Sound
Rome, 1532. Pope Clement VII has tasked the sculptor Benvenuto Cellini with creating a bronze statue of Perseus before the end of carnival. Seeking fame and fortune, the latter accepts the commission, even though his workshop is short on both time and metal. On top of that, Cellini is head over heels in love with Teresa, the daughter of the Pope’s treasurer, Balducci, who for his part is intent on marrying his daughter to Fieramosca, Cellini’s rival in love and art. When the young lovers’ attempt to elope fails, Cellini has no choice but to carry out his task successfully if he wants to avoid certain death… Alain Altinoglu is the ideal conductor for this richly coloured masterpiece, to be staged for the first time at La Monnaie. Director Thaddeus Strassberger is bound to enchant the audience with a colourful show worthy of the finest Carnival celebrations!
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In this strikingly modern 2016 production from the Zurich Opera House, Tcherniakov transposes the opera’s intrigue from forest and castle to living room and psychiatric office. The love story of the original work remains riveting, but Tcherniakov brings an unexpected psychological element to his mise en scène, with Prince Golaud as a psychiatrist and Mélisande as a young woman suffering from PTSD. You’ve never seen Pelléas like this!
Finding the right librettos was not easy, but one month after the end of the First World War, his triptych – the grim tragedy Il tabarro, the lyrical and sensitive Suor Angelica, and the comedy Gianni Schicchi – premiered in New York. Three different eras, three different settings, three different ‘colours’; though for Puccini, it is through the contrasts between them that the unity of the work is revealed. For his second time directing at La Monnaie, Tobias Kratzer preserves the original order of the pieces, while weaving them together to form a narrative whole, like a circle with no end. With a cast of artists from the extended La Monnaie family, Alain Altinoglu is the ideal conductor to meet the daunting challenges posed by this triptych.
In the second part of this magnificent concert celebrating music from across Europe, Lukas Sternath, Martha Argerich, Bruce Liu and Hayato Sumino perform the finest piano concertos by Beethoven, Schumann, Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff.
If in ‘Das Rheingold’ the curtain fell with the hegemony of the gods in Valhalla, the second part of ‘Der Ring des Nibelungen’ opens with a mortal who, alone on Earth, faces a raging storm. Siegmund is called the hunted warrior, and when he briefly finds peace in a concealed hut, he meets the beautiful but equally hapless Sieglinde. An ardent and natural passion blossoms, but at the same time a hidden past surfaces that will seal their fate.
The Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra performs Dmitri Shostakovich's Symphony No. 8. The extraordinary gravity of the Eighth marks a new high in conductor Alain Altinoglu undertaking of the complete discography.
Star tenor Jonas Kaufmann brings aching intensity and vocal charisma to the tortured title hero of Massenet’s Goethe adaptation. Sophie Koch, in her Met debut, is an appealing and elegant Charlotte, the object of Werther’s passionate affection that will lead to tragedy. Lisette Oropesa as Sophie, David Bižić as Albert, and Jonathan Summers as Le Bailli co-star. Richard Eyre’s atmospheric production is conducted by rising maestro Alain Altinoglu.
Born Oscar-Arthur Honegger (the first name was never used) in Le Havre, France, he initially studied harmony and violin in Paris, and after a brief period in Zürich, returned there to study with Charles-Marie Widor and Vincent d'Indy. He continued to study through the 1910s, before writing the ballet Le dit des jeux du monde in 1918, generally considered to be his first characteristic work.
Hayato Sumino performs Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor at the Wiesbaden Kurhaus in Germany with the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Alain Altinoglu as part of Europiano.
The latest edition of the Festival International de Colmar opens with an exceptional performance from the Orchestre Symphonique du Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie de Bruxelles, conducted by Alain Altinoglu. After Wagner's Prelude to Lohengrin, baritone Stéphane Degout sings Mahler's Songs of a Wandering Companion. The evening at Saint-Matthieu church closes with César Franck's Symphony in D minor, a jewel from the repertoire of the late 19th century.
Sergey Khachatryan and the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Alain Altinoglu, perform Aram Khatchatourian's Violin Concerto. Also on the programme, Igor Stravinsky's 'Rite of Spring'.
