/Oman, 1998) performs Georgy Sviridov’s Russkajaj pesnya; ‘Ja li v pole da ne travushka’ from Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Seven Romances, Op. 47; John Greer’s On Children; ‘Blicke mir nicht in die Lieder!’ and ‘Liebst du um Schönheit’ from Gustav Mahler’s Rückert-Lieder, Op. 44; and ‘Le spectre de la rose’ from Hector Berlioz’s song cycle Les nuits d’été, Op. 7, during the semi-finals of the Art Song division of the Concours musical international de Montréal 2022 (CMIM). This performance was recorded at the Bourgie Hall of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts.

Acclaimed classical music talent scout Antonio Mormone (1930-2017) lives on as the name-giver of the Premio Internazionale Antonio Mormone (PIAM), awarded to the winner of the Italian music competition of the same name. The first edition of this competition, which was held in various venues in Milan from 2019 to 2021, was dedicated to the piano. As part of this competition, Su Yeon Kim (South Korea, 1994) performs various works by Frédéric Chopin: Nocturne in C minor, Op. 48, No. 1; Mazurka, Op. 2, No. 2 and 4; Scherzo No. 3 in C-sharp minor, Op. 39; and Waltz in A-flat major, Op. 34 No. 1. The recital comes to a close with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Gigue in G major, KV 574. This performance was recorded at Teatro EDI Barrio’s in Milan, in January 2020.

Maestro Sergiu Celibidache conducted the Berliner Philharmoniker from 1945 to 1954, and once in 1992. Wolfgang Becker's documentary The Triumphant Return documents Celibidache's long-awaited return to the Berlin Philharmonic after a 38-year-absence. Discover extensive footage from the rehearsals of Anton Bruckner's Symphony No. 7 (the only video recording in existence of Celibiadache), interviews with former orchestra members, and Celibidache's final concert with the Berliner Philharmoniker.

As part of a new collaboration with the famous composer of "music with repetitive structures" Philip Glass, French pianists Katia and Marielle Labèque perform the European premiere of Glass's Concerto for two pianos with the Orchester de Paris conducted by Jaap van Zweden, current music director of the New York Philharmonic.

For this truly unique, historic occasion, Welsh composer Sir Karl Jenkins conducts The World Orchestra for Peace and around 2,000 singers from nearly 30 countries to Sing for Peace at the Berlin's Mercedes Benz Arena on November 2, 2018. Soloists are vocalists Leah-Marian Jones, Yumeji Matsufuji, Pauline Rathmann, Amir Aziz, violinist Krzysztof Wisniewski and cellist Valentino Worlitzsch. The Armed Man: A Mass for Peace is the most performed work by any living composer. This performance is the largest ever staged, and was uniquely performed in synchronization with a specially commissioned war-archive film that reinforces the narrative of the work – the build up to war, war itself, and the consequences of war. Projected on to five giant screens, the film delivers a poignant backdrop to the moving musical narration providing the audience with a powerful and emotional multimedia experience.

Soprano Meredith Wohlgemuth (USA, 1995) performs ‘Shadowinnower’ from Joseph Schwantner’s Two Poems of Agueda Pizarro; ‘Erwartung’ and ‘Erhebung’ from Arnold Schoenberg’s 4 Lieder, Op. 2; ‘Lied der Delphine’ from Franz Schubert’s Zwei Szenen aus dem Schauspiel ‘Lacrimas’, D. 857; Francis Poulenc’s Trois poèmes de Louise Lalanne, FP. 57; and ‘Rose’, ‘Gris’, and ‘Mauve’ from Lionel Daunais’s song cycle Fantaisie dans tous les tons, during the semi-finals of the Art Song division of the Concours musical international de Montréal 2022 (CMIM). This performance was recorded at the Bourgie Hall of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts.

In this six-part documentary on the life and work of Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos, director Liloye Boubli takes viewers on a journey through the life and work of this legend of Brazilian classical music. The composer, conductor, cellist, and classical guitarist was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 1887. Growing up during a time of immense social change in Brazil – with the abolishment of slavery in 1888, this was a time of social revolution and far-reaching modernizations – Villa-Lobos went on to become one of South America's best-known composers of all time. In this third episode, Liloye Boubli explores Villa-Lobos's inspiration from French classical music and Romanticism.

Russian pianist Dina Ivanova performs Franz Liszt’s Totentanz, S. 525, during the Solo finals of the 11th International Franz Liszt Piano Competition, held at TivoliVredenburg in Utrecht, the Netherlands. Totentanz (Dance of Death) is one of Liszt’s many works that reflect the Romantic composer’s fascination with death. The piece is a series of variations on the macabre Gregorian Dies irae theme.

The master of metamorphosis: that too is Josquin Desprez. In his masses he prefers working with existing material, by means of skilful cutting and pasting, literal quotation, or imaginative paraphrase. In the Missa Pange lingua, for example, the basic plainchant melody becomes like putty in Josquin’s expert hands. With this masterpiece, Pedro Teixeira and the Portuguese Officium Ensemble (one of the revelations of the England Festival edition in 2015) promise to deliver yet another exciting concert.

In retrospect, the version for solo dance of Stravinsky’s Sacre du printemps can be interpreted as a bleak, oppressive dance about his own life. The ballet is one of the late works by Uwe Scholz, one of the most important choreographers of the twentieth century. During his short life, this wunderkind created over 100 ballets, including major stage successes such as Die Schöpfung, Die Grosse Messe and Bruckner 8. Scholz is regarded as a sensitive, highly musical artist with a fine sense of humor, but he was consistently plagued by an excruciating sense of perfectionism, self-doubt and fear. At times, this made work impossible for him. “Sometimes the great artist’s path does not lead to laurel-wreathed solitude, but to deep despair,” writes the ballet critic Klaus Geitel looking back on Scholz’s life. The film Soulscapes is a highly personal, moving portrait of Uwe Scholz, who died on November 21, 2004, at the age of 45. In one of his last interviews with the director Günter Atteln, Scholz talks about himself and his work with unprecedented candor. “I’m drawn to symphonic music from the classical and romantic periods,” he says. “I simply need these soulscapes.”

The Russian National Orchestra and the Moscow Synodal Choir are led by maestro Mikhail Pletnev at a concert from the 9th Russian National Orchestra Grand Festival. The orchestra opens with a performance of Maurice Ravel's music suite to the ballet 'Daphnis and Chloe'. Furthermore, Lucas Debargue is the solo pianist in Alexander Scriabin's 'Prometheus: The Poem of Fire', Op. 60, a tone poem for piano, orchestra, choir, and a clavier à lumières ("Chromola"). A clavier à lumières actually is a musical instrument, especially invented by Scriabin for use in this work. Only one copy of the instrument was constructed for a performance of the piece in New York, 1915. As encore, Debargue performs Erik Satie's Gnossienne No. 1. This concert was recorded at Moscow's Tchaikovsky Concert Hall in 2018.

Acclaimed classical music talent scout Antonio Mormone (1930-2017) lives on as the name-giver of the Premio Internazionale Antonio Mormone (PIAM), awarded to the winner of the Italian music competition of the same name. The first edition of this competition, which was held in various venues in Milan from 2019 to 2021, was dedicated to the piano. As part of this competition, Su Yeon Kim (South Korea, 1994) performs Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Adagio in B minor, K. 540; ‘Les Jeux d’eau à la Villa d’Este’ from Franz Liszt’s Années de pèlerinage III; and César Franck’s Prelude, Chorale and Fugue in B minor. This performance was recorded at Auditorium Giorgio Gaber in Milan, in January 2020.

Soprano Heidi Baumgartner (Austria, 1998) and pianist Asuka Tagami (Japan, 1991) perform Franz Schubert’s Suleika I, Op. 14 No. 1, D. 720; ‘Er ist’s’ from Hugo Wolf’s Mörike-Lieder; Bart Visman’s Vermeer’s Gold; ‘Sua katselen’ (Looking at you) from Kaija Saariaho’s Leino-Laulut (Leino songs); and ‘Pantomime’ and ‘Apparition’ from Claude Debussy’s Quatre chansons de jeunesse, during the semi-finals of the International Vocal Competition 2021 – Lied Duo. This performance was recorded at Het Noordbrabants Museum in ’s-Hertogenbosch, the Netherlands.