In 2003 the Greek conductor Konstantia Gourzi, who is also active as a composer, was commissioned by the Staatsoper of Berlin to complete Haydn’s opera Philemon and Baucis, that has survived only in fragments. The work, written for a puppet theatre and first performed in 1773, is based on the archetypal story of the old couple unable to live without each other. The work, that was staged with enormous success in Berlin, will be conducted by the composer in the Railway Nostalgia Park. Balázs Kovalik will be in charge of the stage production.

http://www.dohnanyiorchestra.hu/

Probably even composers holding the most elevated artistic principles nurture a secret desire that one day they would hear their own works whistled by the man in the street. If this wish ever came true for anyone, it certainly did not Puccini: perhaps nothing from opera has made the transition to popular culture as easily as Nessun dorma, the famous tenor aria from Turandot. True, Puccini did not live to witness its popularity – he died in 1924 leaving the opera unfinished. Of course, the hit status in itself gives no idea of the impressive emotional dimensions of Puccini’s works. In the case of Turandot, the composer who was fighting a losing battle with throat cancer, transformed the story of a blood-thirsty Chinese princess into his hymn to spiritual rebirth.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3KwyR4-lq8

Verdi’s most outstanding and most original follower was Giacomo Puccini, one of the best known figures of Italian opera. The dramatic tone of his operas and their memorable melodies have made him one of the most popular composers.
Puccini’s operas are generally tragic. One exception is Turandot: after several tragic turns it has a happy ending.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3KwyR4-lq8

The joys of Haydn’s first visit to London were tempered with a little bitterness. The orchestra had barely played the first forty bars of the overture at the first rehearsal of Orfeo ed Euridice, or The Soul of the Philosopher when it was interrupted by representatives of the authorities who, in the name of the king and parliament, ordered that all work on the opera be stopped, saying that no performance could be held in a theatre that had been built without a permit. This happened in the spring of 1791, in London’s Italian opera house rebuilt after the fire. Haydn never heard his last and perhaps most popular opera: the première was not held until 160 years later. The libretto expands the basic story of the myth, adding the figure of Arideus, a rival of Orpheus, and in contrast with the operas of Monteverdi and Gluck, it also presents the tragic death of Orpheus. If the incident in London had not prevented further work, it is quite possible that Haydn would have ended the work with an epilogue that would perhaps have thrown light on the meaning of the enigmatic sub-title.

http://www.andrearost.com/

http://www.kennethtarver.com/

http://www.andrearost.com/

http://www.kennethtarver.com/

By his own admission Ádám Fischer likes conducting opera best of all, and Budapest audiences have been able to experience the beneficial consequences of this preference many times. The outstanding conductor has been co-operating since 1973 with the Austrian institution representing the peak of opera and on this occasion he will conduct the guest performance by artists of the Wiener Staatsoper.
The “opera of operas”, Mozart’s masterpiece has been disturbing thinking people for over two hundred years. Both performer and listener again and again come up against mysteries to be solved at any points in the texture of this music drama. And since no one has yet solved them all, each new performance holds out the joy of discovery.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNGoSFYtZWQ