Adrian Eröd

The young composer Max is due to marry Agathe, but before his wedding he must finish his opera on which he has been working for quite some time. Despite all his efforts, Max is plagued by worries that he will fail to complete the piece and so makes almost no progress. Visions and hallucinations haunt him, the boundaries between dream and reality seem to blur and overlap. Caspar tries to persuade him finally to give in to the hidden and dark creative powers within him and so overcome his inability to write; Caspar’s efforts are finally rewarded.

Since its premiere in 1893, Engelbert Humperdinck's fairytale opera »Hansel and Gretel« has awakened a passion for music theatre in generations of children. Even his great contemporaries – such as Richard Strauss, Gustav Mahler or Johannes Brahms – were delighted by this work. It is the successful combination of seemingly folkloric simplicity and the complex musical language of Wagner’s direct successor, of simple melody and artful orchestration, and of socio-critical realism and atmospheric magic that makes the music to the Brothers Grimm’s famous story so captivating. And so the Vienna State Opera's production speaks to both children and adults alike, leading through wondrous projections of a magic lantern into the middle of the fairytale storyline.

Carl Maria von Webers dark Romantic era tale of love, faith, and temptation is grippingly performed by the Dresden Staatskapelle led by conductor, Christian Thielemann in this live performance from early 2015. With highly acclaimed staging by Axel Köhler, the singers in leading roles add to the luster of the production with the tenor Michael Königs performance of the anti-hero Max displaying a gloriously free upper register bringing heroic weight to his role and Sara Jakubiak sweet toned and melancholic Agathe.

Axel Köhler’s production of Der Freischütz at the Dresden State Opera was described by Die Presse as “a minor miracle in Dresden”. In the words of the Salzburger Nachrichten, Köhler “scored a bulleye” with his sombre and satanic interpretation of Weber’s Romantic opera about love, temptation, souls sold to the Devil, obsession andfaith. According to the Financial Times, Christian Thielemann and the Dresden Staatskapelle conjured up a sense of “mortal terror from the orchestra pit. […] Thielemann is in command of every detail. That makes for utterly gripping listening.”

With their “comedy for music” in the spirit of Mozart, Richard Strauss and his inspired librettist Hugo von Hofmannsthal created the most popular of all their works and one of the most frequently performed operas of all time. In the guise of a gossamer-light and supremely entertaining high-class comedy, Der Rosenkavalier touches on universal themes such as love, sex, marital fidelity and the changes that human relations undergo over time – and all of it set to music of the most glorious kind imaginable. With its stellar cast under the inspired direction of Harry Kupfer, the 2014 Salzburg Festival’s production of Der Rosenkavalier was one of the most internationally acclaimed interpretations of the work since the start of the new millennium. “A musical feast from beginning to end“ (Wiener Zeitung).

Aribert Reimann is one of the worlds most important living composers. His works are performed regularly all over the world. Now comes his latest opera - Medea. Roughly 30 authors have written works based on this ancient myth but it was the play by Franz Grillparzer which inspired Reimann most: »In no other version is it made so brutally clear that Medea is an outsider. () Right from the start of act one my mind was flooded by musical ideas and by the end of the second act I really thought my head would burst. Vienna State Opera succeeded in recruiting Marco Arturo Marelli a man with a world-wide reputation, especially for global premieres as director and scenographer for this performance. Unusually for a world premiere, the first series of performances of the opera were a huge success amongst audiences and press alike. The public stormed the box office and ticket sales by far exceeded availability. A Sold Out notice had to be put up for virtually every performance!

Live performance from the Vienna State Opera, 6 May 2010.

Giacomo Puccini's immortal opera, in a high budget feature-film version directed by Academy Award nominee Robert Dornhelm, stars opera's 'Golden Couple', Rolando Villazon and Anna Netrebko as the protagonists, Rodolfo and Mimi. The chemistry between them is electric, unrivalled in the theatre today. Russian soprano Anna Netrebko is not only beautiful but has a marvelous voice and technique; Mexican tenor Rolando Villazon, has a wonderful voice and an incredible charisma. The director not only wanted to remain steadfastly faithful to Puccini's design but also document two of the leading singers of the modern age rather than embarking on a 'trendy' contemporary re-creation.

Filmed at the Vienna State Opera in 2005, Andrei Serban's production of Massenet's opera with a late 18th century setting pushes the action forwards to the 1950's,with the visuals exemplifying that decade with precision.With as much delicacy on display as naked passion,his(Alverez)morbid poet is outstandingly realised both vocally and dramatically. Together with Erod's dour Albert and Ileana Tonca's Sophie-clearly in love with Werther herself-the drama is set out with unusual clarity and realism.Philippe Jordan ensures that Massenet's pent-up emotion explodes exactly on cue,its expressive power providing impossible to resist.