Salzburg Festival – Don Giovanni

2022

The first D minor chords thunder ominously from the orchestra pit, while on the stage, the entrance hall of an elegant hotel appears, symbolic of a place of non-committal encounters. Luxury seeps from every pore of the stairs, galleries and mysterious doors - the perfect place for Don Giovanni's exercises in seduction. Director Sven-Eric Bechtolf pulls off a brilliant coup with the high aesthetics of his intrigue, a masterful parody of the "everything is possible" of our time - flanked by an ensemble of exquisite vocal talents. Ildebrando D'Arcangelo, testosterone-charged Latin lover, amounts "with his splendid timbre and his stunningly virile magnetism to what must be an ideal realization of Don Giovanni" (Neue Zürcher Zeitung). With his finely balanced voice, Luca Pisaroni as an intellectually bespectacled Leporello. "The powerful bass of Commendatore Tomasz Konieczny is a true sensation" (Frankfurter Rundschau). The female roles are all realized with elegantly lean voices: Anett Fritsch highly dramatic as Elvira, the Donna Anna of Lenneke Ruitens supple in her vocal line and Valentina Nafornia "a wonderful Zerlina who radiates strong vocal sensuality" (Opernnetz).

Offenbach – Les Contes d’Hoffmann

2022

The poet E. T. A. Hoffmann as the protagonist of his own fantastic tales: In his encounter with three women - Olympia, Antonia, and Giulietta - he searches in vain for love and for himself. Will he draw the strength for art from his failure in life? Stage director Daniele Finzi Pasca brings an enchanting, fairy-tale-like spectacle to the stage with all the colourful means of theatrical magic.

Beethoven – Mass in C Major

2018

Commissioned by Prince Nicolas II of Esterházy, Ludwig van Beethoven’s Mass in C Major was first performed in Eisenstadt in 1807. This precursor of the Missa solemnis is the focus of the concerts of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra under Mariss Jansons at Munich’s Gasteig. In the high-carat quartet of soloists Luca Pisaroni joins Genia Kühmeier, Gerhild Romberger and Maximilian Schmitt.

Also in this recording are Hummel's Trumpet Concerto and Stravinsky's Symphony in Three Movements.

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