News
07.07.2021
Erotic, mystical, nightmarish - Jules Massenet's opera “Thaïs” available for the first time in a scholarly-critical edition
Alongside Gounod's “Faust”, Bizet's “Carmen” and Saint-Saëns' “Samson et Dalila”, “Thaïs” by Jules Massenet is one of those 19th-century French operatic masterpieces whose success on the stage remains undiminished to this day. Together with “Manon” (1884) and “Werther” (1892), it is also one of the composer's most popular and original works. This new edition which appears as part of the “L'Opéra français” series enables all three versions of “Thais” to be drawn upon for the first time. »more«
01.06.2021
Miroslav Srnka’s Space Opera in Munich
A glimpse into the not-too-distant future: In their new opera "Singularity," composer Miroslav Srnka and author Tom Holloway dramatize mind games about computerized people, updates, and human and technical malfunctions. Their opera is a fast-paced play with set pieces of the cyber world, combining vision with farce and a glimpse into human abysses. »more«
31.05.2021
Charles Gounod’s “Faust“ in the dialogue version of 1859 at Oper Köln
Charles Gounod’s undisputed masterpiece “Faust” achieved international renown in its “opéra” version, fully-sung throughout. Since then, it has been completely forgotten that the work, which was of no interest to the director of the Paris Opéra, was first composed with spoken dialogues for the Théâtre Lyrique, the third opera theatre in the French capital after the Académie impériale de musique and the Opéra-Comique. »more«
12.04.2021
Tireless progress - The death of Rudolf Kelterborn
A few months before his 90th birthday, Rudolf Kelterborn passed away in Basel. On 3 September 2021, the Swiss composer, music educator, teacher and mentor of contemporary music would have celebrated this special birthday. The Bärenreiter publishing house mourns the loss of one of the most important and influential artists of his generation and a composer who sustained his creativity until his death. »more«
11.02.2021
Camille Saint-Saëns - Commemorative Year
Camille Saint-Saëns: born on 9 October 1835 in Paris, eight and a half years after Beethoven’s death – died on 16 December 1921 in Algier, eight and a half years after the premiere of Igor Stravinsky’s “Le Sacre du printemps“. A compositional oeuvre which encompasses approximately 700 works of all musical genres. There is hardly another renowned composer whose creative output spans a similarly long period of time and shows a comparable variety. »more«
16.11.2020
Mystical sonorities - A valuable facsimile of Richard Wagner’s “Parsifal”
Knowledge, pity, redemption: Richard Wagner took up these major themes in “Parsifal”, the music drama that he completed 13 months before his death and referred to as his “most conciliatory work”. Already celebrated for its compositional technique and mystical sonorities at the premiere, its world of ideas has stimulated new debates and interpretations over and over again to the present day. »more«
