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Presto News - 4th January 2010A Ring cycle for the 21st Century |
 Happy New Year, and what better way to start a year than to tell you about a new Wagner Ring cycle! OK, I know that Wagner isn’t to everyone’s taste but this is a very important cycle not just for Wagner fans but for the whole future of music theatre, as with its dramatic use of technology and stage events it is radically different from the current norm and perhaps gives an idea of the path that opera might be taking in the future.  La Fura del Baus representing Valhalla The production comes from the Spanish city of Valencia and its spectacular new opera house, the Palau de les Arts “Reina Sofía”, and is staged by Carlus Padrissa and his theatre group La Fura dels Baus. This Barcelona-based group became known internationally when it designed and carried out the opening ceremonies of the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. The group has already staged a number of operas but this Ring cycle is their highest profile production to date and has already attracted significant critical comment. Up until the mid 1800s the musical aspects of operas always took precedence over the theatrical aspects. Wagner tried to change all that and transformed musical thought through his idea of Gesamtkunstwerk (total artwork). His idea was simple in that he felt that the poetic, visual and dramatic aspects were just as important as the musical ones. His monumental four-opera Ring cycle (which he completed in 1876) epitomized this thought process and he even built his own opera house (the Bayreuth Festspielhaus) in order to try and stage his works more as he had imagined them. Now in the 21st Century, the imagination of Carlus Padrissa and La Fura combined with the awesome potential of modern technology means that we’re perhaps closer to realising Wagner’s visionary world than ever before. Finally now the Rhinemaidens can emerge from the Rhine (tanks of water), the gods can swoop around the stage (on personal cranes) and Wotan can ride over the mountaintops for his encounter with Erda (accompanied by huge video projections). The whole production is breathtaking, with the magical use of human beings to create organic structures such as Valhalla (here in the picture) producing several jaw-dropping moments. Musically speaking the production is equally successful, with conductor Zubin Mehta able to extract both a deep rich Wagnerian sound and transparent accompanying textures from his young orchestra. The cast is world-class, and it is hard to spot a weak link. Young American soprano Jennifer Wilson Brünnhilde is particularly fine. She has amazing vocal power but always retains such beautiful colour in her voice. And Matti Salminen (as Fasolt, Hunding and Hagen) is right up there with the very best on disc. Das Rheingold and Die Walküre came out just before Christmas while Siegfried and Götterdämmerung are released today. At present the operas are only available individually and I don’t know if or when there will be a box set. They are available on both DVD and Blu-ray so please make sure you choose the right version of each opera for your equipment. We have set up a special page where you can browse them all and also watch a short video trailer that gives you an idea of what you can expect from this remarkable production. You can also watch longer trailers for each opera by following the link underneath the individual cover images on that page. Explore this remarkable Ring cycle further on our special page here.
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Chris O'Reilly - chris@prestoclassical.co.uk |
New Releases4th January 2010 |
This is just the pick of the recent releases. The New Releases and Future Releases pages are always available for browsing all the new and forthcoming releases. |
.jpg) MacMillan: The SacrificeLisa Milne (soprano), Leigh Melrose (baritone), Christopher Purves (bass), Sarah Tynan (soprano) & Peter Hoare (tenor), Orchestra and Chorus of Welsh National Opera, Anthony NegusChandos offers the world premiere recording of this theatrically and musically devastating opera commissioned and performed by Welsh National Opera. The Sacrifice, described by The Scotsman as ‘a powerful and evocative piece of music’, is a compelling and timeless story of a ruler’s ultimate sacrifice to safeguard the future of his war-torn, faction-ridden country; a story of love, revenge and reconciliation, inspired by the heightened mythical world of the Welsh folk-tales collected in The Mabinogion. With hints of Tippett, Berg, Richard Strauss and the film music of Bernard Herrmann this opera evokes the late-romantic idiom, with a twenty-first-century twist. |
 Beethoven - Piano Concertos in D, Op. 61 & No. 4Ronald Brautigam (piano), Norrköping Symphony Orchestra, Andrew ParrottAt the public première of the Fourth Piano Concerto in 1808, Beethoven performed the piano part very ‘capriciously’ according to his pupil Carl Czerny, playing many more notes than are to be found in the printed edition. A clear indication of what Beethoven played comes from his copyist’s orchestral score, in which the outer movements contain annotations in the composer's hand. These have been transcribed by Beethoven scholar Barry Cooper who describes this rarely recorded 1808 version as ‘more sparkling, virtuosic and sophisticated than the standard one’. |
 Dallapiccola - Orchestral Works Volume 2Gillian Keith (soprano), Paul Watkins (cello), BBC Philharmonic, Gianandrea NosedaThe Musica Italiana series is very close to the heart of the Principal Conductor of the BBC Philharmonic, Gianandrea Noseda, and especially the music of Luigi Dallapiccola. From the moment of his appointment to the BBC Philharmonic Noseda spoke of his ambition to record the works of this twentieth-century composer. The BBC Philharmonic has been praised in The Guardian for its performances both live (‘Noseda’s performance was both meticulous in its judgment of every shift in orchestral colour and filled with a sense of anticipatory tension. Dallapiccola’s melodies, angular yet lyrical, unwound with rapt introversion’) and in the studio (‘Noseda understands the music’s lyrical strength and fragile sound world perfectly; the playing of the BBC Philharmonic is exemplary too’). |
 Ravel & Debussy - String QuartetsDante QuartetThe Dante Quartet continue their award-winning exploration of the French string quartet with this disc which includes two of the greatest works of this genre. Both quartets dazzled and disturbed at their first performances. Debussy’s fantastic, spiralling variations, resisting orthodox ‘development’ of ideas, is described as reminiscent of Monet’s in recording the variations of light on the façade of Rouen Cathedral. Traditionalist commentators were shocked, but the exotic beauty of the writing excited many, including the young Ravel. Ravel’s Quartet is to some extent an homage to Debussy but, typically, also a work of startling originality. |
 Beethoven: Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125 'Choral'Christiane Oelze, Petra Lang, Klaus Florian Vogt & Matthias Goerne, Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, Paavo JärviGrammy Award-winning conductor Paavo Järvi and the German Chamber Philharmonic Orchestra, Bremen complete their spectacular Beethoven cycle on RCA Red Seal with the release of Symphony No. 9. The series has received widespread critical approval. “Biting, buoyant and very athletic - Järvi's Beethoven really bounds along…” - Gramophone Magazine on one of the earlier releases. |
 Bach - Cantatas BWV 29, 61 & 140Concentus Musicus Wien, Nikolaus HarnoncourtConductor Nikolaus Harnoncourt has been especially active in the lead up to his 80th birthday in December 2009. Following hot on the heels of his highly anticipated recording of Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess (88697591762) in December 2009 is this new recording of three of Bach’s loveliest Cantatas, BWV 29, 61 & 140, performed by Concentus Musicus Wien, in a new, up-to-date live recording. |
 Cesti - Le disgrazie d'AmoreAuser Musici, Carlo IpataA delightful blend of slapstick and highly allusive banter, Cesti’s comic moral opera mocks the pagan gods and the morally reprehensible excesses caused by amorous passion. Pietro Antonio Cesti (born in Arezzo, 1623; died in Florence, 1669) was, along with Francesco Cavalli, the most illustrious representative of the seventeenth-century Venetian school of opera composers. Like many Seicento artists, he had an eventful life embracing multiple activities, as singer, actor, composer and maestro di cappella; like Vivaldi he took holy orders; and, like the murdered Stradella, he died in murky circumstances (probably by poisoning) after an outstanding musical career. He was an itinerant composer, dividing his activity between Venice and the courts of Florence, Vienna and Innsbruck. The work recorded here dates from his period at the Viennese court, and the opera is characteristic of Viennese opera’s synthesis between the comical, parodic register typical of the Venetian aesthetic (of which Cavalli’s La Calisto is a remarkable example) and the moral, edifying dimension inherent to court opera. |
 Cyril Scott - Chamber WorksMia Cooper (violin), David Adams (viola) & Robert Plane (clarinet) |
 BBC Radio 3 CD ReviewSaturday 2nd January 2010 |
Building a Library - Tchaikovsky: The Seasons, Op. 37b |
 First Choice(coupled with Mussorgsky: Pictures from an exhibition & Tchaikovsky: Music from The Sleeping Beauty; 6 Piano Pieces Op 21)Mikhail Pletnev (piano) |
Disc of the Week |
 Alfred Brendel - The Farewell ConcertsAlfred Brendel (piano) |
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