A joyful celebration welcoming the New Year with one of the best orchestras in the world. The Gala from Berlin 2004 presents the outstanding Berliner Philharmoniker, conducted by Sir Simon Rattle with Carl Orffs well known Carmina Burana as well as Beethoven's Leonore Overture No. 3 and Handel´s Hallelujah.
Carmina Burana is intensely dramatic and one of the twentieth century's most widely performed works for chorus and orchestra.
Simon Rattle is a musical force of nature and the interaction between his unique, varied musical gifts and the great performing traditions of the Berliner Philharmoniker is one of the most exciting features of our present cultural life.
The soprano Sally Matthews, the tenor Lawrence Brownlee and the baritone Christian Gerhaher made this evening to an extraordinary event. Christian Gerhaher is one of the most important baritones of our times. (He just recorded the Carmina Burana with Daniel Harding, to be released on Deutsche Grammophone in August 2010)
"Everything which I've written so far and which you've unfortunately published you can now pulp. My collected works begin with Carmina Burana." Carl Orff
Picture format DVD: NTSC 16:9
Sounds formats DVD: PCM Stereo, DD 5.0, DTS 5.0
Region code: 0
Booklet notes: English, German, French
Running time: 89 mins
FSK: 0
January 2011
*****
“Rattle leads his massed forces in a spine-tingling performance, injecting an exciting accelerando into the opening O Fortuna and producing a sonorous yet detailed reading that is brilliantly photographed by director Manfred Wittelsberger.”
February 2011
***
“Gerhaher really lives and breathes every moment of of hedonistic self-loathing and sexual longing in his various contrasting cameos.”
Click on any of the works listed above for alternative recordings.
