WAGNER Overtures and Arias
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: Richard Wagner, Hans Werner Henze
Genre:
Opera
Label: C Major
Magazine Review Date: 05/2014
Media Format: Digital Versatile Disc
Media Runtime: 108
Mastering:
DDD
Catalogue Number: 714908
Tracks:
Composition | Artist Credit |
---|---|
(Der) Fliegende Holländer, '(The) Flying Dutchman', Movement: Overture |
Richard Wagner, Composer
Christian Thielemann, Conductor Richard Wagner, Composer Staatskapelle Dresden |
(A) Faust Overture |
Richard Wagner, Composer
Christian Thielemann, Conductor Richard Wagner, Composer Staatskapelle Dresden |
Rienzi, Movement: Allmächt'ger Vater (Rienzi's prayer). |
Richard Wagner, Composer
Christian Thielemann, Conductor Jonas Kaufmann, Tenor Richard Wagner, Composer Staatskapelle Dresden |
Rienzi, Movement: Overture |
Richard Wagner, Composer
Christian Thielemann, Conductor Richard Wagner, Composer Staatskapelle Dresden |
Lohengrin, Movement: Prelude |
Richard Wagner, Composer
Christian Thielemann, Conductor Richard Wagner, Composer Staatskapelle Dresden |
Lohengrin, Movement: In fernem Land |
Richard Wagner, Composer
Christian Thielemann, Conductor Jonas Kaufmann, Tenor Richard Wagner, Composer Staatskapelle Dresden |
Tannhäuser, Movement: Inbrunst im Herzen (Rome narration) |
Richard Wagner, Composer
Christian Thielemann, Conductor Jonas Kaufmann, Tenor Richard Wagner, Composer Staatskapelle Dresden |
Tannhäuser, Movement: Overture |
Richard Wagner, Composer
Christian Thielemann, Conductor Richard Wagner, Composer Staatskapelle Dresden |
Fraternité |
Hans Werner Henze, Composer
Christian Thielemann, Conductor Hans Werner Henze, Composer Staatskapelle Dresden |
Air pour l'orchestre |
Hans Werner Henze, Composer
Christian Thielemann, Conductor Hans Werner Henze, Composer Staatskapelle Dresden |
Author: Mike Ashman
If some hypothetical draconian law were to ban the DVD ing of one kind of music-making, orchestral concerts by living conductors should be high on the list. By all means let the filming be streamed and accessible but…for regular viewing? The only interesting things that happen here from a visual point of view are Kaufmann’s three numbers – aside from his musical achievement he has both natural presence and the ability to put over the content of the narrations in gripping but unhistrionic fashion – and the different degrees to which Thielemann ‘knows’ the music he conducts (from head in score for the Henze to hardly conducting the Holländer and Tannhäuser excerpts at all).
Pardon a critic’s moans but this is a DVD: the medium is the message, and I found watching this one boring. That said, the music-making is absolutely world-class. Orchestra, conductor and singer do not disappoint, especially the Dresden strings which, on this day, were on some kind of seraphic high of their own. For the record, the Henze is a lovely piece, gorgeously and lushly scored somewhat in the manner of a big-orchestra version of the opera Elegy for Young Lovers. It had to be substituted for the commissioned Isoldes Tod that the composer’s death prevented his completing. Thielemann is quite restrained in the climaxes of the Holländer and Rienzi overtures but most involved in an expertly paced Tannhäuser’s Act 3 narrative. For some reason (chorus balance?) the concert’s encore, the Entry of the Guests from Tannhäuser, is omitted. The sound is good enough to enjoy the heavenly string tone but a CD would have been more effective.
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