Posts tagged as "bayerisches-staatsorchester"

Strauss: Die Frau ohne Schatten

October 31, 2016

Die Frau ohne Schatten (The Woman without a Shadow) which Richard Strauss composed with his long-time collaborator, the poet Hugo von Hofmannsthal, received an unenthusiastic premiere in Vienna on 10th October 1919. Hofmannsthal’s complicated and heavily symbolic libretto was cited as one of the problems. However, it is now a standard part of the operatic […]

Stravinsky: Oedipus Rex; Strauss: Elektra (Scenes); Kodaly: Hary Janos

October 31, 2016

Both Strauss’s ‘Elektra’ and Stravinsky’s ‘Oedipus Rex’ trace their lineages back to Sophocles, the Greek dramatist who lived in the fourth century BC. Both are stories of the avenging of a royal father’s murder, either by surviving family members (‘Elektra’) or by Fate or the gods themselves (‘Oedipus Rex’). Even from an early age, Georg […]

Beethoven: Fidelio

March 22, 2016

After a spell of recording with Decca, the legendary Wagnerian conductor Hans Knappertsbusch recorded for Westminster, and among his best recordings for this label is this 1961 recording of Fidelio, boasting a cast of great singers at the Austrian and German opera houses, including the much-loved Sena Jurinac.

The Art of Irmgard Seefried – Vol. 1: Arias

March 10, 2016

‘If I were condemned to hear only one voice for the remainder of my life I think it might well be hers. If I wanted to be charmed, to laugh or cry I would find her the perfect companion. In her singing … we hear someone whose every utterance bespeaks natural sincerity and truthful feeling’ […]