Known for Acting
Two lovers, Don Alvaro and Leonora, are preparing to elope, but they are surprised by the young woman's father. Misfortune follows them when Don Alvaro, while throwing his pistols on the ground, unintentionally fires one and kills the father. Fortune is capricious and laughs at the fate of men.
Mahler's 8th is one of the greatest orchestral and choral works in the classical repertoire and is rarely performed. The work has been called the 'Symphony of a Thousand', and requires eight soloists and several choirs, in addition to the orchestra. Edward Gardner's last concert in the role of Chief Conductor of the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra was during the Bergen International Festival, with the monumental Mahler's 8th Symphony in E-flat major on the programme. The concert won the Critics' Prize for Music 2023–2024, and what has been described as a "heavenly finale" has been captured for the big screen. 'Try to imagine the whole universe beginning to ring and resound. There are no longer human voices, but planets and suns revolving.' the composer said of his eighth symphony. When the work was premiered in 1910, with Mahler conducting, it broke all the rules and boundaries of what symphonies could and should be.
Simon Stone's take on Arrigo Boito's Mefistofele, opening the 2023/2024 season at the Opera di Roma.
For the first time in company history, the Met presents the original five-act French version of Verdi’s epic opera of doomed love among royalty, set against the backdrop of the Spanish Inquisition. Patrick Furrer leads a world-beating cast of opera’s leading lights in this March 26 performance, including tenor Matthew Polenzani in the title role, soprano Sonya Yoncheva as Élisabeth de Valois, and mezzo-soprano Elīna Garanča as Eboli. Bass Günther Groissböck and bass-baritone John Relyea are Philippe II and the Grand Inquisitor, and baritone Étienne Dupuis rounds out the all-star principal cast as Rodrigue. Verdi’s masterpiece receives a monumental new staging by David McVicar that marks his 11th Met production, placing him among the most prolific and popular directors in recent Met memory. This live cinema transmission is part of the Met’s award-winning Live in HD series, bringing opera to movie theaters across the globe.
Newman's poem tells the story of a soul's journey through death, and provides a meditation on the unseen world of Roman Catholic theology. Gerontius (a name derived from the Greek word geron, "old man") is a devout Everyman. Elgar's setting uses most of the text of the first part of the poem, which takes place on Earth, but omits many of the more meditative sections of the much longer, otherworldly second part, tightening the narrative flow.
“An exhilarating success, a brilliant presentation of Ligeti's commanding score and a disarming production.” This was the verdict of the New York Times after three sold-out performances of György Ligeti's opera “Le Grand Macabre”, with which Alan Gilbert, in collaboration with director Doug Fitch, brought this milestone of modern music theater to New York for the first time in May 2010. For the Hamburg International Music Festival - which focuses on Ligeti's music - the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra is now bringing the highly acclaimed production to Hamburg in a version adapted for the Elbphilharmonie. “Le Grand Macabre” is a grotesque parable on the downfall of humanity, ‘an opera about the existential crisis in the modern world, about the search for the meaning of life - with all its nonsense and craziness’, states Alan Gilbert. It is no coincidence that this pitch-black musical theater spectacle is the most frequently performed contemporary opera in the world.
Benjamin Britten’s Billy Budd will be performed in Norway for the very first time! This is an opera set in a hard masculine environment, about repressed passions and the weight of guilt - but also about rebellion, the power of beauty and about release. Director of Opera Annilese Miskimmon herself directs this masterpiece, featuring an exclusively male cast. Director Annilese Miskimmon and Set and Costume designer Annemarie Woods, take us onto a submarine during the Vichy regime in 1940s France. Here we meet a close and claustrophobic environment, controlled by sailors’ discipline and the meaningless necessity of war.
Running through Bartók’s disenchanted tale, whose haunting music was initially condemned as unplayable, and the expression of despair in Poulenc’s monologue, the director Krzysztof Warlikowski perceives a shared dramatic thread, a shared feminine consciousness and a shared sense of imprisonment and suffocation: for the woman who penetrates the confines of Bluebeard’s castle and Elle, the woman who clings to a telephone conversation with a man as the only thing worth living for, are condemned to share the same fate. And this man she speaks to, does he really exist? Unless the director has interpreted Cocteau’s words to the letter and the telephone has become a “terrifying weapon that leaves no trace, makes no noise”…
The dashing corsair Simon Boccanegra and Maria, daughter of the nobleman Jacopo Fiesco, have fallen in love and had an illegitimate daughter. The child has disappeared from her foster-home. Boccanegra returns to Genoa to break the news to Maria, and learns of her death as a crowd, led by the plebeian Paolo Albiani, proclaim him Doge of Genoa. Performed at the Teatro di San Carlo, Torino on October 10th, 2017.
Nabucco, King of Babylon, takes Jerusalem in his war with the Israelites – but his daughter Fenena loves the Israelite Ismaele. She releases their prisoners, leading her vengeful half-sister Abigaille to plot to take power. Nabucco declares himself a god and is struck by a bolt of lightning. Abigaille tricks the now feeble king into signing a death warrant for the Israelites, including Fenena and Ismaele. Nabucco prays to the God of Israel for forgiveness; his sanity is restored and he saves the prisoners from death. He converts himself and his people, while Abigaille commits suicide.
