Richard Strauss

Recorded in 1952

Ondine is pleased to announce the new release from legendary Straussian soprano Soile Isokoski. A multiple award-winner, her recording of the Four Last Songs won a Gramophone Award in 2002.

The rarely recorded Three Hymns are coupled with arias from Ariadne auf Naxos, Der Rosenkavalier and Capriccio. Soile Isokoski performs those (and other) operas regularly at opera houses across the world including Vienna State Opera, Royal Opera House, Milan’s La Scala, the Semperoper in Dresden, Paris and at festivals including Salzburg, Edinburgh, Orange and Savonlinna.

Three Hymns is a major work, and places considerable vocal demands on the soloist. These atmospheric concert pieces show Strauss’ orchestration in full bloom.

‘Operatic justice’, writes J.B. Steane in his informative and amusing note for this album, ‘is a law unto itself, and the baritone has been prominent among its victims. Unlucky in love, he is seen in the most favourable light as a father-figure and is otherwise all too often the villain of the piece. He may be manly but is rarely heroic. He will have his arias, his moments of glory, yet (uncannily, it must seem to him) their place is rarely at the centre of the opera, or for that matter, part of its last-act climax.’

Beginning with a bracket of Mozart arias, this colourful recital, recorded by Matthias Goerne in 2000, takes us through the terrains of mid- and late-19th century opera – Wagner, Humperdinck, Richard Strauss – to the early 20th-century with the moving ‘Mein Sehnen, mein Wähnen’ from Korngold’s Die tote Stadt, to two brief excerpts from Berg’s Wozzeck.

Matthias Goerne both works within the tradition and extends it. Like his predecessors, from Schlusnus to Fischer-Dieskau, he has developed his careers in opera and song side by side, though it is true that his fame and hitherto his work as a recording artist have centred less on opera than on Lieder and oratorio. His operatic recording debut was spotted by Gramophone magazine and described as ‘an impressive appearance’, as Prometheus in the large cast of Braunfels’s Die Vögel.

Decca’s first CD release of Der Rosenkavalier since the legendary Solti recording of the late 1960s was recorded during the Baden-Baden Festival performances in January 2009.

This latest Rosenkavalier features what conductor Christian Thielemann called a “galactic cast”. Renée Fleming is luminous as the Marschallin − in what is surely the central role of her repertoire. She is joined by Sophie Koch as Octavian, Diana Damrau as Sofie, Franz Hawlata as Ochs, and the “luxury casting” of Jonas Kaufmann as the Italian Tenor.

Previously released on Decca DVD and Blu-ray, the recording has been completely re-mastered for this release.

Of Renée Fleming in Rosenkavalier, the International Herald Tribune wrote: “Her soprano is not only beautifully in place for the music, but is employed with a rare flexibility and sensitivity for the text”.

Designer Carl Friedrich Oberle

Lighting Designer Nigel Levings

Der Rosenkavalier, the most successful opera of Richard Strauss and Hugo von Hofmannsthal’s partnership, is a story of love, lust and human frailty. The story is not complicated but it soars and dips on Strauss’ music with Hofmannsthal’s expressive libretto. With Cheryl Barker in the role of the Marschallin, who can fail to be moved by her poignant portrayal of facing the final loss of youth and her young lover?

Count Octavian, Catherine Carby, has the vibrant voice of a young man who has his life to enjoy with no thought of anything but pleasure and the Marschallin’s company – until he meets the beautiful and innocent Sophie von Faninal, played by Emma Pearson. The boorish Baron Ochs auf Lerchenau is superbly exposed by Manfred Hemm, his Viennese accent lending authenticity.

With all the outstanding artists completing the cast and the Opera Australia and Ballet Orchestra, this production is led by conductor Andrew Litton to create a truly stunning operatic and theatrical experience against the classic staging of Carl Friedrich Oberle.