Arrangement from Wednesday 18 to Sunday 22 September 2024,
4 nights
"Tosca" was first performed on January 14, 1900 at the Teatro Costanzi, now the Teatro dell’Opera di Roma, symbolically on the spot. The evening was a major social event, and in addition to the Prime Minister and the Queen, the composers Pietro Mascagni and Francesco Cilea were also present. With his "Tosca" Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924) entered a new century and, with his highly theatrical and effective scenes, he committed himself to Verist opera on the one hand and to the tragic-heroic grand opera on the other.After seeing the drama of the same name by Victorien Sardous, which was a huge international success with Sarah Bernhardt in the leading role, the composer successfully applied to Sardou for the rights to create a libretto. The wealth of musical ideas (more than 60 themes appear as leitmotifs) and the breathless sequence of events are largely responsible for the immense tension and drama of the opera. By focusing on the main character, the work is considered a "prima donna opera" par excellence. Although it has always been suspected that a historical figure is behind Tosca, the characters and plot are freely invented.However, the background against which the plot unfolds is historically determined by the Second Coalition War and the Battle of Marengo in 1800 between French and Austrian troops. Napoleon’s supposed defeat and his final victory over the coalition troops are reported in the first and second act of the opera.Today "Tosca" is one of the most popular and most performed operas of all.
Tosca♪ - G. Puccini, the 19
Zubin Mehta
Zubin Mehta is an Indian conductor, born in Bombay on April 29, 1936. Trained at the Academy of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna, he then led an international career, conducting several orchestras, including the Philharmonic Orchestra from Israel. Zubin Mehta is particularly famous for his interpretations of neo-romantic symphonic music such as that of composers like Anton Bruckner, Richard Strauss or Gustav Mahler. Its conductor is renowned for its flamboyance and power.
Zubin Mehta♪ - Alvis Hermanis
Lise Davidsen
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Born south of Oslo, soprano Lise Davidsen (*1987) studied in her home country at the Grieg Academy in Bergen as well as at the Royal Opera Academy in Copenhagen and attended various master classes. In 2012 she made her debut at the Royal Danish Opera. Since winning two competitions in 2015, Operalia and the Queen Sonja Competition, she has gone on to make high-profile debuts around the world, earning her Gramophone magazine’s Young Artist of the Year Award in 2018. The Royal Opera House London, La Scala Milan, the Vienna State Opera, New York’s Metropolitan Opera as well as the festival stages in Bayreuth, Aix-en-Provence and Glyndebourne are just a few of her stations. Davidsen has not only made a first-class reputation for herself among Wagnerians, but also shines in the great works of Strauss, Beethoven and Verdi as well as in the Lied repertoire - for example, together with the pianist Leif Ole Andsnes, whereby the repertoire of Grieg plays a central role again and again. Davidsen’s voice flows seemingly effortlessly from silky depths to jubilant highs - powerful and at the same time with an extremely fine feeling for the music. The artist is now exclusively signed to Decca.
Lise Davidsen♪, Freddie De Tommaso, Gerald Finley
Staatsoper Unter den Linden
Concert du Konzerthausorchester Berlin, the 20
Œuvres de C. Debussy, J. Roukens et B. Bartók
Joana Mallwitz
Piano : Lucas & Arthur Jussen
Konzerthaus
When Giacomo Puccini died in Brussels in November 1924 as a result of cancer, his composition of "Turandot" was still unfinished. The composer Franco Alfano (1876-1954) was then commissioned to complete the opera. At the premiere at the Teatro alla Scala, the work was performed as a homage to Puccini only up to Liù’s death aria. The conductor Arturo Toscanini addressed the audience at this point: "Here the opera ends, because this is where the master died"."Turandot" can be regarded as the culmination of Puccini’s creative output, since it perfectly combines all four elements that characterize his incomparable style: The slave Liù symbolizes the lyrical-sentimental element, the pair Turandot/Kalaf the heroic, while the three courtiers stand for the comic-grotesque. The exotic element is achieved by using authentic Chinese sages and pentatonic motifs.Compared to his other works, "Turandot" has greater echoes of contemporary musical trends, as well as dissonances, polytonal effects and, for the traditionally trained listener, irritating effects in singing and orchestration, making it - compared to his earlier operas - long less popular with the audience. In the meantime, however, Puccini’s last work has established itself on the opera stages. In it, his life’s work is bundled and gives room for speculation as to what the composer’s further musical development might have been like.
Turandot♪ - G. Puccini, the 21
Keri-Lynn Wilson - Philipp Stölzl
Sondra Radvanovsky,
Elena Stikhina
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Soprano Elena Stikhina (*1986) is one of the outstanding young artists of our time and has already caused an international sensation in her field: after winning the prestigious Operalia Singing Competition in 2016 – an award that in the past has already been the career springboard for many glorious artists of our times – performances at the Opéra de Paris, the Deutsche Oper Berlin as well as the Staatsoper Unter den Linden and the Dresden Semperoper soon followed. In the 2018/2019 season, Stikhina made her successful debuts in the U.S., both at New York’s Metropolitan Opera, where she gave the title role in Giacomo Puccini’s ´Suor Angelica`, and as ´Tosca` at Boston Lyric Opera. In the summer of 2019, the Russian-born singer gave her much acclaimed premiere at the Salzburg Festival with the role of Medee – standing in for Sonya Yoncheva. With this, at the latest, Stikhina is about to establish herself from an outstanding young artist to one of the future big stars in the musical sky.
Elena Stikhina♪, Riccardo Massi,
René Pape
René Pape is a German opera singer born September 4, 1964 in Dresden. René Pape began studying music and singing at the age of 8 in the boys’ choir of the Holy Cross Church in Dresden. Then René Pape continued his apprenticeship at the Dresden Conservatory. René Pape made his debut at the Berlin Staatsoper Unter den Linden in 1988, and gained dazzling international recognition in 1991, when Sir Georg Solti gave him the role of Sarastro in a production of The Magic Flute, a role he sang again. the same year at La Scala in Milan under the direction of the same conductor. René Pape performs regularly in major opera houses, concert halls and symphony orchestras around the world, as well as opera festivals such as Bayreuth, Glyndebourne, Lucerne, Orange, Salzburg, where he is conducted by the greatest conductors of orchestra.
René Pape♪
Staatsoper Unter den Linden