July 2006 News Archive

  Page last updated September 2 2006

Forthcoming performances of music by Viktor Ullmann in Weimar and Hannover

First posted July 13 2006

     The Dvořák Society has news of more performances of music by the Czech composer Viktor Ullmann. All of these will be given in Germany in the 2006 – 7. The works in question are his opera The Emperor of Atlantis (Der Kaiser von Atlantis) Op 49 and his Hafis songs (Liederbuch des Hafis) Op 30.

• The Emperor of Atlantis in Weimar (October, November & December 2006: January 2007)

The performances of the opera are being given as part of the 2006 – 7 season of the Deutsches Nationaltheater & Staatskapelle Weimar. The Emperor will be given as half of a double-bill with Henze’s Das Wundertheater. The main details are as follows:

Venue: e-werk, Maschinensaal (National Theatre), Weimar
Dates & times: 25th October, 10th November, 15th & 29th December 2006 | 17th & 26th January 2007 | all at 7:30pm
Artists: Alexander Günther (Emperor Overall), Andreas Koch (Loudspeaker), Jens Söndergaard (Death), Uwe Stickert (Harlequin), Frieder Aurich (A Soldier), Heike Porstein (Bubikopf), Ulrika Stömstedt (Drummer-girl), Staatskapelle Weimar, Marco Comin (conductor).

For more information about this concert including booking arrangements, please see the web site www.nationaltheater-weimar.de.

• Hafis songs in Hannover (September 2006)

This performance is part of the Lower Saxony Music Days (Niedersächsische Musiktage) series. The main details of the concert are as follows:

Venue: Sparkassen-Forum am Schiffgraben, Hannover
Date & time: 19th September at 1:00pm:
Artists: Konstantin Wolff (bass baritone), Trung Sam (piano)
Programme—

• Liszt: Petrarca-Sonette
• Wolf: Michelangelo-Lieder
• Poulenc: Chansons gaillardes
• Quilter: Three Shakespeare songs
• Ullmann: Liederbuch des Hafis, Op 30

For more information about this concert including booking arrangements, please see the web site www.musiktage.de.   www.dvorak-society.org  

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Houston Grand Opera will perform Janáček’s Cunning Little Vixen for the first time in May 2007 with Lisa Saffer in title role

First posted July 23 2006

     Under new General Director, Anthony Freud, Houston Grand Opera will give five performances (one a matinée) of Janáček’s The Cunning Little Vixen as part of the 2006 – 7 season. These will be the first performances of the piece to be given in Houston. It will be sung in English. The production is a joint one with Lyric Opera of Chicago.

The dates of the performances are 4th, 6th (matinée), 8th, 11th & 12th May 2007. The venue is the Brown Theater, Wortham Theater Center. Houston’s Music Director, Patrick Summers, will conduct all performances. The cast includes —

• Lisa Saffer, Vixen
• Fiona Murphy, Fox
• Hector Vásquez, Forester
• David Zinn, Schoolmaster & Mosquito
• Bradley Garvin, Parson

For more details, please see the Houston Grand Opera web site: www.houstongrandopera.org.

• Anthony Freud and the operas of Janáček

The new General Director of Houston Grand Opera is Anthony Freud. British readers will know that Freud was previously General Director of Welsh National Opera, a company renowned among other things for Janáček productions. In an interview given at the time of his appointment to Houston, Freud made the following interesting remarks about the operas of Janáček in relation to the subject of introducing people to opera as a genre —

“… I think it might be more immediate in its impact to bring someone for their first opera to something by Janáček — Jenůfa, From the House of the Dead, or Katya Kabanova — than, for example, taking them to The Barber of Seville, because some of the Janáček pieces are immensely compelling as music theatre, and have fewer operatic conventions for someone new to opera to have to take on board. Very often, if you’re used to going to movies, the sort of soundtracks you hear in movies are not conventional 18th- or 19th-century music in style, but are much more contemporary. So it seems to me that we can actually be very broad in our attempts to reach people, and not simply offer Traviata and Bohème as people’s first-time operas.”   www.dvorak-society.org  

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