ORFEO International – Reviews
Important Releases Briefly Introduced
October 2012
ORFEO 1 CD C 859 121 A
Piano Duets - Christina & Michelle Naughton
Since their début as a piano duo in 2008, the twins Christina and Michelle Naughton have proved little short of sensational in concert halls all round the world. [more...]
top September 2012
Salzburger Festspieldokumente 2012
However spectacular the Salzburg Festival may be, and however indebted to international stars, it is also remarkable for the sense of continuity it has shown over the years. [more...]
top August 2012
ORFEO 1 CD C 848 121 A
Puccini’s Suor Angelica is one of the composer’s „problem children“. As the central work of Il Trittico, it is sandwiched between two dramatically more effective pieces. [more...]
top July 2012
ORFEO 2 CD C 845 122 I
Even as recently as the 1970s it was by no means certain that the biggest German opera houses would perform the works in their repertory in their original language. [more...]
top July 2011
ORFEO 1 CD C 858 121 A
Soon after their first performance in 1950, within months of the composer's death, Richard Strauss's Four Last Songs became one of his most enduringly popular works. A setting of poems by Hermann Hesse and Joseph von Eichendorff, they afford the ultimate proof of Strauss's unique ability to write soaring melodic lines for the soprano voice. [more...]
top May 2012
ORFEO 1 CD C 849 121 A
For her previous CD on the Orfeo label, Baiba Skride recorded two highly Romantic violin works by Brahms and has now turned her attention to two 20th-century violin concertos whose composers struck out in extremely individual directions while drawing on traditional formal models. [more...]
top April 2012
ORFEO 3 CD C 856 123 D
Herbert von Karajan famously resigned as director of the Vienna State Opera in 1964, but in May 1977 he was persuaded to return for a handful of performances with the company. His restudied production of Verdi’s Il trovatore opened on 8 May and was followed only two days later by Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro in a staging previously seen at the Salzburg Festival, where it had been a resounding success. [more...]
top March 2012
ORFEO 1 CD C 853 121 A
Dans la Nuit
Nicola Jürgensen goes “into the night” in her present programme, Dans la nuit, which takes its title from a song by Reynaldo Hahn. The clarinettist, who has appeared as a soloist with many leading European orchestras, while also making a name for herself as a chamber recitalist at international music festivals, has adapted these 19th- and early 20th-century French works for her instrument and recorded them with the pianist Matthias Kirschnereit. [more...]
top March 2012
ORFEO 2 CD C 836 112 B
Bedrich Smetana - Má Vlast
Although he was never one of the 20th century's most prominent conductors in terms of his festival appearances and recording contracts, Lovro von Matacic (1899–1985) was in many ways comparable to today's top conductors. [more...]
top February 2012
ORFEO 1 CD C 815 121 A
Miroslav Kultyshev - Edvard Grieg
It makes good sense for the young Russian piano virtuoso Miroslav Kultyshev to follow up his Orfeo recording of Liszt’s Études d’exécution transcendante with Grieg’s A minor Piano Concerto op. 16. [more...]
top January 2012
ORFEO 2 CD C 857 122 I
Edita Gruberova
If opera enthusiasts had to choose a singer as the quintessential coloratura soprano, the name of Edita Gruberova would be bound to come up. [more...]
top November 2011
ORFEO 2 CD C 828 112 A
Johann Sebastian Bach - Klavierkonzerte BWV 1052-1058
Konstantin Lifschitz has long since established himself as an outstanding exponent of the works of Johann Sebastian Bach. He has already recorded the Musical Offering BWV 1079 and the Art of Fugue BWV 1080 for Orfeo and has now turned his attention to the composer’s seven keyboard concertos BWV 1052–8. [more...]
top November 2011
ORFEO 2 CD C 817 112 I
Richard Straus: Ariadne auf Naxos
Many productions at the Vienna State Opera can claim to be model interpretations of the works in question, and this is certainly true of the new production of Richard Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxos that opened well over a quarter of a century ago in November 1976. [more...]
top October 2011
ORFEO 2 CD C 816 112 I
Giuseppe Verdi - La Traviata
Artistic risks facing a leading company like the Vienna State Opera are new productions of the core repertory. By 1971, when a new production of Verdi’s La traviata was staged under the musical direction of Josef Krips, the house could already look back on more than two hundred performances of the work since the end of the Second World War. [more...]
top October 2011
ORFEO 1 CD C 860 111 A
Andris Nelsons - Tschaikowsky
A recent recipient of ECHO Klassik's award as “Conductor of the Year”, Andris Nelsons is now continuing his series of highly acclaimed recordings with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. More especially, he is continuing his exploration of Tchaikovsky's symphonies. [more...]
top August 2011
ORFEO 3 CD C 792 113 D
Antonín Dvorák: Rusalka - Franz Welser-Möst
The 2008 Salzburg Festival production of Dvorák’s opera Rusalka was outstanding even by the Festival’s high artistic standards. [more...]
top August 2011
ORFEO 1 CD C 797 111 B
Press Conference CD Presentation David Afkham 27th of July 2011
Among the new generation of young conductors who have proved an international sensation, the German maestro David Afkham stands out for several different reasons. [more...]
top July 2011
ORFEO 1 CD C 830 111 A
Slavic Opera Arias - Krassimira Stoyanova
Although she came to international prominence in leading soprano roles in Italian and French operas, Krassimira Stoyanova is equally at home in the Slav repertory [more...]
top May 2011
ORFEO 2 CD C 829 112 A
Baiba Skride
Baiba Skride is not just one of the most sought-after artists when it comes to finding a soloist for one of the great violin concertos. She is also much in demand for chamber music. This makes her ideal for her new recording, her first on the ORFEO label, devoted to the work of Johannes Brahms. [more...]
top May 2011
ORFEO 1 CD C 835 111 A
Britten - The Cello Suites
To be the dedicatee of a work by Benjamin Britten was a much coveted honour among 20th-century classical musicians. And for an artist to be the dedicatee of a whole series of works, then the musician in question must have felt exceptionally blessed. [more...]
top April 2011
ORFEO 2 CD C 812 112 I
Shostakovich: Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District
It took a long time for the Vienna State Opera to get round to mounting a production of the first version of Shostakovich's Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District. One of the key works of the 20th century, the opera finally entered the Vienna State Opera repertory in 2009 in its original language [more...]
top April 2011
ORFEO 1 CD C 738 111 A
Antonio Salieri - Harmoniemusiken
After having suffered from numerous legends that were negative to the point of defamation, Antonio Salieri has long been rehabilitated. He in fact shares many traits with his supposed competitor Mozart, if one takes a closer look at their dramatic oeuvre. [more...]
top March 2011
ORFEO 2 CD C 811 112 I
Tchaikovsky: Pique Dame
In contrast to Eugene Onegin, Tchaikovsky’s other operas have led something of a shadowy existence in the repertoire. Only his penultimate music drama The Queen of Spades (also after Alexander Pushkin) can claim to look back on a continuous performing tradition in recent decades. [more...]
top February 2011
ORFEO 1 CD C 833 111 A
Andris Nelsons: Richard Strauss
With his Alpine Symphony, Richard Strauss all but invited us to see it as a veritable “summit” in the genre of programme music. [more...]
top February 2011
ORFEO 1 CD C 752 111 A
Arabella Steinbacher
The Violin Concerto in D Major op. 77 by Johannes Brahms is for performers and audience alike one of the loveliest, most challenging examples of the genre. It was with this work that Arabella Steinbacher gave her debut in the Golden Hall of the Vienna Musikverein in December 2007, the same hall where the composer himself had conducted on occasion. [more...]
top January 2011
ORFEO 2 CD C 683 102 I
Anton Dermota
Is there anyone like him left today? And if so, where? The Slovenian tenor Anton Dermota was not just a member of the ensemble of the Vienna State Opera for over half a century. He was also a master of the stage and concert hall, celebrated all over the world. [more...]
top November 2010
ORFEO 1 CD C 832 101 A
Tchaikovsky - Andriss Nelsons
The City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and its music director Andris Nelsons here present their second Tchaikovsky CD for Orfeo. [more...]
top October 2010
ORFEO 2 CD C 802 102 A
Johann Sebastian Bach: Die Kunst der Fuge BWV 1080
With such a “uniquely open” work such as the Art of Fugue, Konstantin Lifschitz cannot imagine there could ever be a single interpretation that would set the standard for all others. But whoever hears his new recording of this cycle cannot but reserve him a front-row seat. [more...]
top October 2010
ORFEO 2 CD C 813 102 I
Ludwig van Beethoven: Fidelio
Among the opera performances that deserve to be labelled “historic” is the opening night of the new production of Beethoven’s Fidelio unveiled at the Vienna State Opera on 5 November 1955. [more...]
top September 2010
Salzburger Festspieldokumente 2010
The Salzburg Festival has always been diverse in its repertoire, and this is also reflected in the CD edition Salzburger Festspiel Dokumente in the year 2010. The series is this year dominated by birthday boys, among both the composers and the interpreters. [more...]
top August 2010
ORFEO 13 CD C 809 113 R
Der Ring des Nibelungen
Clemens Krauss’s appearances at the Bayreuth Festival were limited to a single season. The conductor of the world premières of four operas by Richard Strauss, he was – at the height of his career – in charge of the Bavarian and Vienna State Operas as well as the Salzburg Festival. [more...]
top July 2010
ORFEO 3 CD C 805 103 D
Charles Gounod: Faust
After its opening night in 2009 Gounod’s Faust became a real feast of singing. The conductor Bertrand de Billy was in the pit of the Vienna State Opera, and with his unerring mastery of style and idiom he enjoyed a triumphant success with the audience. [more...]
top July 2010
ORFEO 1 CD C 814 101 A
Piotr Beczala: Slavic Opera Arias
In both the Italian and the French repertoires, Piotr Beczala has already enjoyed success among public and press alike at all the great opera houses of the world. [more...]
top June 2010
ORFEO 1 CD C 789 101 B
Lucia Popp
Mirella Freni, who celebrated her 75th birthday a few weeks ago, is one of the utterly exceptional singers who have emerged from Italy, the home of opera. [more...]
top June 2010
ORFEO 2 CD C 806 102 I
Mirella Freni
Mirella Freni, who celebrated her 75th birthday a few weeks ago, is one of the utterly exceptional singers who have emerged from Italy, the home of opera. [more...]
top June 2010
ORFEO 2 CD C 810 102 A
Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau: Johannes Brahms
With an artist such as Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, who has engaged successfully with the work of so many composers, it makes little sense to assign Johannes Brahms a special place in his repertoire. [more...]
top June 2010
ORFEO 1 CD C 750 101 A
Felix Mendelssohn: Works for Cello and Piano
Chamber music is an intimate genre, that we know. But in the case of Felix Mendelssohn‘s cello works, it was also family-inspired. For his younger brother Paul was obviously a good cellist. [more...]
top May 2010
ORFEO 9 CD C 808 109 L
Friedrich Gulda - Beethoven
The appearance of a new, complete recording by Friedrich Gulda of the Beethoven sonatas – made before his two previously known cycles – can be regarded as a sensation. [more...]
top April 2010
ORFEO 2 CD C 717 102 H
=Robert Schumann - The Symphonies
Robert Schumann the symphonist still stands in the shadow of Schumann the composer for piano and voice... [more...]
top April 2010
ORFEO 2 CD C 787 102 I
Nicolai - Die Lustigen Weiber von Windsor
Hans Knappertsbusch conducted a far broader spectrum of repertoire – at least in Munich – than his unique reputation for Bruckner, Wagner and Strauss might let us suppose. Knappertsbusch even left his mark on the Romantic comic opera The Merry Wives of Windsor by Otto Nicolai (after Shakespeare). He conducted it at the Prinzregententheater. [more...]
top March 2010
ORFEO 1 CD C 804 101 A
Andris Nelsons - Igor Stravinsky
After their CD of Richard Strauss, Igor Stravinsky is the next great composer of the 20th century to feature in a recording of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra under its music director Andris Nelsons. [more...]
top March 2010
ORFEO 1 CD C 751 101 A
Peter von Winter
Posterity has not been kind to the composer Peter von Winter. He was a wunderkind in the Mannheim Court Orchestra who after its removal to Munich worked as its kapellmeister. But his music today is as good as forgotten. [more...]
top February 2010
ORFEO 2 CD C 784 102 I
Verdi: Luisa Miller
It took a long time – more than 120 years – before Vienna’s opera fans were able to experience Verdi’s Luisa Miller in its original Italian. This first performance did not take place until January 1974... [more...]
top January 2010
ORFEO 1 CD C 764 091 A
Gottfried von Einem (1918-1996)
The criticism levelled at many composers of the 20th century, namely that they sacrificed personality to the requirements of their respective schools, cannot be made against Gottfried von Einem. Throughout his life he held fast to tonality [more...]
top January 2010
ORFEO 2 CD C 786 102 I
Albert Lortzing: Der Wildschütz
In comparison to French opéras comiques, German comic operas with spoken dialogue have always struggled to maintain a foothold in the repertory, a state of affairs that begs a number of questions. [more...]
top December 2009
ORFEO 1 CD C 803 091 A
Andris Nelsons - Richard Strauss
For all its undoubted brilliance, Ein Heldenleben – especially at a first hearing – remains one of Strauss’s most problematical tone poems. [more...]
top November 2009
ORFEO 1 CD C 598 091 B
Irmgard Seefried
Today she would probably be marketed as an all-rounder. After all, Irmgard Seefried was not only an acclaimed opera singer... [more...]
top November 2009
ORFEO 2 CD C 785 092 I
=Bedrich Smetana: The Bartered Bride
Vienna has played an important role in the performance history of Smetana’s The Bartered Bride ever since the work achieved its international breakthrough in the city at the time of the 1892 World Fair. [more...]
top October 2009
ORFEO 1 CD C 760 091 A
Petra Maria Schnitzer • Peter Seiffert: Richard Wagner
To describe Petra Maria Schnitzer and Peter Seiffert as the dream couple of the Romantic world of Wagner’s operas and music dramas would be an otiose exercise indeed. [more...]
top October 2009
ORFEO 3 CD C 763 093 D
Felix Mendelssohn – The Complete String Symphonies
According to a well-known German proverb, no one is born a master, but this adage is hard to credit when the master in question reveals his genius at the tender age of ten. [more...]
top October 2009
ORFEO 2 CD C 783 092 I
Giuseppe Verdi: Falstaff
Giuseppe Verdi’s Falstaff, the last opera of the Master from Busseto, is one of the most multi-facetted scores in opera history (and for that reason is perhaps one that needs several hearings in order to grasp it). [more...]
top October 2009
ORFEO 1 CD C 781 091 A
Daniel Müller-Schott: Schumann - Strauss - Volkmann - Bruch
On his latest CD, Daniel Müller-Schott devotes himself to the cello’s Romantic and late-Romantic solo concerto repertoire. It is a voyage of exploration that offers things both known and worthy of (re)discovery. [more...]
top September 2009
ORFEO 1 CD C 597 091 B
=Hilde Konetzni, Josef Kripfs: Songs
The recording conditions could hardly have been more dramatic. In the bleak mid-war winter of 1942-3, the lirico-spinto soprano Hilde Konetzni learnt a romantic song programme with Josef Krips as her accompanist and mentor. [more...]
top September 2009
ORFEO 1 CD C 801 091 B
George London
It is not unique, but it will probably remain an occurrence as rare as it is welcome when the leading heroic baritone of his generation is also a master of the „small“, subtle form of the lied. [more...]
top August 2009
Salzburger Festspieldokumente 2009
Ever since its launch in 1992, Orfeo’s Salzburger Festspieldokumente series has showcased particularly memorable performances from the Salzburg Festival, and 2009 is no exception. [more...]
top August 2009
ORFEO 2 CD C 692 092 I
=Press Conference of ORFEO together with Bayreuther Festspiele on 8th of August 2009
Hans Knappertsbusch conducted Der fliegende Holländer at only a single Bayreuth Festival. Even in retrospect the opening night of the 1955 Festival seems altogether exceptional. [more...]
top July 2009
ORFEO 1 CD C 642 091 A
On his visits to England between 1791 and 1795, Joseph Haydn not only enjoyed growing popularity, but also developed a taste for arranging folk songs from the British Isles. To celebrate the Haydn bicentenary this year, ORFEO presents a selection of Scottish songs performed by the soprano Julie Kaufmann. [more...]
top July 2009
ORFEO 1 CD C 779 091 A
Adrianne Pieczonka
There’s no doubt about it. Adrianne Pieczonka’s diary for the next few months makes it clear that this soprano, long celebrated for her Wagner and Strauss roles across the world, is now also in international demand for the Italian repertoire. [more...]
top June 2009
ORFEO 1 CD C 778 091 A
Arabella Steinbacher
It is rare indeed to encounter an artistic collaboration that is so harmonious and results in such fine music-making. In this recording a soloist and a conductor of the younger generation. [more...]
top June 2009
ORFEO 1 CD C 780 091 A
[more...]
top May 2009
ORFEO 2 CD C 761 092 A
Felix Mendelssohn - Early Concertos for Violin and Piano
Youth and maturity – that could be the motto of the first new ORFEO recording for the Mendelssohn year 2009, with the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra and its chief conductor Michael Hofstetter. [more...]
top May 2009
ORFEO 1 CD C 782 091 A
Simona Saturová - Haydn Arias
Simona Saturová, with her crystal clear, supremely flexible soprano voice, has already long established herself in the world’s concert halls, working with conductors such as Christoph Eschenbach, Sir Neville Marriner, Jirí Belohlávek and Manfred Honeck. [more...]
top May 2009
ORFEO 1 CD C 770 091 B
Waldemar Kmentt
In 1955, he was already singing Jaquino in the production of Beethoven’s Fidelio for the reopening of the Vienna State Opera, and performed internationally in roles such as Mirko Zeta in The Merry Widow until the turn of the century. [more...]
top April 2009
ORFEO 2 CD C 777 082 H
Dvorák: Kate and the Devil
After our complete recording of Král a uhlír ("King and Charcoal Burner"), which won a MIDEM Classical Award, we now present a further instalment of our Dvorák opera cycle with the WDR Cologne Symphony Orchestra under Gerd Albrecht: Cert a Kaca ("Kate and the Devil"). [more...]
top March 2009
ORFEO 2 CD C 767 092 I
Puccini - Madama Butterfly
Even though Puccini’s Madama Butterfly flopped so spectacularly at its La Scala world premiere in 1904, the opera remains a hugely popular favourite [more...]
top March 2009
ORFEO 3 CD C 768 093 D
Puccini - Il Trittico
Puccini’s three one-act operas Il Trittico are rarely encountered as a whole on a single evening. The „satyr play“ of the three, Gianni Schicchi, is usually uncoupled and staged alongside other short operas. [more...]
top February 2009
ORFEO 1 CD C 673 091 A
Baermann - Mendelssohn
Heinrich Baermann and his son Carl were two of the great clarinet virtuosos of the 19th century, their artistry celebrated the length and breadth of Europe. To their friendship with Felix Mendelssohn we owe the latter’s two Concert Pieces opp. 113 and 114... [more...]
top February 2009
ORFEO 5 CD C 725 085 R
Sergiu Celibidache
Even today Sergiu Celibidache (1912–96) continues to enjoy the reputation of a revolutionary genius, a conductor uniquely capable of realizing his interpretations without making the least concessions... [more...]
top January 2009
ORFEO 1 CD C 685 091 B
Lisa Della Casa
No singer at the Vienna State Opera or elsewhere has been as closely associated with the title role in Strauss’s Arabella as Lisa Della Casa, who celebrates her 90th birthday on 2 February 2009, and yet we should be guilty of doing the Swiss soprano a grave disservice by reducing her repertory to this one role alone. [more...]
top January 2009
ORFEO 1 CD C 759 081 A
Miroslav Kultyshev
The Russian pianist Miroslav Kultyshev was still a child when he discovered his altogether exceptional gifts as a musician. Not yet in his mid-twenties, he is now a regular visitor to all the world’s major concert halls. [more...]
top January 2009
ORFEO 1 CD C 735 091 B
Ingrid Bjoner
The Norwegian soprano Ingrid Bjoner, who died in 2006, is one of the few long-standing members of the Bavarian State Opera whose name was linked not only with the legendary period immediately after the Second World War when the company was temporarily housed at the Prinzregententheater but also with the Nationaltheater, which reopened its doors in 1963. [more...]
top November 2008
ORFEO 2 CD C 766 082 I
Verdi's Macbeth
Masterpiece though Verdi’s Macbeth undoubtedly is, it was only at a relatively late date that it found a niche for itself in the repertory of the world’s major opera houses. Even today it is difficult to cast the two main roles satisfactorily. [more...]
top November 2008
ORFEO 1 CD C 736 081 B
David Oistrach
In 1956 the Vienna Festival marked the bicentenary of Mozart’s birth by focussing largely, if not exclusively, on works by Salzburg’s most famous son. Among the leading European orchestras that appeared on this occasion was the Leningrad Philharmonic, which gave two concerts under its principal conductor, Evgeny Mravinsky. [more...]
top October 2008
ORFEO 3 CD C 581 083 D
Der Rosenkavalier
Carlos Kleiber has conducted Richard Strauss’ Der Rosenkavalier in the most famous opera houses all over the world: the Scala in Milan, the Metropolitan Opera in New York and the Vienna State Opera, but nowhere as much as at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich. [more...]
top August 2008
Salzburger Festspieldokumente 2008
During his first year as artistic director of the Salzburg Festival, it was almost a conscious policy on Herbert von Karajan’s part to court comparison with famous predecessors and eminent models... [more...]
top August 2008
ORFEO 4 CD C 773 084 L
Salzburger Festspieldokumente 2008
1957 was Herbert von Karajan’s first year as artistic director of the Salzburg Festival, and he was determined to leave the world in no doubt about his versatility as a conductor... [more...]
top August 2008
ORFEO 3 CD C 774 083 D
Salzburger Festspieldokumente 2008
[more...]
top August 2008
ORFEO 1 CD C 710 081 B
Salzburger Festspieldokumente 2008
Among the countless concerts that Karl Böhm conducted with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra at the Salzburg Festival were not only a number of inevitable repeats of standard works from the mainstream symphonic repertory but also a number of surprises and genuine trouvailles... [more...]
top August 2008
ORFEO 1 CD C 775 081 B
Salzburger Festspieldokumente 2008
Little would be gained by describing yet again the exceptional standing of a pianist like Rudolf Buchbinder, who day in, day out has confirmed his command of his instrument over a period of several decades... [more...]
top August 2008
ORFEO 1 CD C 711 081 B
Salzburger Festspieldokumente 2008
Among the many artists who returned to Europe after the Second World War and chose the Salzburg Festival as the place to resume their European careers was the violinist Zino Francescatti... [more...]
top August 2008
ORFEO 2 CD C 776 082 B
Salzburger Festspieldokumente 2008
One of the most versatile representatives of the classical art of singing during the last twenty years has undoubtedly been the Slovenian mezzo-soprano Marjana Lipovek... [more...]
top July 2008
ORFEO 4 CD C 753 084 L
The 1968 Bayreuth Festival opened with a new production of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg that seemed to be heading for disaster when the central role of Hans Sachs had to be recast after the final dress rehearsal... [more...]
top July 2008
ORFEO 1 CD C 740 081 A
[more...]
top June 2008
ORFEO 1 CD C 659 081 A
With his recording of Dmitri Shostakovich's two cello concertos, Daniel Müller-Schott has set out to explore the later works of a composer whose cryptic style represents a particular challenge for the performer, such were the political and personal circumstances of the composer's life of suffering. [more...]
top June 2008
ORFEO 2 CD C 734 082 I
With its new production of Capriccio on 7 June 2008, the Vienna State Opera is reviving a long-standing tradition in a house where the onstage debate over the relative merits of the words or the music in opera has always been conducted between the finest representatives of their profession. [more...]
top June 2008
ORFEO 1 CD C 739 081 A
French chamber music from the time of the Third Republic is remarkable for its tremendous stylistic variety, revealing, as it does, not only Neoclassical elements but also unexpected rhythms, the sort of local colour associated with folk music and, last but not least, typically French melodies typified by their elegance and songlike character. [more...]
top May 2008
ORFEO 2 CD C 757 082 I
They made a distinctly odd couple onstage: she was the supreme hochdramatisch soprano of her generation, a singer able to maintain her tremendous vocal powers over a period of several decades, whereas he could captivate his listeners as a poetic and spirited lyric tenor so prodigal with his resources that within a little more than a decade he had burned himself out. [more...]
top April 2008
ORFEO 2 CD C 765 082 I
If singers loved working with Joseph Keilberth, it was because he brought to all his opera performances a deep knowledge of the work in question, a stick technique that left them in no doubt as to his intentions and a highly considerate musical sensitivity. [more...]
top April 2008
ORFEO 1 CD C 729 081 B
From the late 1940s onwards, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony in D minor was one of the works with which Herbert von Karajan could impress international audiences before he succeeded to Wilhelm Furtwängler’s post as principal conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic in 1955. [more...]
top April 2008
ORFEO 2 CD C 728 082 B
As the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde’s concert director “for life”, Herbert von Karajan was repeatedly able to programme large-scale vocal works in Vienna’s Musikvereinssaal during the early 1950s. [more...]
top March 2008
ORFEO 1 CD C 715 081 A
Piotr Beczala – Salut
With Gounod’s Faust, Piotr Beczala says "Salut" to the international record-buying public. [more...]
top March 2008
ORFEO 1 CD C 674 081 A
The ability to prove oneself in large-scale musical forms does not necessarily mean that a composer is also able to handle small-scale forms, but one composer who was adept at both was Franz Danzi (1763–1826), who exerted a profound influence on the German musical scene at the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th century. [more...]
top March 2008
ORFEO 3 CD C 758 083 D
Christa Ludwig
The wide-ranging repertory in which Christa Ludwig appeared at the Vienna State Opera, spoiling her audiences and often surprising them over a period of many years, is central to the present set of three CDs issued to mark her eightieth birthday. [more...]
top March 2008
ORFEO 2 CD C 733 082 I
It was the local première of Bizet’s Carmen in Vienna in 1875 that ushered in the work’s run of successes in opera houses all over the world. Since then it has been performed countless times at the Vienna State Opera, and yet the new production that opened in February 1966 remains one of the most outstanding ever seen in the house. [more...]
top December 2007
ORFEO 1 CD C 755 071 B
Teresa Stich-Randall
The death of Teresa Stich-Randall on 17 July of this year makes us all too aware how close and yet how distant great personalities and their achievements may be to the average opera lover. [more...]
top November 2007
ORFEO 1 CD C 749 071 A
It seems that no rung is too high on Diana Damrau‘s career ladder: after being made a Bavarian Kammersängerin during the summer of 2007, she is currently appearing at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, alternating in the roles of Pamina and the Queen of Night. [more...]
top November 2007
ORFEO 1 CD C 679 071 A
The reputation that Walter Braunfels enjoys today still falls far short of the high regard in which he was held during the 1920s, when he was seen as one of Germany‘s leading composers, his name frequently mentioned in the same breath as those of Richard Strauss and Franz Schreker. [more...]
top November 2007
ORFEO 1 CD C 676 071 A
It was only after six years’ preparatory work, during which time he consulted every available edition of the piece, that Konstantin Lifschitz made this spectacular recording of Bach‘s Musical Offering, the first to be made on a modern concert grand. [more...]
top October 2007
ORFEO 1 CD C 689 061 A
A Victorian Christmas
Charles Dickens notwithstanding, today’s readers will probably prefer not to have received their Christmas presents in England during the Industrial Revolution. [more...]
top October 2007
ORFEO 1 CD C 724 071 B
Joseph Keilberth
Although there was a period following his death when Joseph Keilberth’s reputation suffered an eclipse, he is now once again numbered among those conductors of the second third of the 20th century whose work has finally received the attention that it deserves. [more...]
top October 2007
ORFEO 1 CD C 723 071 B
Hans Knappertsbusch
So many anecdotes have grown up around the figure of Hans Knappertsbusch and so many remarks have been attributed to him, some of them amusing, others unrepeatably risqué, that it is all too easy to forget what a distinguished conductor he was. [more...]
top September 2007
ORFEO 2 CD C 732 072 I
Der Freischütz is part of the standard repertory of every opera house in the German-speaking world, and yet the production that opened at the Vienna State Opera in May 1972 was the first that had been staged in the house for a quarter of a century. [more...]
top September 2007
ORFEO 1 CD C 731 071 B
In Mozart in particular she was admired above all for the clarity of her timbre and her consistently lean-toned intonation that was free of all impurities. But it would be wrong to forget that Gundula Janowitz’s needle-sharp accuracy never impeded her emotional and dramatic involvement in a role. [more...]
top August 2007
Salzburger Festspieldokumente 2007
By way of an appendix to the Mozart celebrations of 2006, Orfeo is releasing Richard Strauss's version of Idomeneo on its Salzburg Festspieldokumente label. This version of Mozart's opera received two performances at the 2006 Salzburg Festival, uniquely complementing the "Mozart 22" project. [more...]
top August 2007
ORFEO 4 CD C 690 074 L
When Hans Knappertsbusch conjured up the sounds of the Prelude to Act One of Parsifal from the "mystic abyss" of the Bayreuth Festspielhaus in 1964, few in the audience can have suspected that this would be the seventy-six-year-old conductor's final season on the Green Hill. [more...]
top July 2007
ORFEO 2 CD C 698 072 I
Plácido Domingo
Orfeo’s newly released complete recording of Otello documents a brilliant first night from 1987. Plácido Domingo is heard here at the very height of his powers in one of his most famous roles: supple, impulsive, volatile and moving in his expression. [more...]
top June 2007
ORFEO 1 CD C 730 071 B
Julia Varady
It was not until 1993 – relatively late in her career – that Julia Varady made her Vienna State Opera début with a tempestuously acclaimed performance as Senta in Wagner’s Der fliegende Holländer that allowed her to show off her greatest strengths [more...]
top June 2007
ORFEO 3 CD C 699 073 D
There are almost certainly no superlatives left to describe Plácido Domingo and his standing in the international world of opera today. The fortieth anniversary of his Vienna Opera State début is a further milestone in a career that the tenor, conductor and opera house administrator continues to pursue with unflagging energy. [more...]
top June 2007
ORFEO 1 CD C 693 071 A
Difficult though it may be to date Johann Sebastian Bach's Gamba Sonatas BWV 1027–9 and ascribe them to a particular period in their creator's career, these are none the less delightful works from the point of view of their performers. [more...]
top May 2007
ORFEO 1 CD C 722 071 B
Eduard Erdmann
Two further pianistic trouvailles in the archives of West German Radio are Reger’s Piano Concerto in F minor and Schubert’s B flat major Sonata, both of which provide eloquent testimony to the mastery of Eduard Erdmann. [more...]
top May 2007
ORFEO 2 CD C 721 072 I
Wilhelm Kempff
The Broadcasting House in Cologne was also the venue for a series of recordings that Wilhelm Kempff made of some of the great showpieces in his vast repertory in 1956 and 1960. All attest to the clear and meticulous playing to which his listeners were accustomed. [more...]
top May 2007
ORFEO 1 CD C 720 071 B
Shura Cherkassky
West German Radio’s reputation as one of the leading public media organizations with an active interest in classical music dates back at least to the early post-war period, when there was a constant stream of prominent instrumentalists and conductors keen to record in the old Broadcasting House in Cologne. [more...]
top May 2007
Salzburger Festspieldokumente 2006
For fifteen years our Festspieldokumente series has featured live recordings of highlights from eight decades of Salzburg Festival performances preserved in the archives of Austrian Radio. [more...]
top April 2007
ORFEO 1 CD C 718 071 B
Rafael Kubelík was not only one of the leading interpreters of 19th- and early 20th-century concertos and symphonies, he was also well known for his keen advocacy of the music of important contemporaries whose works were relatively under-represented in international concert programmes. [more...]
top April 2007
ORFEO 1 CD C 719 071 B
At the end of the concert enshrined in this latest release on the Orfeo label, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra is as loudly and warmly acclaimed as its conductor, Rafael Kubelík. [more...]
top March 2007
ORFEO 1 CD C 558 061 A
The latest CD in our series devoted to contemporary lieder features works by not one but three composers. The names of the two friends Luigi Dallapiccola and Karl Amadeus Hartmann are closely associated with the renaissance of the avant-garde in the wake of the Second World War. [more...]
top February 2007
ORFEO 2 CD C 696 072 I
Leonie Rysanek
She was a prima donna who in the course of a long and immensely eventful career repeatedly reinvented herself, starting with her early sensational successes when she was barely thirty. After a series of spectacular débuts at many of the world’s leading opera houses, she suffered a number of crises that she rapidly overcame, before finally going on to explore the fascinating world of character roles. [more...]
top February 2007
ORFEO 1 CD C 639 061 A
Anthony Spiri
Sonatas and Fantasias by Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach
In the wake of his keen interest in the music of the whole of the Bach family, the pianist Anthony Spiri has long been eager to introduce works by Carl Philipp Emanuel (1714–88) to a wider audience. Many of these pieces are barely known, not least because the music is not available in printed form but only in manuscript copies. [more...]
top January 2007
ORFEO 2 CD C 697 072 I
Così fan tutte
The name of Josef Krips is associated the world over with ensemble opera of the finest sort and with a timelessly valid approach to Mozart that remains exemplary in our responses to the composer. Both these qualities are evident in the Orfeo’s live recording of the Vienna State Opera’s production of Così fan tutte, a performance recorded on 22 September 1968. [more...]
top January 2007
ORFEO 1 CD C 006 061 A
Herbert Blendinger: Media in vita
It is not easy to pigeonhole Herbert Blendinger’s compositional style and place it within the existing categories of new music. In spite of his profession of faith in traditional values, Blendinger’s works are far from conventional. Quite the opposite. [more...]
top October 2006
ORFEO 2 CD C 684 062 I
Sena Jurinac
Although it is now twenty-four years since Sena Jurinac – an honorary member of the Vienna State Opera – bade farewell to the stage, memories of her great performances remain as fresh as ever. [more...]
top October 2006
ORFEO 1 CD C 714 061 B
Inge Borkh
Inge Borkh made operatic history as Salome and Elektra, and she will continue to fascinate future generations of listeners with her recordings of these roles. The present portrait demonstrates that her artistic range was far greater than these two parts. [more...]
top September 2006
ORFEO 1 CD C 193 061 A
Leopold Kozeluch – Mozart's Antipode?
Viele Komponisten ander Schwelle vom Rokoko zur Wiener Klassik, die sich durch eine große stilistische Bandbreite ausgezeichnet haben, werden an Worten und Taten, nicht aber an ihren Werken gemessen. [more...]
top September 2006
ORFEO 1 CD C 687 061 A
Shostakovitch - Violin Concertos
A century after his birth, Dmitri Shostakovich is one of the most widely performed composers of the 20th century. He is not, however, particularly associated with the virtuoso concerto as a medium. [more...]
top September 2006
ORFEO 2 CD C 681 062 I
La forza del destino
Verdi’s own operas, by contrast, generally need little help in promoting them, although it is still a good thing if from time to time they are lifted out of the rut of operatic routine, as happened to La forza del destino in 1960 [more...]
top September 2006
ORFEO 2 CD C 680 062 I
Il giuramento – Pure Belcanto Pleasure
It is, of course, a commonplace that every evening in the theatre and every concert is a unique event that cannot be repeated, even though a great opera house like the Vienna State Opera may present a whole run of performances with an identical cast. [more...]
top July 2006
ORFEO 3 CD C 691 063 D
The success of any performance of Lohengrin depends in no small way on the protagonist’s ability to combine heroic radiance with the cultivated tone associated with the bel canto repertory. In this regard the Hungarian tenor Sándor Kónya has always been regarded by cognoscenti as unsurpassable. [more...]
top June 2006
ORFEO 1 CD C 686 061 A
With her much-acclaimed recording of the violin concertos of Darius Milhaud, to which she brought both ethereal weightlessness and naturalness of expression, Arabella Steinbacher showed that virtuoso, playful miniatures are just as close to her heart as the great concertos for her instrument [more...]
top May 2006
ORFEO 1 CD C 599 061 B
There are voices that overwhelm the listener like a force of nature. And there are others that are capable of affecting us on the deepest emotional level. It is very rare for a singer – especially a hochdramatisch soprano – to combine these qualities, but one such exception was Ursula Schröder-Feinen. [more...]
top May 2006
ORFEO 1 CD C 702 061 B
Candour and artistic curiosity characterize the art of Diana Damrau. There are few other lyric coloratura sopranos of recent years who have enjoyed such meteoric careers and who continue to scale new peaks of achievement. [more...]
top April 2006
ORFEO 1 CD C 677 061 A
Meisterschaft in harmonischer wie formaler Gestaltung
Johann Wenzeslaus Kalliwoda (1801–66) is only one of many composers whose works, long undervalued and rarely performed, have been revived in modern times thanks to recordings such as those of the Stuttgart Hofkapelle under its conductor Frieder Bernius. [more...]
top April 2006
ORFEO 1 CD C 621 061 A
Daniel Müller-Schott
It is with tremendous pleasure that ORFEO International presents Daniel Müller-Schott’s new CD featuring the cello concertos of Edward Elgar and William Walton. [more...]
top April 2006
ORFEO 1 CD C 645 061 A
By the Romantic period at the latest Shakespeare’s works were the yardstick and inspiration for many new works throughout Europe. [more...]
top March 2006
ORFEO 1 CD C 665 061 A
Adrianne Pieczonka
Ever since her sensational appearances as Tatyana in Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin at the Vienna State Opera in 1997 the Canadian soprano Adrianne Pieczonka has been in constant demand in all the world’s major opera houses. [more...]
top February 2006
ORFEO 1 CD C 663 061 A
What are the necessary conditions, what gifts, what stubbornness and even what element of chance are required for a man like Aribert Reimann to realize his greatest potential? In the light of his life’s work as a composer, this question far from unjustified. [more...]
top January 2006
ORFEO 1 CD C 644 061 A
Whether serenade, quartet or sacred aria, Mozart inspired numerous transcriptions and arrangements during his lifetime. Dieter Klöcker and the Mannheim String Quartet reveal how virtuosic and varied Mozart’s music can sound in transcriptions for the same forces as those found in one of his most popular works: clarinet quintet. [more...]
top January 2006
ORFEO 1 CD C 664 061 A
The string quartet as an alternative to the hybrid genre of drama giocoso: champagne and seduction may not be handed out by singers, but thanks to the sophisticated compositional technique of a skilful arranger and the Artist Quartet’s audible pleasure in their playing, the result is far more than mere background music designed to be played at supper. [more...]
top January 2006
ORFEO 2 CD C 675 062 H
„Schmankerl“ for Mozart-Connaisseurs
Rainer Honeck and the Vienna Classical Players
Rainer Honeck, first violinist of the Vienna State Opera and the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra and leader of the Vienna State Opera Orchestra since 1984 and of the Vienna Philharmonic since 1992 often performs as soloist at leading centres in Europe, Japan and America. [more...]
top December 2005
ORFEO 1 CD/SACD C 700 051 B
The places where a person’s life unfolds – especially the life of a musician like Carlos Kleiber – are not random but leave their mark on every facet of his personality. [more...]
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