Cast with voice ranges: Wolfgang Ablinger-Sperrhacke, tenor: Pollux , King of Eos Krassimira Stoyanova, soprano: Danae, his daughter Regine Hangler, soprano: Xanthe , her servant Tomasz Konieczny, bass-baritone: Jupiter Norbert Ernst, tenor: Mercury Gerhard Siegel, tenor: Midas, King of Lydia, alias Chrysopher Pavel Kolgatin, tenor; Andi Früh, tenor; Ryan Speedo Green, bass-baritone; Jongmin Park, bass: Four Kings Maria Celeng, soprano: Queen Semele Olga Bezsmertna, soprano: Queen Europa Michaela Selinger, mezzo soprano: Queen Alkmene Jennifer Johnston, mezzo soprano: Queen Leda Franz Welser-Möst, Conductor, Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra Salzburg Festival, 2016
Maravillosa, no hay palabras para expresar la música del tercer acto. Es una pena que Karajan, bohm, solti, sinopoli, sawallisch o kempf NO la hayan llevado al estudio de grabación.
Many of the comments reflect the general complaints about Strauss’s operas, i.e., they are not all masterpieces. But to that, I ask, is every opera of Verdi a masterpiece? Puccini? Is every note of Wagner or Mozart an inspiration from Heaven? Of course not! So why do people say, “Oh, this isn’t Strauss’s best score?”
Well, I for one find the opera inspired, with moments of genius throughout. I regard Act 1 as the masterpiece rather than Act 3. Did Strauss surpass this score several times over? Of course. Nonetheless, I would never qualify this opera as minor, much less evidence of an artistic burn out.
I wasn’t terribly impressed by the conducting. The singing was better. I liked the colorful and interesting production. It is rare for me not to throw up my hands in disgust during this age of appallingly awful productions.
I'm always shocked by those so called specialists who decide which is a major or a minor work, if the composer's inspiration has come to an end or not; those guys would not be capable of composing a single note if asked for!! Great pretentious fools!
I'm not sure I understand your premise: so, you're not allowed to express an opinion about something? You have to be as talented as Richard Strauss to express an opinion on his music? That seems to be what you're implying.
@@nicholasfox966I'm implying that we listeners or viewers of a work created by a genius of that level have no right to classify as minor or not works . We can say that we like them or not, that we prefer such work to an other but to have the nerve to pretend to be able to give lessons to composers of the stature of Bach, Mozart, Mahler, Strauss, Beethoven and others is presumptuous. I stay humbly in awe before these men or women capable to visualize works of these dimensions just on a piano, think for instance of Beethoven 9th or Mahler's 8th of the Thousand! To me it approaches kind of madness or supernatural.
I see. I guess I don't see the correlation between the amount of talent one person has and their right to express an opinion on something. I freely admit that I am not one billionth of the composer that Richard Strauss is, and would never be in a million years, but I also feel strongly that, say, "Elektra" is a major masterwork and "Intermezzo" is a minor work. This opinion does not presume that I am better than him, or a greater artist than him, or that I personally could have written something better (by definition, that's true: I'm not Richard Strauss). But I don't think it's true that all of his music is equally masterful, and I think that he himself would be the first to agree.
@@nicholasfox966 were we in his mind when he decided to compose, did we know the personal situation he was in when he sat before his piano and suddenly had an idea. Maybe he just sat there and without thinking to anything precise, began to prelude on the keyboard absentmindedly and progressively the work began to take shape because of the book he read the day before...So what? The work was composed in 1940. In 1933 he accepted a prominent post given to him by the Nazis. So we decide that he was a Nazi. Are we so sure of that? He was not antisemitic. The work was created in 1944. What have been his real thoughts during that horrid period of terror not only abroad but also inside Germany's borders. In short there are so many conditions and events which overwhelmed his life during those 4 years; perhaps it was a way to evade from the harsh reality of the period. We have absolutely no answers to this and these facts have direct consequences on the mind of an individual and more I'm sure on that of a genius of this level. And in some way these events may set this as a major work because it has perhaps changed his perspective on life and brought him to compose Capriccio. Yes Elektra, Salome , Die Frau ohne Shatten or Arabella are huge works. I have all Strauss's operas at home on video or cds. Today Nicholas it has been kind of a snobbish moto to consider that to enjoy something funny, play or opera, is to be despised, is "petit bourgeois", reactionary (not sure the word exists with the same meaning than in French) which explains the horrible staging we have to suffer on opera's stages, for instance Olivier Py putting Nazis in Mathis Der Mahler by Hindemith, or machine guns in Aida's second act parade! Another one considers Don Giovanni a drug addict homosexual because today it has become the habit to find gays everywhere, I'm gay and I'm fed up with this way of thinking! Because Winifred Wagner was a pro Nazi, we decide that Wagner would have accepted Hitler's Final Solution. All Europe wast antisemitic in the XIXth century and XXth first half and may be still, remember the Dreyfus scandal in France. That's what I mean by not considering the level of a work versus an other one.
Who did this production? I can't find information about "Classica Live." Somebody spent a lot of money on this....and it shows. Love those costumes!!! Not to be overlooked is the enormous skill of the team who recorded this performance for video.
I often complain bitterly when modern directors of operas from a previous generation try to make a name for themselves by destroying a work of art they claim to be honoring. In Salzburg, known for its sumptuous productions, we have a happy marriage of many perfect parts in the 2016 production of Strauss’ “Die Liebe der Danae.” Since the parts are equal, it is frustrating to have to place one above another. But, I’ll have to start with the costume designer, Juozas Statkevicius, whose joyous, colorful creations shine as a hundred unique masterpieces across the huge Salzburg stage. Truly amazing! (One has to notice the sheer tops displaying enhanced breasts with nipples for Semele, Europa, Alkmene, and Leda.) Next, the choreographer, Alla Sigalova, is simply amazing in creating complicated yet perfectly appropriate accompaniment in dance throughout the opera. One might think the dancing would inappropriately overshadow the lead characters, but it doesn’t. The brilliant creativity of stage director and set designer, Alvis Hermanis, cannot be overly praised. Everything one see is beautifully arranged and technologically masterful. I cannot imagine a more perfect stage blocking of the singers and dancers. Our thanks must also go to the video designer, Ineta Sipunova, who manages to seamlessly show the video audience the clear moment-to-moment focus for maximum stimulation. The only negative comment I need to make is that it is almost impossible for any videographer in the 21st century to resist extreme close-ups, which honestly display the age and the perspiration of the actors. One expects perfection from the Vienna Philharmonic. And, here one gets it under conductor Franz Welser-Most. Krassimira Stoyanova is wonderful, but might appear younger to the Austrian live audience than to those who witness the extreme-close-ups of the video. Tomasz Konieczny plays Jupiter - our frustrated, horny god. And, Midas is played by Gerhard Siegel. Though I would have preferred a less chunky hero, one can easily overlook Siegel’s size by witnessing his acting ability and listening to his voice.
a performance with no sense of this score, which just happens to be the greatest musical composition ever written, but in Welser-Most’s leaden reading, it’s just a sequence of notes, which are played in order to get them out, as the conductor strains there on his musical toilet (the podium is just that for him), doing something that must be done in order to get to the action of the flush-valve and relief from all that painful pressure, at last! How eager he must have been to reach the end of it! None of the ecstasy of this breathtaking masterpiece, such as was effectively conveyed by Ulrich Windfuhr, in his reading of the score, which is issued on the cpo label, and which performance of the work is really the only one to have, of the several that are now available - because it’s the only one that masters this gargantuan piece of musical architecture. Above all, Welser-Most has no sense of the momentum of the work - the momentum that, for example, in its first (and biggest) great arch, which extends (in this Welser-Most performance) builds all the way from the very opening notes up to 39:00, and then slightly subsides, coming down from outer space into the stratosphere, and lingers there, suspended like that, above the Earth, before closing out and plunging again back to Earth suddenly, at 43:00, and thus ending Act One - ending the biggest, and most astounding, and most ecstatic, and most monumental, musical arc ever composed, but which is just a stiff succession of notes for Welser-Most straining at his toilet - to finish a job, that must be done, and that he does, utterly without love for it. This performance is an abomination.
you really need to get out more, dude. the score has many fine moments, but it's extremely inconsistent, even strauss knew it. most of those moments are in act 3.
omg, i've heard that recording, that windfuhr recording. it is ghastly! the two sopranos sound like stray cats being tortured, nay murdered. you've got some dog in this race, clearly.
I love Strauss but even about 5 of his other operatic scores far surpass this. And to call this the greatest musical composition ever written......have you ever heard of a composer called Mozart? or Beethoven? or Wagner? No, I didn't think so.
I adore Strauss too, and of the late works, particularly love Capriccio and Daphne. This work is, as the others say, inconsistent. At its best it is great (act 3), but there is also a lot of it is note spinning as Strauss used to say. Welser Most is a boring conductor though, agreed. His Arabella (on DVD) is totally without the filigree delicacy and romance the score so evidently requires.
Salome, Elektra, Capriccio, Daphne, Ariadne, Arabella, Intermezzo are all undoubtedly greater, and probably FrOSch too, despite its failings. But Act 3 of this opera is absolutely marvellous, from the orchestral interlude to the end. Renée Fleming recorded the Act 3 aria absolutely wonderfully - if only she had recorded the rest with Terfel and Heppner in their primes! Ah well.
Danae, whose father King Pollux is bankrupt and beset by creditors, dreams of a wealthy husband in terms of a shower of golden rain. Royal envoys return with news that Midas, who can turn all to gold, has agreed to woo Danae, and his arrival at the harbour is announced. Danae receives a stranger who is Midas in disguise as his own servant. Strangely drawn to each other, they proceed to the harbour where the supposed King Midas (actually Jupiter in pursuit of another female conquest) greets Danae. Jupiter prepares for his marriage to Danae but, fearing discovery by his wife Juno, forces Midas to deputise for him at the ceremony. When Danae and Midas embrace, she is turned into a golden statue and Jupiter claims her as his divine bride. However her voice calls for the mortal Midas, she is returned to life, and the lovers disappear into the darkness. Jupiter announces that she will be cursed with poverty. Midas, returned to his former existence as a donkey-driver, reveals to Danae his broken pact with Jupiter, but Danae admits that it was love rather than his golden cloak that won her heart. Jupiter pays off Pollux's creditors with a shower of gold and, realising that Danae is far more than a passing amorous fancy, makes one desperate last attempt to win her back. However, she gives him a hair-clasp, her last golden possession, and the god accepts his loss with a moving farewell.
Dear Lord-how is a tenor like this, so supremely awful, allowed into such a high-end production? I was growing impatient with the bleating, Deborah Voigt-like soprano, but compared to the tenor, she's freaking Kirsten Flagstad. At least she sings more or less in tune. Without a strong, diatonic underpinning, one doesn't even know what note the tenor is pretending to sing-it's absolutely scandalous.
I cannot stand this kind of Alì Baba production. I much prefer Kirsten Harms production on Arthaus, even if Emanuela Uhl is less than ideal (better than in her recording in any case).
The Genius Richard Strauss:-) Thx for posting this Masterpiece:-)
Sensacional, maravillosa. No hay palabras para describir esta obra y esta función. Bravi!
What a fabulous show, a feast for eyes and ears.
Cast with voice ranges:
Wolfgang Ablinger-Sperrhacke, tenor: Pollux
, King of Eos
Krassimira Stoyanova, soprano: Danae, his daughter
Regine Hangler, soprano: Xanthe
, her servant
Tomasz Konieczny, bass-baritone: Jupiter
Norbert Ernst, tenor: Mercury
Gerhard Siegel, tenor: Midas, King of Lydia, alias Chrysopher
Pavel Kolgatin, tenor; Andi Früh, tenor; Ryan Speedo Green, bass-baritone; Jongmin Park, bass: Four Kings
Maria Celeng, soprano: Queen Semele
Olga Bezsmertna, soprano: Queen Europa
Michaela Selinger, mezzo soprano: Queen Alkmene
Jennifer Johnston, mezzo soprano: Queen Leda
Franz Welser-Möst, Conductor, Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra
Salzburg Festival, 2016
Maravillosa, no hay palabras para expresar la música del tercer acto. Es una pena que Karajan, bohm, solti, sinopoli, sawallisch o kempf NO la hayan llevado al estudio de grabación.
2:01 Act I
43:18 Act II
1:29:05 Act III
Many of the comments reflect the general complaints about Strauss’s operas, i.e., they are not all masterpieces. But to that, I ask, is every opera of Verdi a masterpiece? Puccini? Is every note of Wagner or Mozart an inspiration from Heaven? Of course not! So why do people say, “Oh, this isn’t Strauss’s best score?”
Wunderbar!
I still can’t get over the fact that the Recording from Kiel is better then the Salzburg festival.
Well, I for one find the opera inspired, with moments of genius throughout. I regard Act 1 as the masterpiece rather than Act 3. Did Strauss surpass this score several times over? Of course. Nonetheless, I would never qualify this opera as minor, much less evidence of an artistic burn out.
I wasn’t terribly impressed by the conducting. The singing was better. I liked the colorful and interesting production. It is rare for me not to throw up my hands in disgust during this age of appallingly awful productions.
I'm always shocked by those so called specialists who decide which is a major or a minor work, if the composer's inspiration has come to an end or not; those guys would not be capable of composing a single note if asked for!! Great pretentious fools!
I'm not sure I understand your premise: so, you're not allowed to express an opinion about something? You have to be as talented as Richard Strauss to express an opinion on his music? That seems to be what you're implying.
@@nicholasfox966I'm implying that we listeners or viewers of a work created by a genius of that level have no right to classify as minor or not works . We can say that we like them or not, that we prefer such work to an other but to have the nerve to pretend to be able to give lessons to composers of the stature of Bach, Mozart, Mahler, Strauss, Beethoven and others is presumptuous.
I stay humbly in awe before these men or women capable to visualize works of these dimensions just on a piano, think for instance of Beethoven 9th or Mahler's 8th of the Thousand! To me it approaches kind of madness or supernatural.
I see. I guess I don't see the correlation between the amount of talent one person has and their right to express an opinion on something. I freely admit that I am not one billionth of the composer that Richard Strauss is, and would never be in a million years, but I also feel strongly that, say, "Elektra" is a major masterwork and "Intermezzo" is a minor work. This opinion does not presume that I am better than him, or a greater artist than him, or that I personally could have written something better (by definition, that's true: I'm not Richard Strauss). But I don't think it's true that all of his music is equally masterful, and I think that he himself would be the first to agree.
@@nicholasfox966 were we in his mind when he decided to compose, did we know the personal situation he was in when he sat before his piano and suddenly had an idea. Maybe he just sat there and without thinking to anything precise, began to prelude on the keyboard absentmindedly and progressively the work began to take shape because of the book he read the day before...So what? The work was composed in 1940. In 1933 he accepted a prominent post given to him by the Nazis. So we decide that he was a Nazi. Are we so sure of that? He was not antisemitic. The work was created in 1944. What have been his real thoughts during that horrid period of terror not only abroad but also inside Germany's borders. In short there are so many conditions and events which overwhelmed his life during those 4 years; perhaps it was a way to evade from the harsh reality of the period. We have absolutely no answers to this and these facts have direct consequences on the mind of an individual and more I'm sure on that of a genius of this level. And in some way these events may set this as a major work because it has perhaps changed his perspective on life and brought him to compose Capriccio. Yes Elektra, Salome , Die Frau ohne Shatten or Arabella are huge works. I have all Strauss's operas at home on video or cds.
Today Nicholas it has been kind of a snobbish moto to consider that to enjoy something funny, play or opera, is to be despised, is "petit bourgeois", reactionary (not sure the word exists with the same meaning than in French) which explains the horrible staging we have to suffer on opera's stages, for instance Olivier Py putting Nazis in Mathis Der Mahler by Hindemith, or machine guns in Aida's second act parade! Another one considers Don Giovanni a drug addict homosexual because today it has become the habit to find gays everywhere, I'm gay and I'm fed up with this way of thinking! Because Winifred Wagner was a pro Nazi, we decide that Wagner would have accepted Hitler's Final Solution. All Europe wast antisemitic in the XIXth century and XXth first half and may be still, remember the Dreyfus scandal in France. That's what I mean by not considering the level of a work versus an other one.
@@jvdesuit1 A lot of this started with Norman Del Mar. He made up the whole fairy-tale. Absolute nonsense.
Who did this production? I can't find information about "Classica Live." Somebody spent a lot of money on this....and it shows. Love those costumes!!! Not to be overlooked is the enormous skill of the team who recorded this performance for video.
I often complain bitterly when modern directors of operas from a previous generation try to make a name for themselves by destroying a work of art they claim to be honoring.
In Salzburg, known for its sumptuous productions, we have a happy marriage of many perfect parts in the 2016 production of Strauss’ “Die Liebe der Danae.” Since the parts are equal, it is frustrating to have to place one above another. But, I’ll have to start with the costume designer, Juozas Statkevicius, whose joyous, colorful creations shine as a hundred unique masterpieces across the huge Salzburg stage. Truly amazing! (One has to notice the sheer tops displaying enhanced breasts with nipples for Semele, Europa, Alkmene, and Leda.)
Next, the choreographer, Alla Sigalova, is simply amazing in creating complicated yet perfectly appropriate accompaniment in dance throughout the opera. One might think the dancing would inappropriately overshadow the lead characters, but it doesn’t.
The brilliant creativity of stage director and set designer, Alvis Hermanis, cannot be overly praised. Everything one see is beautifully arranged and technologically masterful. I cannot imagine a more perfect stage blocking of the singers and dancers.
Our thanks must also go to the video designer, Ineta Sipunova, who manages to seamlessly show the video audience the clear moment-to-moment focus for maximum stimulation. The only negative comment I need to make is that it is almost impossible for any videographer in the 21st century to resist extreme close-ups, which honestly display the age and the perspiration of the actors.
One expects perfection from the Vienna Philharmonic. And, here one gets it under conductor Franz Welser-Most.
Krassimira Stoyanova is wonderful, but might appear younger to the Austrian live audience than to those who witness the extreme-close-ups of the video.
Tomasz Konieczny plays Jupiter - our frustrated, horny god.
And, Midas is played by Gerhard Siegel. Though I would have preferred a less chunky hero, one can easily overlook Siegel’s size by witnessing his acting ability and listening to his voice.
a performance with no sense of this score, which just happens to be the greatest musical composition ever written, but in Welser-Most’s leaden reading, it’s just a sequence of notes, which are played in order to get them out, as the conductor strains there on his musical toilet (the podium is just that for him), doing something that must be done in order to get to the action of the flush-valve and relief from all that painful pressure, at last! How eager he must have been to reach the end of it! None of the ecstasy of this breathtaking masterpiece, such as was effectively conveyed by Ulrich Windfuhr, in his reading of the score, which is issued on the cpo label, and which performance of the work is really the only one to have, of the several that are now available - because it’s the only one that masters this gargantuan piece of musical architecture.
Above all, Welser-Most has no sense of the momentum of the work - the momentum that, for example, in its first (and biggest) great arch, which extends (in this Welser-Most performance) builds all the way from the very opening notes up to 39:00, and then slightly subsides, coming down from outer space into the stratosphere, and lingers there, suspended like that, above the Earth, before closing out and plunging again back to Earth suddenly, at 43:00, and thus ending Act One - ending the biggest, and most astounding, and most ecstatic, and most monumental, musical arc ever composed, but which is just a stiff succession of notes for Welser-Most straining at his toilet - to finish a job, that must be done, and that he does, utterly without love for it. This performance is an abomination.
you really need to get out more, dude. the score has many fine moments, but it's extremely inconsistent, even strauss knew it. most of those moments are in act 3.
omg, i've heard that recording, that windfuhr recording. it is ghastly! the two sopranos sound like stray cats being tortured, nay murdered. you've got some dog in this race, clearly.
I love Strauss but even about 5 of his other operatic scores far surpass this. And to call this the greatest musical composition ever written......have you ever heard of a composer called Mozart? or Beethoven? or Wagner? No, I didn't think so.
I adore Strauss too, and of the late works, particularly love Capriccio and Daphne. This work is, as the others say, inconsistent. At its best it is great (act 3), but there is also a lot of it is note spinning as Strauss used to say. Welser Most is a boring conductor though, agreed. His Arabella (on DVD) is totally without the filigree delicacy and romance the score so evidently requires.
Salome, Elektra, Capriccio, Daphne, Ariadne, Arabella, Intermezzo are all undoubtedly greater, and probably FrOSch too, despite its failings. But Act 3 of this opera is absolutely marvellous, from the orchestral interlude to the end. Renée Fleming recorded the Act 3 aria absolutely wonderfully - if only she had recorded the rest with Terfel and Heppner in their primes! Ah well.
Prachtig
Danae, whose father King Pollux is bankrupt and beset by creditors, dreams of a wealthy husband in terms of a shower of golden rain. Royal envoys return with news that Midas, who can turn all to gold, has agreed to woo Danae, and his arrival at the harbour is announced. Danae receives a stranger who is Midas in disguise as his own servant. Strangely drawn to each other, they proceed to the harbour where the supposed King Midas (actually Jupiter in pursuit of another female conquest) greets Danae. Jupiter prepares for his marriage to Danae but, fearing discovery by his wife Juno, forces Midas to deputise for him at the ceremony. When Danae and Midas embrace, she is turned into a golden statue and Jupiter claims her as his divine bride. However her voice calls for the mortal Midas, she is returned to life, and the lovers disappear into the darkness. Jupiter announces that she will be cursed with poverty. Midas, returned to his former existence as a donkey-driver, reveals to Danae his broken pact with Jupiter, but Danae admits that it was love rather than his golden cloak that won her heart. Jupiter pays off Pollux's creditors with a shower of gold and, realising that Danae is far more than a passing amorous fancy, makes one desperate last attempt to win her back. However, she gives him a hair-clasp, her last golden possession, and the god accepts his loss with a moving farewell.
L'âne veut rester en scène 🙂
à 1:30:00
Really let down by having a second-rate Mime as Jupiter and a third-rate Mime as Midas, both of which are lyric-heroic roles. Stoyanova is good.
You forgot the forth-rate Mime as Pollux
Dear Lord-how is a tenor like this, so supremely awful, allowed into such a high-end production? I was growing impatient with the bleating, Deborah Voigt-like soprano, but compared to the tenor, she's freaking Kirsten Flagstad. At least she sings more or less in tune. Without a strong, diatonic underpinning, one doesn't even know what note the tenor is pretending to sing-it's absolutely scandalous.
Staging is mediocre .........................
I cannot stand this kind of Alì Baba production. I much prefer Kirsten Harms production on Arthaus, even if Emanuela Uhl is less than ideal (better than in her recording in any case).
I completely agree. It’s pretty racist to say the least.
@@peteradaniel You have no idea what racism is.
@@mianom thanks, Michael, I appreciate your input.
@@peteradaniel Had no intention whatsoever of sounding 'racist'.
@@mianom Like you do. Asswipe.