Recently received in the mail

I have recently received the following items in the mail :

- Amsterdam : Het Concertgebouw : September October 2014 magazine and agenda ;
- Antwerpen and Gent, Opera Ballet Vlaanderen : Insight 1 magazin ;
- Berlin, Philharmonie : September 2015 leaflet ;
- Caen, Théâtre : 2014-2015 season program book ;
- Cooperstown, Glimmerglass : 2014 Festival program book ;
- Detmold, Landestheater : August September leaflet ;
- Enschede : Nederlandse Reisopera : 2014-2015 season program book ;
- Kiel, Theater : August-September 2014 leaflet ;
- Mainz, Staatstheater : September October 2014 leaflet ;
- Orange, Chorégies : 2015 festival programme brochure ;
- Paris, Théâtre du Châtelet : September - December 2014 leaflet.

Performances of Marc-André Dalbavie's opera 'Charlotte Salomon' in Salzburg

This August, I have attended two performances of Marc-André Dalbavie's new opera Charlotte Salomon in Salzburg : the third on August 7th and the fourth on August 10th.

The libretto by Barbara Honigmann, after Charlotte Salomon's own work Leben? oder Theater? mixes German, mainly used by the spoken character of Charlotte Salomon and French, used by the other singing characters. Charlotte Salomon and her singing double named Charlotte Kann, are dressed the same way, but the speaking character mainly remains seated on the left of the stage, narrating Charlotte's story. The singing characters move in a series of connecting rooms using only the first few meters in front of the very large stage of the Felsenreitschule. Several paintings of Charlotte Salomon are projected on the white set.

The music is rather inexpressive, continuously flowing gently towards an unexpected outburst that seems to have no connection with whatever is happening in the libretto. The simultaneous use of speaking and singing voice and of German and French language (with German and English subtitles) doesn't make the plot easier to understand. The vocal parts don't offer a great variety of styles and are rarely mixed together.

The performance lasts 2 hours and 20 minutes without a break, except a long pause before the epilogue, during which several members of the audience felt an urgent need to rush toward the exits. Most of the characters are always on stage, sometimes just getting busy in a dark part of the set.

All singers performed with dedication and commitment , but it wasn't enough to help the audience to feel concerned about the rather placid staging by Luc Bondy.

The cast was the following : Johanna Wokalek (Charlotte Salomon), Marianne Crebassa (Charlotte Kann), Jean-Sébastien Bou (Doktor Kann, ein Arzt), Géraldine Chauvet (Franziska Kann / Eine Frau), Anaïk Morel (Paulinka Bimbam), Frédéric Antoun (Amadeus Daberlohn, ein Gesangspädagoge), Vincent Le Texier (Herr Knarre / Lageroberst), Cornelia Kallisch (Frau Knarre), Michal Partyka (Professor Klingklang / Ein Kunststudent / Dritter Nazi / Ein Polizist), Eric Huchet (Der Papst / Der Propagandaminister / Der Kunstprofessor / Erster Nazi / Ein Mann / Zweiter Emigrant), Annika Schlicht (Eine Kunststudentin aus Tirol), Wolfgang Resch (Zweiter Nazi). The composer conducted the Mozarteumorchester Salzburg.

Next February in Gelsenkirchen, another stage work on the same subject will receive its world première performance : Michelle DiBucci's dance opera Charlotte Salomon - Der Tod und die Malerin.

Received in the mail this Saturday morning

This Saturday morning, I received the following items in the mail :

- Berlin, Deutsche Oper : August October 2014 leaflet ;
- Berlin, Konzerthaus : September October 2014 brochure ;
- Gelsenkirchen, Musiktheater im Revier : September October 2014 leaflet ;
- Helsinki, Finnish National Opera : Spring 2014 and Autumn 2014 brochures ;
- Koblenz, Theater : September October 2014 leaflet.

New items in my collection

While I was in Salzburg, I received the following items in the mail :

- Dresden, Semperoper : August-October 2014 brochure :
- Freiburg, Theater : September-October 2014 leaflet ;
- Hamburg, Staatsoper : September 2014 leaflet ;
- Hannover, Staatstheater : September 2014 leaflet ;
- Louisville (KY), Kentucky Opera : 2014-2015 season leaflet ;
- Martina Franca, Festival della Valle d'Itria : 2014 Festival brochure ;
- Munich, Bayerische Staatsoper : September-December 2014 brochure ;
- Reims, Opéra : 2014-2015 season program book ;
- Versailles, Opéra Royal : 2014-2015 season program book ;
- Washington (DC), National Opera : 2014-2015 season brochure ;
- Wuppertal, Oper : 2014-2015 season brochures.

I also brought back the following from Salzburg :

- Salzburg, Landestheater : 2014-2015 season program book ;
- Salzburg, Osterfestspiele : 2015 festival leaflet and brochure ;
- Salzburg, Pfingstfestspiele : 2015 festival brochure ;
- Salzburg, Stiftung Mozarteum : Mozart Woche 2015 season brochure ;
- Salzburg, Stiftung Mozarteum : 2014-2015 concert season brochure.

Wanted ! 2014-2015 season programs of opera houses

To complete my collection, I am still expecting paper copies of the 2014-2015 season program for the following opera houses :

- Canada : Calgary, Victoria (BC) ;
- Croatia : Zagreb ;
- Finland : Helsinki ;
- France : Caen, Compiègne, Lille, Monte-Carlo, Montpellier, Reims ;
- Germany : Staatstheater Darmstad, Theater Erfurt, Mittelsächsisches Theater Freiberg, Theater Magdeburg, Staatstheater Nürnberg, Opernhaus Wuppertal ;
- Hungary : Budapest ;
- Italy : Bari, Bolzano, Cagliari, Catania, Firenze, Genova, Milano, Palermo, Parma, Roma, Trieste, Venezia ;
- Latvia : Riga ;
- Netherlands : Enschede, Maastricht ;
- Poland : Warsaw ;
- Portugal : Lisboa ;
- Slovenia : Ljubljana ;
- Switzerland, Bern : Konzert Theater ;
- USA : Anchorage, Central City, Charlotte (Opera Carolina), Dallas, Denver (Opera Colorado), Detroit (Michigan Opera Theatre), Honolulu (Hawaii Opera Theatre), Houston, Indianapolis, Long Beach, Los Angeles, Louisville (Kentucky Opera), Miami (Florida Grand Opera), Milwaukee (Florentine Opera Company), Minneapolis (Minnesota Opera), New Orleans, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Portland, Sacramento, Saint Louis, San Diego, Sarasota, Washington (DC).

I hope I will receive them before the end of the year. I guess I will have to write to them again.

Recently received in the mail

I have recently received the following articles in the mail :

- Atlanta, Opera : 2014-2015 season brochure ;
- Avignon, Opéra : 2014-2015 season program book ;
- Braunschweig : October 2014 leaflet ;
- Bremen, Theater : September 2014 leaflet and brochure :
- Chemnitz, Theater : September October 2014 leaflet ;
- Darmstadt, Staatstheater : September October 2014 leaflet ;
- Dresden, Semperoper : 2014-2015 Semper ! Magazin No. 1 ;
- Frankfurt, Oper : September October 2014 leaflet ;
- Göteborg, Operan : 2014-2015 season program book ;
- Magdeburg, Theater : September 2014 leaflet ;
- Montréal, Opéra : 2014-2015 season brochure ;
- Vilnius, Lietuvos nacionalinis teatras : 2014-2015 leaflet.

Documents about HK Gruber's last opera 'Geschichten aus dem Wiener Wald'

Following the world première performance of HK Gruber's new opera Geschichten aus dem Wiener Wald in Bregenz (see below), I have acquired the following items related to the composer and his opera :

- Andrea Zschunke : HK Gruber - Musik in Kommunikation, Verlag Lafite, 2014 ;
- HK Gruber : Geschichten aus dem Wiener Wald, program book from the Bregenz Festival ;
- HK Gruber / Michael Sturminger : Geschichten aus dem Wiener Wald, Boosey & Hawkes, libretto.

New productions or revivals of recent operas (4)

During the 2014-2015, several recent operas will be performed with new productions or revived :

- Julian Anderson : Thebans, directed by Pierre Audi, Bonn, June 2015. It will be a revival of the original production first performed in London (ENO), in May 2014 ;
- Jake Heggie : Three Decembers, directed by Emma Griffin, Atlanta, May 2015. The opera was first performed in Houston in February 2008. Also performed in Berkeley and Fort Worth ;
- Hans Werner Henze : Phaedra, directed by Florian Lutz, in Halle, March 2015. The opera was first performed in Berlin in September 2007. Other performances followed in Brussels, Firenze, Copenhagen and Duisburg ;
- Toshio Hosokawa : Matsukaze, directed by Matthias von Stegmann, Kiel, May 2015. New production. The opera was first performed in Brussels in May 2011. Since then, it has also been performed in Berlin ;
- Kevin Puts : Silent Night, directed by Eric Simonson, Montréal, May 2015. Revival of the world première production in St. Paul (MN) in November 2011. Production also performed in Philadelphia (February 2013) and Cincinnati (July 2014). The second production, directed by Octavio Cardenas, already performed in Fort Worth last May will be revived in Kansas City in February 2015. A third production, directed by Tomer Zvulun, will happen in October 2014 in Wexford. It will be the European première.

Today : world première of Marc-André Dalbavie's 'Charlotte Salomon' in Salzburg

Today, the second opéra composed by French composer Marc-André Dalbavie will be performed for the first time in Salzburg at the Felsenreitschule.

 

 ‘A person is sitting beside the sea. He is painting. A tune suddenly enters his mind. As he starts to hum it, he notices that the tune exactly matches what he is trying to commit to paper. A text forms in his head, and he starts to sing the tune with his own words, over and over again in a loud voice until the painting seems complete.’ This is how Charlotte Salomon describes the genesis of her fascinating series of paintings, Life? Or Theatre? The young Jewish artist had fled to southern France following the Kristallnacht pogrom in Berlin on the night of 9/10 November 1938, where she joined her grandparents. She was living in Villefranche when the Second World War broke out. Afraid of the troops who were drawing ever closer from Nazi Germany, her grandmother threw herself to her death from an upstairs window. Her grandfather then told her that when Charlotte was nine her mother had ended her life in the same way. Even worse, she now discovered that a whole series of other relatives had committed suicide. Charlotte sensed that if she, too, was not to fall victim to the family curse or to go mad, she would have to do ‘something altogether insanely special’.

(reproduced from the Salzburger Festspiele website)

Dalbavie's first opera, Gesualdo, based on the life of the famous composer was first performed in October 2010 in Zurich. His second opera has a libretto written by Barbara Honigmann, after Charlotte Salomon's own work, then translated into French.

The cast includes Johanna Wokalek, Marianne Crebassa, Jean-Sébastien Bou, Frédéric Antoun, Vincent Le Texier, Cornelia Kallisch, Eric Huchet. The composer conducts the Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg and Luc Bondy directs. The first performance will be broadcast live by Austrian radio Ö1.

Today : World première of HK Gruber's new opera in Bregenz

Today, Heinz Karl Gruber's fourth opera will be performed for the first time in Bregenz, Austria. The libretto for Geschichten aus dem Wiener Wald (Tales from the Vienna Woods) has been written by Michael Sturminger, after Ödön von Horvath's play.

 

Gruber's previous operas are : Gomorra (1993), Gloria von Jaxtberg (1994) and Der Herr Nordwind (2005).

The opera is in 3 acts and lasts about 130 minutes. It requires a quartett of main soloists and 9 other singers, as well as a large orchestra of 23 winds, 3 percusionists, harp, piano, 40 strings, a stage band and a cabaret band. The publisher is Boosey & Hawkes.

Tales from the Vienna Woods is the title of a charming waltz by Johann Strauss (the Younger). The title was borrowed by the Austro- Hungarian writer Ödön von Horváth for what became his best known and often filmed play which was premiered at the Deutsches Theater, Berlin, in 1931. A bitter satire about the mendacity and brutality of the petite-bourgeoisie, ironically named after the forested highlands near the Austrian capital that are so idealised in the waltz. In the play, Viennese Gemütlichkeit becomes a hollow phrase; the tragic, brutal story of the sweet girl Marianne and the deeply conventional butcher Oskar reflects the hardships and anxieties of the late 1920s during the global economic crisis.

(from http://bregenzerfestspiele.com)

The opera will be conducted by the composer and directed by the librettist, with the following cast : Ilse Eerens (Marianne), Daniel Schmutzhard (Alfred), Jörg Schneider (Oskar), Angelika Kirchschlager (Valerie), Albert Pesendorfer (Zauberkönig), Anke Vondung (Mother), Anja Silja (Grandmother), Michael Laurenz (Erich), Markus Butter, David Pittman-Jennings, Alexander Kaimbacher and Robert Maszl.

The first performance will be broadcast live by the Austrian radio Ö1.