Wolf Michael Storz und Claudio Estay González stellen geben einen historischen Abriss über die Entwicklung vom Carillon über das Tastaturglockenspiel bis hin zur Celesta. Sie bilden damit den Abschluss unseres Instrumenten-Spezials zum Jubiläumsjahr 500 Jahre Bayerisches Staatsorchester.

The Monteverdi Continuo Ensemble was founded in 1997 on the initiative of conductor Ivor Bolton. The aim was to perform the cycle of operatic works by Claudio Monteverdi in a historical style.

The ensemble has twice won the Munich Opera Festival Prize for this, including the members of the Bayerisches Staatsorchester, Barbara Burgdorf, Corinna Desch and Christiane Arnold, who have now been performing operas on baroque instruments as soloists for 20 years: La Calisto, L’incoronatione di Poppea, Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria and L’Orfeo.

In the 500th anniversary year of the Bayerisches Staatsorchester in 2023, Il ritorno / The Year of Magical Thinking was added to the programme, in the always sold-out Cuvilliés Theatre.

The three musicians have also gained an enthusiastic regular audience in annual baroque chamber concerts, including with gambist Friederike Heumann.

Photo credit: Corinna Desch

Photo credit: Alice Bloomfield

The story of Sakuntala’s Ring is based on Kalidasa’s drama Sakuntala. This is one of the most famous love stories in world literature. The illustrations were commissioned by the Bayerisches Staatsballett on the occasion of the revival of the ballet La Bayadère in May 2023. Seven illustrators have each illustrated one act of Kalidasa’s Sakuntala. Click through the acts, look at the pictures and listen to the sound design by Renu Hossain. She has worked with a recording of La Bayadère with the Bayerisches Staatsorchester. Using the menu, you can not only set the language, but also choose whether you want to show or hide the texts and music. We would be delighted if you could send us a message via the menu item “Participate” and share your ideas with us.

https://www.in-toon.com/en/ballets/sakuntalas-ring/act-1

Photo credit: Alice Bloomfield

Photo credit: Gage Lindsten

The story of Sakuntala’s Ring is based on Kalidasa’s drama Sakuntala. This is one of the most famous love stories in world literature. The illustrations were commissioned by the Bayerisches Staatsballett on the occasion of the revival of the ballet La Bayadère in May 2023. Seven illustrators have each illustrated one act of Kalidasa’s Sakuntala. Click through the acts, look at the pictures and listen to the sound design by Renu Hossain. She has worked with a recording of La Bayadère with the Bayerisches Staatsorchester. Using the menu, you can not only set the language, but also choose whether you want to show or hide the texts and music. We would be delighted if you could send us a message via the menu item “Participate” and share your ideas with us.

https://www.in-toon.com/en/ballets/sakuntalas-ring/act-2

Photo credit: Gage Lindsten

Photo credit: Jiahuan Wang

The story of Sakuntala’s Ring is based on Kalidasa’s drama Sakuntala. This is one of the most famous love stories in world literature. The illustrations were commissioned by the Bayerisches Staatsballett on the occasion of the revival of the ballet La Bayadère in May 2023. Seven illustrators have each illustrated one act of Kalidasa’s Sakuntala. Click through the acts, look at the pictures and listen to the sound design by Renu Hossain. She has worked with a recording of La Bayadère with the Bayerisches Staatsorchester. Using the menu, you can not only set the language, but also choose whether you want to show or hide the texts and music. We would be delighted if you could send us a message via the menu item “Participate” and share your ideas with us.

https://www.in-toon.com/en/ballets/sakuntalas-ring/act-3

Photo credit: Jiahuan Wang

Photo credit: Antoine Leisure

The story of Sakuntala’s Ring is based on Kalidasa’s drama Sakuntala. This is one of the most famous love stories in world literature. The illustrations were commissioned by the Bayerisches Staatsballett on the occasion of the revival of the ballet La Bayadère in May 2023. Seven illustrators have each illustrated one act of Kalidasa’s Sakuntala. Click through the acts, look at the pictures and listen to the sound design by Renu Hossain. She has worked with a recording of La Bayadère with the Bayerisches Staatsorchester. Using the menu, you can not only set the language, but also choose whether you want to show or hide the texts and music. We would be delighted if you could send us a message via the menu item “Participate” and share your ideas with us.

https://www.in-toon.com/en/ballets/sakuntalas-ring/act-4

Photo credit: Antoine Leisure

Photo credit: Pete Sharp

The story of Sakuntala’s Ring is based on Kalidasa’s drama Sakuntala. This is one of the most famous love stories in world literature. The illustrations were commissioned by the Bayerisches Staatsballett on the occasion of the revival of the ballet La Bayadère in May 2023. Seven illustrators have each illustrated one act of Kalidasa’s Sakuntala. Click through the acts, look at the pictures and listen to the sound design by Renu Hossain. She has worked with a recording of La Bayadère with the Bayerisches Staatsorchester. Using the menu, you can not only set the language, but also choose whether you want to show or hide the texts and music. We would be delighted if you could send us a message via the menu item “Participate” and share your ideas with us.

https://www.in-toon.com/en/ballets/sakuntalas-ring/act-5

Photo credit: Pete Sharp

Photo credit: Raman Djafari

The story of Sakuntala’s Ring is based on Kalidasa’s drama Sakuntala. This is one of the most famous love stories in world literature. The illustrations were commissioned by the Bayerisches Staatsballett on the occasion of the revival of the ballet La Bayadère in May 2023. Seven illustrators have each illustrated one act of Kalidasa’s Sakuntala. Click through the acts, look at the pictures and listen to the sound design by Renu Hossain. She has worked with a recording of La Bayadère with the Bayerisches Staatsorchester. Using the menu, you can not only set the language, but also choose whether you want to show or hide the texts and music. We would be delighted if you could send us a message via the menu item “Participate” and share your ideas with us.

https://www.in-toon.com/de/ballets/sakuntalas-ring/act-6

Photo credit: Raman Djafari

Photo credit: Masanobu Hiraoka

The story of Sakuntala’s Ring is based on Kalidasa’s drama Sakuntala. This is one of the most famous love stories in world literature. The illustrations were commissioned by the Bayerisches Staatsballett on the occasion of the revival of the ballet La Bayadère in May 2023. Seven illustrators have each illustrated one act of Kalidasa’s Sakuntala. Click through the acts, look at the pictures and listen to the sound design by Renu Hossain. She has worked with a recording of La Bayadère with the Bayerisches Staatsorchester. Using the menu, you can not only set the language, but also choose whether you want to show or hide the texts and music. We would be delighted if you could send us a message via the menu item “Participate” and share your ideas with us.

https://www.in-toon.com/de/ballets/sakuntalas-ring/act-7

Photo credit: Masanobu Hiraoka

Christiane Arnold, violist in the Bayerisches Staatsorchester, talks about the discovery of what is believed to be the first viola acquired by the Bayerisches Staatsorchester. Violin maker Osamu Nambu goes into more detail about the elaborate restoration that brought the imitation Stradivari instrument back to life.

Find out from Moritz Winkler, bassoonist in the Bayerisches Staatsorchester, how he came to play his instrument and more about the concert in Carnegie Hall 2018.

Click here for the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VI53hNFGsLw&list=PLXtVSYTiDLYTFYEZmEQw4iwDsF5AdcmXK&index=4

Thomas Herbst, double bass player in the Bayerisches Staatsorchester, introduces the historic Guarneri bass.

Felix Mottl was born on 24 August in Unter-St. Veit near Vienna. He studied harmony and counterpoint at the Vienna Conservatory with Anton Bruckner, among others, before founding the Academic Wagner Society and working as a répétiteur at the Vienna Opera. In 1876, he worked as a copyist and assistant at the first Bayreuth Festival, where he conducted over 70 performances between 1886 and 1906. After working as General Music Director of the Philharmonic Society in Karlsruhe and as a guest conductor in Paris, Brussels, London and New York, he came to Munich in 1904 as Court Kapellmeister. In 1907, he was appointed director of the Munich Court Opera, where he worked until his death. Felix Mottl died as a result of a heart attack suffered on 21 June 1911 during a performance of Tristan in Munich. The corresponding passage in the second act is recorded in the performance material of the Bayerisches Staatsorchester and is a reminder of the tragic event at every performance to this day.

Photo credit: By J. Hartmann, Bayreuth – http://www.rgrossmusicautograph.com/60/089-60.jpg, Public domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=46867254

Hermann Zumpe was born in Oppach on 9 April 1850 and died in Munich on 4 September 1903. He took composition lessons with Albert Tottmann in Leipzig, and in 1872 he became the conductor of a Leipzig vaudeville theatre. In the same year, he went to Bayreuth, where he assisted Wagner with the completion of his Ring scores and prepared a piano reduction of Götterdämmerung. After positions as Kapellmeister in Salzburg, Würzburg, Magdeburg, Frankfurt and Hamburg, he was appointed Court Kapellmeister in Stuttgart in 1891. From 1895, he conducted the Kaim Orchestra, which later became the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra, before moving to Schwerin as Court Kapellmeister in 1897. In 1901 he moved to the new Prinzregententheater in Munich in the same position and in 1902 he was appointed General Music Director.

Photo credit: From unknown - edocs.ub.uni-frankfurt.de, PD-alt-100, https://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5002963

Bernhard Stavenhagen was born in Greiz on 24 November 1862 and died in Geneva on 25 December 1914. After the family moved to Berlin, he became a pupil at the Royal Academy of Music before studying piano, music theory and composition from 1878. His C major piano concerto won him the Mendelssohn Grand Prize for the Performing Arts. From 1885, he was a pupil of Franz Liszt in Weimar, whom he accompanied on his travels and whose funeral oration he delivered. In 1890, he was appointed Grand Duke of Saxony’s court pianist in Weimar, where he worked as court conductor from 1894. After Richard Strauss gave up his position in Munich to move to Berlin, Stavenhagen took over as Court Kapellmeister in 1898. He was engaged here until 1902, when he once again devoted himself increasingly to soloist and chamber music activities.

Photo credit: https://www.tripota.uni-trier.de/portraits/385/2/385_0966_p_900.jpg

Hugo Röhr was born in Dresden on 13 February 1866 and died in Munich on 7 June 1937. He studied in Dresden with Franz Wüllner, the conductor of the world premieres of Das Rheingold and Die Walküre, who was engaged as First Court Kapellmeister in Munich from 1871. From 1886 he worked as a solo repetiteur at the Court Opera in Dresden, then as a conductor at the Augsburg City Theatre, the Kassel Court Theatre and the German State Theatre in Prague and Breslau. From 1892 to 1896 he held the post of First Kapellmeister at the Mannheim National Theatre before being appointed to the Munich Court Theatre in 1896. His secular oratorio Ekkehard was premiered at the Musikalische Akademie, followed by his opera Das Vaterunser in 1904 at the Munich Court Theatre. He held his post until 1918.

Photo credit: Musikalische Akademie Mannheim

The oboist of the Bayerisches Staatsorchester Giorgi Gvantseladze talks about his instrument and how he came to play it.

Click here for the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wF_5KDG-wVw&list=PLXtVSYTiDLYTFYEZmEQw4iwDsF5AdcmXK&index=9 

Max Carl Christian Erdmannsdörfer was born in Nuremberg on 14 June 1848. He studied music theory, piano and violin at the Leipzig Conservatory between 1863 and 1867 before training as a conductor in Dresden in 1868/1869. In 1871, he became court conductor to the Prince of Schwarzburg in Sondershausen, and between 1881 and 1889 he conducted the concerts of the Russian Music Society in Moscow, where he also taught at the conservatory. From 1889, he conducted the philharmonic concerts and the Singakademie in Bremen before moving to Munich in 1895. One year later, he was appointed Bavarian court conductor. He also conducted the Academy Concerts and taught at the Academy of Music until 1898. Erdmannsdörfer died in Munich on 14 February 1905.

Photo credit: Wilhelm Höffert, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

From 1894, the 30-year-old Richard Strauss conducted the Munich Court Orchestra for two years, first as Royal Kapellmeister and then as Court Kapellmeister. Alongside Wagner, Mozart’s operas were a particular focus of his work in Munich. His symphonic poems Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks, Also sprach Zarathustra and Don Quixote were also composed during this time, although they were premiered in Cologne and Frankfurt rather than Munich.

Photo credit: Portrait photograph of Richard Strauss (cabinet format). Atelier Hertel; Weimar (Friedrich Hertel † 1918), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Franz Fischer was born on 29 July 1849 in Munich, where he also died on 8 June 1918. He took part as cellist in the Munich premiere of Wagner’s Rheingold, but also played his instrument as principal cellist at the Pest National Theatre and in the first festival orchestra at the Bayreuth Festival. As Hofkapellmeister at the Mannheim National Theatre, he conducted Wagner’s Tannhäuser before being appointed to the same position in Munich under General Music Director Hermann Levi. He conducted the posthumous Munich premiere of Wagner’s Die Feen in 1888 and several concerts as part of the Musikalische Akademie. He worked in Munich between 1880 and 1913.

Photo credit: Franz Fischer, photographed around 1880 by Egon Hanfstaengl Source: Portrait collection of the Munich City Museum

Find out more about her instrument and the acoustic challenges in the Elbphilharmonie, where the Bayerisches Staatsorchester played in 2018, from the double bass player Alexandra Hengstebeck.

Click here for the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=danUb7_QVsY&list=PLXtVSYTiDLYTFYEZmEQw4iwDsF5AdcmXK&index=3

Meyer was born in Altenburg on 2 March 1818 and died in Munich on 30 May 1893. After working in Trier and Stettin, Meyer became court conductor in Munich in 1869, where he worked until 1882. The young Richard Strauss studied with Meyer from 1875 and later dedicated his Serenade in E flat major op. 7 to him, which was the 17-year-old composer’s first work to be premiered outside of Munich in 1882.

DVD: https://tickets.staatstheater.bayern/bso.webshop/webticket/itemdetail?itemId=1588&cents=2499

Photo credit: Wilfried Hösl

The Snow Queen is Hans Abrahamsen’s first opera composed for the phenomenal soprano Barbara Hannigan, based on Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale. Barbara Hannigan is joined by Rachael Wilson, Katarina Dalayman and Peter Rose, with Cornelius Meister as music director. Experience the recording of the English premiere at the Bavarian State Opera in a production by Andreas Kriegenburg.

Blu-ray: https://tickets.staatstheater.bayern/bso.webshop/webticket/itemdetail?itemId=1592&cents=2499

DVD: https://tickets.staatstheater.bayern/bso.webshop/webticket/itemdetail?itemId=1588&cents=2499

Photo credit: Wilfried Hösl

Find out more about the special role of the percussion section in Joby Talbot’s ballet Alice in Wonderland in this video.

Photo credit: © EVISCO

This is the first historic recording from the archive on the Bayerische Staatsoper Recordings label: Felix Mendelssohn’s Elias under the musical direction of Wolfgang Sawallisch from 1984. This concert recording brings together a top-class ensemble of singers such as Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Margaret Price, Brigitte Fassbaender, Peter Schreier and Kurt Moll, all of whom have left their mark on the Bayerische Staatsoper – in some cases over decades.

The performance of Felix Mendelssohn’s Elias opened the 1984 Munich Opera Festival and was also the opening event of the 88th German Catholic Day. The then State Opera Director and General Music Director Wolfgang Sawallisch set an example: With a sacred oratorio, he demonstrated the stylistic versatility of the Bayerisches Staatsorchester, which is based at the National Theater, and with the work of a Protestant-baptized composer of Jewish origin in the context of a Catholic event, he sent out a widely noticed ecumenical signal.

CD: https://tickets.staatstheater.bayern/bso.webshop/webticket/itemdetail?itemId=717&cents=2500

Photo credit: © EVISCO

On 15 October, the chamber music series of the Bayerisches Staatsorchester will open its new season. Music from Ludwig van Beethoven’s only opera Fidelio in an arrangement by Wenzel Sedlak, Eugène Bozza's Octanphonie and Arvo Pärt’s Fratres for wind octet and percussion will be heard in the Allerheiligen Hofkirche. In addition, Gideon Klein’s text On Culture will be performed before his Divertimento is heard. Klein was a Czech-Jewish composer born in 1919 whose budding career as a piano virtuoso was abruptly interrupted by performance bans and the war. His Divertimento was written at a time when Klein had to interrupt his studies in musicology in 1939 due to the closure of the Prague Conservatory, and deals with the political events of the time. In December 1941, Klein was deported to the Theresienstadt concentration camp, where he gave concerts and lessons as well as lectures. Shortly before the liberation by the Allies, Klein died in the Fürstengrube concentration camp on 27 January 1945.

Photo credit: Wilfried Hösl

This album is the first release from the Bayerische Staatsoper label -Bayerische Staatsoper Recordings. This live recording of Gustav Mahler's 7th Symphony from the National Theater in Munich reveals a dramatic interpretation of one of the summit works of the late Romantic orchestral repertoire. Here we witness an orchestra intimately familiar with its conductor telling an epic story beyond all symphonic power and brilliance: an unforgettable musical moment and a unique sonic experience. The recording under Kirill Petrenko received, among others, the Gramophone Award 2022 in the category Orchestral.

CD: https://tickets.staatstheater.bayern/bso.webshop/webticket/itemdetail?itemId=1539&cents=1900

Photo credit: Wilfried Hösl

For three performances of Gustav Mahler’s brilliant Symphony No. 8, former General Music Director Kirill Petrenko returns to Munich on 8, 9 and 11 October. In 1910, the work was premiered in Munich at the Neue Musik Festival Hall, now Hall 1 of the Deutsches Museum Transport Centre. Because of the immense personnel required by the score, including a huge choir and eight vocal soloists, the organiser of the premiere at the time advertised the work with the title “Symphony of a Thousand”. A Pentecost hymn by Hrabanus Maurus in the first part of the symphony meets the setting of the last verses of Goethe’s Faust II.

DVD: https://tickets.staatstheater.bayern/bso.webshop/webticket/itemdetail?itemId=475&cents=2499

Photo credit: © EVISCO

The Opera Studio of the Bavarian State Opera on DVD for the first time! Together with the young singers of the Opera Studio of the Bavarian State Opera, director Axel Ranisch presents an unusual approach to two rarely performed works: In Pyotr I. Tchaikovsky’s last opera Iolanta, a blind princess searches for the reasons for her sadness and finds love. In Igor Stravinsky’s neoclassical buffa one-act Mavra, an inventive young woman has a risky idea and smuggles her lover into her mother’s house disguised as a cook. With great love for his characters and an impressive sense for the relationships between them, Ranisch weaves both works into an enchanting coming-of-age tale about family, love, realization and self-determination: Mavra and Iolanta becomes Mavra / Iolanta.

Blu-ray: https://tickets.staatstheater.bayern/bso.webshop/webticket/itemdetail?itemId=468&cents=2499

DVD: https://tickets.staatstheater.bayern/bso.webshop/webticket/itemdetail?itemId=475&cents=2499

Photo credit: © EVISCO

Joseph Gabriel Rheinberger was born in Valduz (Liechtenstein) on 17 March 1839 and studied at the Hauser Conservatory in Munich, where the twelve-year-old was then considered the youngest and most talented student at the institute. In 1859 he was employed as a piano teacher at the Munich Conservatory and as organist at the church of St. Michael. Rheinberger’s first compositions were published by Peters from this time onwards. From 1864 he was solo répétiteur at the Munich Court Opera, where he took part in the world premiere of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde, among other works. In 1876 he was appointed professor of composition and organ playing at the newly founded Royal School of Music. Just one year later he took up the post of court conductor in Munich, succeeding Franz Wüllner, which he gave up in 1894 in order to devote himself fully to his compositions. Rheinberger died in Munich on 25 November 1901. He left behind numerous works, including masses, songs, symphonic instrumental music and operas. His Wallenstein Symphony, the opera The Seven Ravens, his Requiem in B flat minor and his Florentine Symphony op. 87 were particularly successful during his lifetime.

Photo credit: By Atelier Müller-Hilsdorf, Munich – own (Münchner Stadtmuseum), CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=99154084

Hermann Levi was born in Giessen on 7 November 1839 and quickly made a name for himself as a musical prodigy. After early studies in Mannheim and Leipzig, he held posts as music director and Kapellmeister in Saarbrücken, Mannheim and Rotterdam from 1859 onwards. From 1864 to 1872 he worked as Hofkapellmeister in Karlsruhe, where Wagner became aware of him during his Meistersinger conductions. In 1872 Levi finally came to Munich as court conductor. He worked as assistant in Bayreuth, among other places, where he conducted the first performance of Parsifalin 1882. In Munich, he championed works by Johannes Brahms, Anton Bruckner, Richard Strauss, but also Hector Berlioz and Engelbert Humperdinck. He also had a decisive influence on the so-called Mozart Renaissance with his translations that were used until the 1930s. Two years after being appointed General Music Director, Levi retired in 1896 due to illness. He died in Munich on 13 May 1900. Because of his importance for music and especially his pioneering work at the National Theatre in Munich, the Orchestra Academy of the Bayerisches Staatsorchester, founded in 2002, has borne his name since 2021: Hermann Levi Academy.

Photo credit: Andrea1903 (scan); photographer unknown, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The 4th Festival Chamber Concert on 27 July in the Cuvilliés Theatre featured Richard Strauss’ Andante for horn and piano in an arrangement by Pascal Deuber, as well as the Quintet in C minor by the English composer York Bowen, Jan Koetsier’s Skurrile Elegie auf Richard Wagner and Daniel Schnyder’s Concertino for horn, percussion and string quintet. In addition to Pascal Deuber on horn, Matjaž Bogataj and Felix Key Weber (violin), Adrian Mustea (viola), Emanuel Graf (violoncello), Blai Gumí Roca (double bass) and Claudio Estay (percussion) performed.

Franz Wüllner was born in Münster on 28 January 1832 and already toured with Beethoven’s late piano sonatas between 1850 and 1854. In 1854 he moved to Munich, where he worked as a piano teacher from 1856. After positions as municipal music director in Aachen and as director at the Lower Rhine Music Festival, he was appointed court conductor of the Royal Vocal Orchestra in Munich in 1864. Wüllner conducted the premieres of Wagner’s Rheingold and Walküre in Munich and was finally appointed 1st Court Kapellmeister in 1871. He worked in this position until 1877, when he took over the direction of the conservatoire in Dresden as well as the Court Kapellmeister’s office there. In 1884 he went to Cologne as municipal Kapellmeister and conductor of the Conservatory. He died in Braunfels on 7 September 1902.

Photo credit: Dresden, Saxon State Library – Dresden State and University Library (SLUB), shelfmark/inventory no.: MB.gr.2.2

On 24 July, General Music Director Vladimir Jurowski conducted a special concert at the Alte Pinakothek, featuring Renaissance and early Baroque composers who are rarely heard in the context of the Bayerisches Staatsorchester. Orlando di Lasso and Ludwig Senfl are two central figures in the 500-year history of the Bayerisches Staatsorchester and have already found their way to the National Theatre this year. Vincenzo Galilei, father of the natural scientist Galileo Galilei, worked in Munich at the court of Albrecht V as court musician. Johann Christoph Pez was not only born in Munich, but was court musician under Elector Max Emanuel from 1688. Rupert Ignaz Mayr was also part of the electoral court chapel, namely under Maximilian II. Emanuel.

Two special concerts celebrating the anniversary of the Bayerisches Staatsorchester celebrate the Munich “household gods” Richard Strauss and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. In the first of the two concerts, instrumental late works and an early song cycle by Strauss are on the programme; in the second, the orchestra’s woodwind section presents two wind serenades, in addition to Mozart’s work in C minor, Antonín Dvořák’s Serenade in D minor.

The second anniversary concert (in Munich’s Prinzregentenheater) will feature the woodwind section of the Bayerisches Staatsorchester performing two of the serenade genre’s pinnacle works. In 1782, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart had just begun to build up an existence as a freelance composer and musician in Vienna, after the personnel manager of his Salzburg employer had kicked him out of his employment. The commission to provide a work for the “imperial harmony” (brass band) just founded by Joseph II came welcome but at short notice (“I quickly had to make a night of musique, but only on harmonie”), and as so often, Mozart’s contribution far outstripped the usual: with the nocturnally sombre Serenade in C minor, he basically created a veritable symphony for winds. Antonín Dvořák had this model in mind when he, in turn, wrote a serenade in a minor key for woodwind instruments almost a hundred years later – two works that exhaust the wealth of expressive possibilities of oboe, clarinet, horn and bassoon, in the case of the Bohemian composer further enriched by violoncello and double bass.

Photo credit: Nikolaj Lund 

At the annual Festival Service, which takes place in cooperation with the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising, Franz Schubert’s Mass No. 4 in C major op. 48 D 452 was performed on 25 June. Two works by the contemporary Japanese composer Toshio Hosokawa were also performed: Kuroda-bushi (from Japanese Folk Songs) for alto flute and Lullaby of Itsuki (No. 2 from Two Japanese Folk Songs and Gesine) for harp. The Bayerisches Staatsorchester and the Bayerischer Staatsopernchor were joined by vocal soloists Emily Pogorelc, Emily Sierra, Jonas Hacker and Jacques Imbrailo, and Frank Höndgen on the organ. Sergej Bolkhovets was the musical director.

Photo credit: Wilfried Hösl

On 19 July, the third Festival Chamber Concert took place in the Cuvilliés Theatre. Four works by Mozart were performed: namely his Quartet for Oboe, Violin, Viola and Violoncello in F major KV 370, the concert arias “Ma, che vi fece” – “Sperai vicino il lido” as well as “Misera, dove son” – “Ah, non son’ io che parlo” together with the soprano Jasmin DelfsTalia Or and the String Quartet in G major KV 387. The concert opened, however, with Johann Christian Cannabich’s Quintet for two flutes, violin, viola and violoncello in F major, op. 7 No. 1. Cannabich became a member of the Mannheim Court Orchestra at the age of twelve, where he advanced to concertmaster. From 1757 he led the Mannheim court orchestra as Kapellmeister. After the Elector Karl Theodor was appointed Elector of Bavaria and took his court orchestra to Munich, Cannabich took over the direction of instrumental music in Munich. In 1777 Mozart stayed at Cannabich’s house and wrote about him to his father Leopold: “I cannot describe what a good friend Cannabich is to me”.

On 17 July, OperBrass gave a concert at the Prinzregententheater: Brass players are always good for a surprise. Mostly unexpected. Sometimes delicate, often exquisite, always fine and tactful.
OperaBrass therefore with one sound – but many variations:
Brass variations from original compositions and arrangements for ten brass players.
Unheard. Creative. Original.

Photo credit: Wilfried Hösl

On 13 July, the cellists of the Bayerisches Staatsorchester Yves Savary, Jakob Spahn, Benedikt Don Strohmeier, Oliver Göske, Rupert Buchner, Roswitha Timm, Anja Fabricius and Clemens Müllner played the second Festival Chamber Concert in the Cuvilliés Theatre. The musical range of the programme covered the last five centuries: from an arrangement of a madrigal by Orlando di Lasso to the Concerto per 2 Violoncelli e basso continuo in G minor RV 531 by Antonio Vivaldi and Gioachino Rossini’s Wilhelm Tell fragment for 6 violoncellos as well as Antonín Dvořák’s Rondo in G minor for violoncello and orchestra op. 94 to Krzysztof Penderecki’s Agnus Dei and a composition by the contemporary composer Anne Wilson.

Hans Richter was born in Raab (in present-day Hungary) on 4 April 1843; his father was a cathedral conductor and his mother an opera singer. After his father’s death, he received his further education in Vienna, first as a choirboy, then at the conservatory. From 1862 to 1866 he was horn player with the orchestra of the Kärntnertortheater, before coming to Tribschen in October 1866 to join Richard Wagner, where he copied the score of his opera Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. As musical assistant, he took part in the rehearsals for the Munich premiere of the same opera and was eventually appointed royal music director here. As early as the following year, however, i. e. 1869, he gave up this post again because he refused to premiere Das Rheingold against the composer’s wishes. Instead, Franz Wüllner was to conduct the first performances of Das Rheingold and Die Walküre in Munich, which King Ludwig II had longed for. From June 1870 Richter worked as Wagner’s secretary in Tribschen, where he also copied the score of Siegfried. From 1871 he was Kapellmeister at the National Theatre in Pest, and from 1875 he worked at the Vienna Court Opera, conducting, among other things, the concerts of the Vienna Philharmonic between 1875 and 1898. He was the conductor of the first complete Ring performances in 1876 in Bayreuth, where he conducted a total of 77 performances, and conducted the German opera performances at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden between 1903 and 1910. Richter died in Bayreuth on 5 December 1916.

Photo credit: By Herbert Rose Barraud, Public domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=29443729

Two special concerts celebrating the anniversary of the Bayerisches Staatsorchester celebrate the Munich “household gods” Richard Strauss and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. In the first of the two concerts, instrumental late works and an early song cycle by Strauss are on the programme; in the second, the orchestra's woodwind section presents two wind serenades, in addition to Mozart's work in C minor, Antonín Dvořák’s Serenade in D minor.

In the first anniversary concert (at the National Theatre in Munich), GMD Vladimir Jurowski conducts a programme that ranges from the music of the young Strauss to two examples of his late instrumental works. The Metamorphoses were composed under the impression of the destruction of the Munich opera house, an epitaph to a vanished epoch and a swan song to an era whose entanglements reverberate in the polyphonically intertwined web of the 23 solo strings. With the Sonatina for 16 winds, Strauss takes up the instrumentation of a youthful work. Self-ironically described as a “wrist exercise”, as it were a postscript to what was actually the end of his creative work, this opus “from the workshop of an invalid” is at the same time an example of Strauss’s contrapuntal mastery of emotional compression. Marlis Petersen has been a welcome guest at the National Theatre since the beginning of her opera career, celebrated as the Queen of the Night as well as Marietta or Lulu and recently also in Strauss roles such as Salome and Marschallin. As a good friend of the Bayerisches Staatsorchesters, she enriches the programme with a rarity: she sings the song cycle Mädchenblumen in an arrangement for chamber ensemble by Eberhard Kloke, in whose arrangement of Der Rosenkavalier the orchestra accompanied her in her role debut as Marschallin.

Photo credit: Nikolaj Lund

Hans von Bülow was born on 8 January 1830 in Dresden, where he received his first lessons in music theory and where the premiere of Richard Wagner’s opera Rienzi left a lasting impression on the then twelve-year-old. He studied law in Leipzig and Berlin before the premiere of Wagner’s Lohengrin in Weimar on 28 August 1850 finally persuaded von Bülow to devote himself entirely to music. Hans von Bülow completed his pianistic training with the conductor of the Lohengrin premiere and piano virtuoso Franz Liszt, while Wagner himself supported von Bülow in his musical plans and arranged his first engagements as a conductor. Liszt’s daughter Cosima finally married Hans von Bülow in 1957, after he had already completed his first concert tours and taken up a permanent position as a piano teacher at the Stern Conservatory in Berlin. In 1864, von Bülow was appointed to Munich by King Ludwig II at Wagner’s suggestion: initially as royal prelude player, then as head of the Munich Music School to implement Wagner’s reforms there, and finally as Court Kapellmeister from 1867. Despite his wife Cosima’s relationship with Richard Wagner, von Bülow remained loyal to the composer and conducted the premieres of his operas Tristan und Isolde and Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg in Munich. Cosima eventually moved to Switzerland to live with Wagner, whom she married in 1870. After this finality of separation, Hans von Bülow devoted himself to his career as a pianist, giving concerts in London, Russia and the USA. In 1877 he became first court conductor in Hanover, in 1880 court music director in Meiningen, and from 1885 he conducted, among other things, the Hamburg subscription concerts and events of the Berlin Philharmonic. Plagued by severe headaches and no longer able to undertake the extensive travels of his touring life, Hans von Bülow sought relief from the Egyptian climate in Cairo, where he died on 12 February 1894. Hans von Bülow not only composed songs, symphonic poems and piano music, but in addition to his activities as a conductor and piano virtuoso, he also appeared as an educator and music writer.

Photo credit: By author unknown – Carte de Visite Woodburytype – Print (Repro by/of Günter Josef Radig), Public domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6783959

The most beautiful opera moment for Marcus Schön was Suor Angelica’s transfigured death in Giacomo Puccini’s opera of the same name, embodied by Ermonela Jaho under the musical direction of Kirill Petrenko. His favorite conductor is the sadly departed Nikolaus Harnoncourt.

Photo credit: Wilfried Hösl

It was a special moment, the 1st Academy Concert of the Bayerisches Staatsorchester in the 2020/2021 season: one of the first public concerts after the closure of the concert halls in 2020 and only the second concert under the direction of Vladimir Jurowski as designated General Music Director. The program included Ludwig van Beethoven’s revolutionary Second Symphony and the corresponding contemporary work Testament by Australian composer Brett Dean. Experience the live recording of this concert on CD!

Click here to buy the CD

Casey Rippon würde sehr gerne irgendwo am Meer leben. In ihrem Kühlschrank dürfen Lao Gan Ma Erdnüsse in Chiliöl, Parmesan und Tiefkühl-Erbsen nie fehlen. Ihr Lieblingswort ist Vokuhila.

Photo credit: Wilfried Hösl

For Thomas Klotz, the best things about his job are the musical variety and the great colleagues. The last time he laughed tears was while reading Heinz Strunk’s Das Teemännchen. His favorite word is hammer!

Photo credit: Wilfried Hösl

The most beautiful opera moment for Andreas Öttl was Giacomo Puccini’s Tosca under Zubin Mehta immediately after his winning audition. Maestro Mehta said at the time, “If he does well, I would like to hear him play Mahler’s 9th Symphony.” Thus, in his first two appearances with the Bayerisches Staatsorchester, he got to play two of his favorite composers. In his spare time, he loves to be with his two daughters in their garden.

Photo credit: Wilfried Hösl

Pascal Deuber likes to go on vacation somewhere secluded in the mountains. His favorite food is Puschlaver Pizzoccheri and the best book he has read so far is Walden; or, Life in the Woods by Henry David Thoreau.

Photo credit: Wilfried Hösl

In his spare time, Jürgen Key spent most of his first 20 professional years doing things related to music, including a lot of chamber music and teaching students. But now he uses much more of his time for extended bicycle tours in Germany or even Austria, mostly along rivers. That gives him a lot. To experience these beautiful things, he believes you don’t have to travel far …

In his now 32 years with the Bayerisches Staatsorchester, he will always have special memories of the three concerts he was able to experience with Carlos Kleiber in Ingolstadt, Munich and Italy in 1996. These are among the most brilliant and intense musical experiences he has ever had. The hall in which, in his opinion, everything sounds good is the Berlin Philharmonie. But there are many good halls, it’s just that one hall is not always equally perfect for every instrumentation or musical orientation.

Photo credit: Wilfried Hösl

For Andreas Riepl, the best part of his job is that, as a double bass player, you can listen to and watch the audience from the pit. The best hall he has ever played in is Carnegie Hall. There, even a less than perfectly produced note sounds beautiful. One thing that is better for him in his home country than in Munich is that in the Upper Palatinate it is not frowned upon to eat something on the road.

Photo credit: Wilfried Hösl

Apart from his own, Johannes Moritz’s favorite instrument is the cello. He loves to spend his vacations on the farm.

Photo credit: Wilfried Hösl

Alexandra Hengstebeck would love to visit the Teatro Amazonas in Manaus (Brazil). After visiting the opera house, she would also like to take a tour through the Amazon rainforest. The book that has touched her the most is Identity: A Novelby Milan Kundera. The best hall she has ever played in is the Musikverein in Vienna. The basses sound fantastic there and she has the feeling that the whole history of music resonates with every note. Also, playing the very low C in the orchestra at the right moment is an indescribable feeling for her. What’s more, this note sounds especially beautiful on her service bass.

Photo credit: Wilfried Hösl

Andreas Schablas’ main residence is in a small town about 30 kilometers north of Salzburg in Flachgau. Of course, due to his employment, he is much in Salzburg city and in Munich, where he also has a residence. He rides his bike a lot and knows the surrounding area very well by now. He has seen a lot of the world, but ultimately he lives and works in what he considers the most beautiful place in the world and is always amazed at the varied and beautiful landscapes he discovers on his rides. For him, there is nothing more beautiful. His favorite place in the opera outside the orchestra pit is the Bruno Walter Hall. His favorite place to be is there after a performance, when he is still full of adrenaline and then has the hall to himself to prepare and practice. The last time he laughed tears with his wife and two children (17 and 20) was when they played table tennis again after two years. Not because they were particularly bad, it was just a very special time.

Photo credit: Wilfried Hösl

The Bayerisches Staatsorchester has two symphonies with the No. 4 in its luggage on its European Tour: namely those of the two composers Gustav Mahler and Anton Bruckner, each of whom shaped late romantic symphonic music with quite different musical means. On September 22, the Bayerisches Staatsorchester will play the one by Gustav Mahler in the Brucknerhaus in the Bruckner city of Linz, where Anton Bruckner worked as an organist and where, for example, his E minor Mass was first performed.

Image credit: By Josef Löwy - Yahoo et al, Location: Vienna, Austria, Public domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5487947

On September 23, the last concert of the Bayerisches Staatsorchester’s 2023 European Tour will take place in Vienna. Here, among other pieces, the prelude to Richard Wagner’s opera Tristan und Isolde will be heard. Before this succeeded in being premiered in Munich, other attempts at premiere failed. For example in Vienna, where the planned premiere in 1863 was abandoned after 77 rehearsals. Only the unconditional support of Ludwig II made it possible for Wagner’s “unperformable” opera to be premiered in Munich by the court orchestra there – today’s Bayerisches Staatsorchester. Now, then, the Tristan prelude is heard in Vienna by its premiere orchestra, in which the ambivalent harmonic course that has become proverbial with the “Tristan chord” is already apparent.

Photo credit: Detail from the score to Tristan und Isolde. Breitkopf and Härtel 1860

The Bayerisches Staatsorchester has had regular appearances with the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in recent years. For example, the orchestra has already performed the two Strauss operas Ariadne auf Naxos and Der Rosenkavalier here, as well as Umberto Giordano’s verismo opera Andrea Chénier. Paris is a constant in the touring activities of the Bayerisches Staatsorchester. It returns here Sept. 21 to perform Robert Schumann’s Piano Concerto in A minor with Yefim Bronfman, as well as the prelude to Richard Wagner’s opera Tristan und Isolde and Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 4, with Elsa Dreisig taking the vocal part.

Photo credit: By Coldcreation - Own work, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=33037925

September 1953 saw the first guest performance of the Bavarian State Opera after World War II: Arabella, staged by Rudolf Hartmann, was performed at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden on September 15, together with the Bayerisches Staatsorchester, the Bayerischer Staatsopernchor and the Bayerisches Staatsballett under the musical direction of Rudolf Kempe. Also part of the guest appearance were performances of Strauss’ operas Die Liebe der Danaeand Capriccio.

As part of the 2023 European tour, two concerts – on September 18 and 19 – will take place at the Barbican Centre in London. The first of the two concerts will feature music by Richard Strauss again, 70 years after the aforementioned guest performance: namely, his Alpine Symphony, the composer’s last symphonic poem, which programmatically refers to the Bavarian foothills of the Alps in its impressive depiction of the ascent and descent of a mountain hike through a gigantic orchestral apparatus.

Photo credit: Bavarian State Opera Archive

On September 11, the Bayerisches Staatsorchester will perform in Berlin and, among other compositions, will let Alban Berg’s Violin Concerto be heard. This composer has a special relationship with today’s German capital. In 1923, his Three Orchestral Pieces were premiered here, and the world premiere of his opera Wozzeck followed in 1925 under Erich Kleiber, then general music director of the Berlin State Opera. The extreme challenges of this score necessitated 137 rehearsals leading up to the premiere. But the city also represents a crucial setting in the biography of Richard Strauss, whose Alpine Symphony will be heard at the Berlin concert: After Strauss saw no possibility of being hired as a general music director in his hometown of Munich, he went to the Berlin Hofoper in 1898. The composer later recalled that he “never had any reason to regret this relationship with Berlin; actually experienced only joy, found much sympathy and hospitality.” He remained in the city for more than two decades, and it was under his direction that the premiere of the Alpine Symphony took place here in 1915 – the Dresden Royal Court Orchestra (today’s Staatskapelle) played.

Photo credit: F. E. C. Leuckart Verlag 1915

On September 13, the European Tour will take the Bayerisches Staatsorchester to Bucharest for the George Enescu Festival. Artistic director of this festival, once founded in honor of probably the most important Romanian composer, was Vladimir Jurowski until he took up his post in Munich. The Munich General Music Director has thus already conducted numerous concerts in this huge concert hall with over 4,000 seats before he now returns here as a guest with his Bayerisches Staatsorchester.

Photo credit: https://www.festivalenescu.ro, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=71850005

This is not the first visit of the Bayerisches Staatsorchester to Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie. Back in 2018, then General Music Director Kirill Petrenko conducted a program of music by Johannes Brahms and Pyotr I. Tchaikovsky. The city of Hamburg has repeatedly been a point of reference for former heads of the Bayerisches Staatsorchester in the past: for example, Kent Nagano, who had previously been General Music Director at the Bavarian State Opera until 2013, moved to the Hamburg State Opera in 2015 in the same position. Wolfgang Sawallisch, on the other hand, came from Hamburg to Munich in the opposite direction – before he was to leave his mark on the Bayerisches Staatsorchester for two decades from 1971, he was chief conductor of the Hamburg Philharmonic State Orchestra for ten years. And Bruno Walter was also engaged as Gustav Mahler’s assistant in Hamburg – namely at the opera there – before moving to Vienna and finally becoming General Music Director of the Royal Court Opera in Munich in 1913.

Photo credit: Bruno Walter. Photograph by W(enzel) Weis (1858-1930), Vienna, Landstraßer Hauptstraße 67 - Andrea1903, Public domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4503614

Photo credit: By Josef Lehmkuhl – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3599177

The Culture and Congress Center in Lucerne is the second stop of the Bayerisches Staatsorchester on its European Tour. On September 8, the orchestra will perform Anton Bruckner’s Symphony No. 4 and Robert Schumann’s Piano Concerto in A minor, as well as the prelude to Richard Wagner’s opera Tristan und Isolde. It takes about half an hour to walk from the KKL to the Tribschen country house, which Wagner lived in between 1866 and 1872. After the premiere of Tristan and Isolde in Munich, Wagner and his wife Cosima finally moved here, to the shores of Lake Lucerne, where the composer completed his operas Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg and Siegfried.

https://www.richard-wagner-museum.ch/geschichte/landhaus-tribschen/

Photo credit: By Josef Lehmkuhl – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3599177

On September 7, the first concert of the Bayerisches Staatsorchester’s 2023 European Tour will take place in Merano. The Munich composer, house god of the Bavarian State Opera and former Munich Court Kapellmeister Richard Strauss had a great affinity for this place, and so he described the area in a letter to his biographer Willi Schuh as a “blessed realm”. As a lover of Italy, Strauss visited Merano repeatedly and worked during his stays there, among other things, on his opera Die Liebe der Danae – a draft text included for the opera Capriccio, which premiered in Munich, is also dated “Merano 13 May 40”. Incidentally, on its European Tour, the Bayerisches Staatsorchester is spending the night in Innsbruck, where it already made a guest appearance in 1931 together with Richard Strauss at the Strauss Festival.

Photo credit: Archiv Musikalische Akademie

Wolfram Sirotek’s favorite composers are Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Richard Wagner. His favorite conductor is Carlos Kleiber, and if he were an opera character, he would choose his namesake Wolfram from Tannhäuser. For him, the worst opera he has had to play was Lear. He likes to spend his vacations in Tuscany.

Photo credit: Wilfried Hösl

Thomas März already had the wish to become a musician at the age of 4. His favorite conductor is Zubin Mehta, under whose direction a concert took place in the Suntory Hall Tokyo, which was very special for Thomas März. The 3rd symphony of Gustav Mahler was played. Together with Verdi, Strauss and Puccini, Mahler is one of his favorites among the composers. He likes to spend his free time with his family and in the garden.

Photo credit: Thomas März

Blu-ray: https://tickets.staatstheater.bayern/bso.webshop/webticket/shop?item=697

Photo credit: EVISCO

The Revolutionary Tribunal has sentenced Andrea Chénier to death, and no one can avert his fate. Shortly before the execution, Chénier is visited by his lover Maddalena, who has decided to die at the poet’s side. “Our death is the triumph of love,” the lovers promise each other in their last words.

The French Revolution, demanded by the people at the beginning, turns out to be a machine of terror after 1789: spies of the regime pursue the citizens, show trials serve as a deterrent, and the guillotine ensures the execution of sentences. Although the wanted Chénier could flee Paris, he decides against it. He wants to know who is hiding behind the letters that are secretly delivered to him. Here, in the shadow of the reign of terror, love triumphs: Chénier and Maddalena find each other, swear eternal love and are faithful to each other until their last breath together.

Director Philipp Stölzl made his debut at the Bavarian State Opera with his production of Umberto Giordano’s verismo opera. Munich’s dream couple Jonas Kaufmann and Anja Harteros appeared in the title role and as Maddalena, Marco Armiliato conducted the Bayerisches Staatsorchester. Now the successful production is being released on Blu-ray and DVD on the company’s own label.

DVD: https://tickets.staatstheater.bayern/bso.webshop/webticket/shop?item=696

Blu-ray: https://tickets.staatstheater.bayern/bso.webshop/webticket/shop?item=697

Photo credit: EVISCO

Photo credit: Karolina Wojtas

In this interview, dramaturge Christopher Warmuth and director Claus Guth talk about the new production of George Frideric Handel’s opera Semele.

Photo credit: Karolina Wojtas

On July 3, the Festival Baroque Concert will take place in the Alte Pinakothek. Thomas Dunford conducts an ensemble of six musicians and the soprano Ana Maria Labin. The composer Evaristo Felice Dall’Abaco, who lends his name to this concert, was engaged as a chamber musician at the Munich court for a year beginning in 1704. However, the War of the Spanish Succession made regular employment of musicians difficult here as well, and Dall’Abaco had to look for work in other cities. Later, Dall’Abaco returned to Munich and even took the role of concertmaster. After Pietro Torri’s death in 1737, Dall’Abaco was not appointed court kapellmeister as he had hoped, but filled his posts for a few more years, finally dying in Munich in 1742. The Festival Baroque Concert will feature his Sonata in G major, op. 6, No. 5, and compositions by contemporaries who are better known today, namely Antonio Vivaldi and George Frideric Handel.

Photo credit: https://pqpbach.ars.blog.br/category/dallabaco/, CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=119231902

On July 2, ATTACCA, the youth orchestra of the Bayerisches Staatsorchester, will perform at the Prinzregententheater, supported by the horn players of the Bayerisches Staatsorchester Johannes Dengler, Franz Draxinger, Maximilian Hochwimmer and Rainer Schmitz. Allan Bergius leads this concert with Robert Schumann’s Concerto for Four Horns and Orchestra, Richard Strauss’ Symphony No. 1, and a world premiere by composer Oriol Cruixent: Penta Infinitum, a Concerto for Five Percussions and Symphonic Orchestra.

On June 28, the Festival Chamber Concerts will kick off at the Cuvilliés Theatre. After OPERcussion – the percussion ensemble of the Bayerisches Staatsorchester – already released their CD recording “Original Grooves” on the in-house record label Bayerische Staatsoper Recordings this year, they are now thrilling audiences with a program of contemporary compositions. In addition to an original composition by Claudio Estay González – a percussionist from this ensemble – and an older commissioned composition for the ensemble by the composer Oriol Cruixent, the program also includes the world premiere of a commissioned composition: Moritz Eggert’s Die Geschichte des Schlagwerks in der Oper: 1700-2023 for 5 percussionists.

A very special concert for Gaël Gandino was the 2nd Symphony of Gustav Mahler conducted by Claudio Abbado in Lisbon. She was an intern with the Berlin Philharmonic at the time. At the end of the piece, when the chorus began, Abbado put down his baton and just held his hands together. He sang along quietly; it was a magical atmosphere. She was moved to tears and will never forget that moment. Her favorite musician is her immediate neighbor in the orchestra pit, principal double bass Florian Gmelin. The harp and double bass very often share the same motifs or single notes, but they don’t need to look at each other. The two feel the music in the same way and are always in sync. After so many years of making music together, it is still overwhelming for her to experience it. Being half Italian, she would love to be fluent in Italian. She would also have a great chance of winning a gold medal for cooking.

Photo credit: Wilfried Hösl

For Éva Lilla Fröschl, the best part of her job are the performances. From her seat in the orchestra pit, you can see a bit of the stage, and for most performances she would also pay to be there. Instead, she gets paid to play – what could be better? She would have loved to perform the opera Eugene Onegin with singer Dmitri Hvorostovsky, who died in 2017. If she could compete in any Olympic discipline, she would have the best chance of winning a gold medal in cleaning up.

Photo credit: Wilfried Hösl

Bildnachweis: Wilfried Hösl

In the following text, learn more about director of the Hamlet production Neil Armfield’s take on his staging of Brett Dean’s composition, as well as Armfield’s fundamental engagement with the Hamlet material, which dates back to his school days.

Bildnachweis: Wilfried Hösl

Susanne von Hayn already knew at the age of 6 that she wanted to become a musician. However, at that time she did not know how she could get into the orchestra with the recorder. If she hadn’t chosen music, she probably would have studied medicine, but she can’t say what would have become of her then. A concert in the Olympic Stadium or a concert in BMW’s wind tunnel were very special to her.

Photo credit: Wilfried Hösl

Johann Caspar Aiblinger was born in Wasserburg am Inn on February 23, 1779, and received his education at the Benedictine Abbey at Tegernsee and at the Jesuit Gymnasium in Munich. At Landshut University he studied philosophy and theology before going to Italy, where he worked as a composer and music teacher in Vicenza and Venice. In 1819 he became Kapellmeister of La Scala in Milan and in the same year moved to Munich as director of the Italian Opera, after whose dissolution in 1825 Aiblinger was given the post of Vice-Kapellmeister. From 1826 to 1864 he was finally engaged in Munich as Hofkapellmeister. He composed sacred music, numerous works for choir, but also operas and ballets. Aiblinger died in Munich on May 6, 1867.

Bildnachweis: Johann Kaspar Aiblinger, Photolithographie um 1850, Museum Wasserburg a. Inn, Inv. Nr. 2259a

Photo credit: EVISCO

This year, in which the Bayerisches Staatorchester celebrates 500 years since its inception, the Munich Opera Horns have put together a very special birthday present, their album Voyager. The title is particularly apt. Since the horn symbolises the music of the German Romantic and Postromantic eras, it’s firstly a journey into the past. Let’s not forget that the Bayerisches Staatsorchester has always had renowned hornists in its ranks; I’d just like to mention one of them by name: Franz Strauss, Richard Strauss’s father, principal horn during the earliest Bayreuth Festivals and so esteemed that even Richard Wagner, never quick to extol anyone’s virtues, said of him, “When he plays, one can forgive him anything.” The Munich Opera Horns continue the long and wonderful tradition of performing compositions for their instrument as well as interpretations of repertoire classics. However, they are also firmly rooted in the present, showcasing new pieces composed especially for them. Alongside their magnificent performances in the Nationaltheater, the Munich Opera Horns have been playing together for fifteen years. Their aim is always to demonstrate, through their sublime musicianship, how both radiance and tenderness can be teased out of their instruments. We should really call them the Munich Opera Wunderhorns! The recording you’re listening to is ample proof.

Serge Dorny General Director, Bayerische Staatsoper

Click here to buy the CD

Photo credit: EVISCO

If you should ever look for Paolo Taballione at the opera, you are most likely to find him in the rehearsal room. His favorite instrument, apart from his own in the orchestra, is the guitar, and his favorite month is August. He prefers to spend his free time with his children.

Photo credit: Wilfried Hösl

Trumpet player Frank Bloedhorn introduces himself and talks about the 2017 Asia Tour.

The Hermann Levi Academy supports talented young musicians by giving them the opportunity to practice with the orchestra under professional conditions, discovering  opera literature with its specific requirements as well as symphonic music.

The Bayerisches Staatsorchester’s Hermann Levi Academy was originally founded in 2002 under the name “Orchestra Academy of the Bayerisches Staatsorchester”. Its task was to pass on the traditions of one of the oldest German orchestras to young musicians and consequently keep this particularly special sound and performance culture alive for subsequent generations. Since July 2021, the Orchestra Academy has included the “Hermann Levi Academy” title in its name to honour Hermann Levi’s importance in the world of music and in particular his forward-looking creativity at the National Theatre in Munich.

On June 12, the Hermann Levi Academy will perform a diverse program at the Alte Pinakothek. A Sonata da chiesa by the Baroque composer Arcangelo Corelli and the Piano Quintet in B minor by Johannes Brahms will be heard, as will the Variations on the Song Greensleeves for double bass solo by Knut Guettler, who died ten years ago, and excerpts from the Sonata for Violoncello solo by György Sándor Ligeti.

Photo credit: Frank Bloedhorn

When Heike Steinbrecher is not making music, she is busy with her young dog and enjoys the walks through forest and nature together. She would like to live in northern Greece and learn the local language to get to know the country and its people even better.

Photo credit: Wilfried Hösl

Franz Lachner was born in Rain am Lech on April 2, 1803, and after other stations in Munich, Vienna and Mannheim, he conducted opera performances, the concert series of the Musical Academy and church music as Court Kapellmeister from 1836 to 1868. Lachner’s appointment as Court Kapellmeister marked the beginning of the venerable series of Bavarian General Music Directors. Now it was no longer the concertmaster who was in charge, but a conductor with a baton leading an ever-growing ensemble. The orchestra included excellent virtuosos such as the clarinetist Heinrich Baermann, the horn player Franz Strauss and members of the Moralt family, who thrilled all of Europe on their travels as a string quartet. New instruments entered the orchestra, valves expanded the range of horns and trumpets, and the Munich solo flutist Theobald Böhm developed a new key system for woodwind instruments that is still in use today.

Photo credit: Franz Lachner. Lithograph by Andreas Staub. Public domain photograph, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4372774

On May 22 and 23, Vladimir Jurowski conducted the Bayerisches Staatsorchester in the 6th Academy Concert, featuring music by Ralph Vaughan Williams, Robert Schumann and Gustav Mahler. Gerhard Oppitz was the soloist in Schumann’s Piano Concerto in A minor, and Louise Alder took the vocal part in Mahler’s Symphony No. 4.

Photo credit: Wilfried Hösl

On May 15, the new production of Giuseppe Verdi’s Aida premiered. Daniele Rustioni conducted the Bayerisches Staatsorchester, and Damiano Michieletto directed. Elena Stikhina was featured in the title role.

Photo credit: Wilfried Hösl

On May 7, the production Il ritorno / Das Jahr des magischen Denkens premiered as part of the Ja, Mai festival. Christopher Moulds conducted the opera by Claudio Monteverdi, which was combined with a play by Joan Didion. The production was directed by Christopher Rüping.

Photo credit: Wilfried Hösl

On April 17 and 18, Robert Jindra conducted the Bayerisches Staatsorchester at the 5th Academy Concert. During the Mozart program, Hanna-Elisabeth Müller also took the stage for the concert aria “Bella mia fiamma” – “Resta, o cara”.

Photo credit: Wilfried Hösl

Moritz Winker would have become a pilot if he had taken a different career path. Now his favorite place at the opera is outside the orchestra pit with the stage manager: “What they do every night is just brilliant!”. The movie that always makes him laugh out loud is Welcome to the Sticks.

Photo credit: Wilfried Hösl

The Bayerisches Staatsorchester, together with its General Music Director Vladimir Jurowski, was a guest at the Isarphilharmonie on March 25. Renaud Capuçon joined the orchestra on stage for Alban Berg’s violin concerto Dem Andenken eines Engels, before Anton Bruckner’s Symphony No. 4 was heard.

Photo credit: Wilfried Hösl

“To be modern means to admit that in a short time one will no longer be modern.” – This saying comes from the text Modernity, published in 1918, whose author Felix Weingartner spoke out against a linear development of music history that was constantly outdone by new forms and modes of expression. Thus, in his notes on his life, he sometimes self-deprecatingly referred to himself as a “Wagnerian” and a “Lisztian” and at another point proclaimed the paradoxical thrust “forward to Mozart!”. Weingartner, whose death anniversary was on May 7, 2022, the 80th time, completed 10 operas, 7 symphonies, several songs and chamber music and participated with numerous books and essays in the music-aesthetic as well as theoretical and performance-practical discourse of his time. His success was based on his activity as a conductor. In his letters to his “dearest friend,” as he usually addressed Weingartner, Gustav Mahler did not hold back with praise: “I know of no one to whom I would hand over my work with such confidence and joyful courage as to you.” Weingartner succeeded Mahler as opera director of the Vienna Court Opera, having previously been Kapellmeister of several opera houses as well as chief conductor of the Munich Kaim Orchestra – today’s Munich Philharmonic. During his 19-year association with the Vienna Philharmonic, Weingartner made a decisive contribution to its worldwide fame. As a subscription conductor, he led all concerts, including the first Beethoven cycle in 1918 and the first South American tour in the orchestra’s history in 1922. His opera Malawika, a “Comedy in Three Acts,” premiered at the Munich National Theatre on June 3, 1886, when the composer was just 23 years old. He wrote the libretto himself, based on a drama by the Indian poet Kalidasa.

Photo Credit: Archiv Bayerische Staatsoper

Joseph Hartmann Stuntz was born in Arlesheim near Basel on July 23, 1793, and after receiving his first music lessons from his father, he composed a Te Deum for the Strasbourg Cathedral at the age of 14. He joined the Munich court orchestra in 1808 and studied with Peter von Winter, later also in Vienna with his teacher Antonio Salieri. From 1816 to 1818 Stuntz was Kapellmeister of the Italian Opera in Munich, and in the following years he composed several operas for the theaters in Venice, Milan and Turin. At the Teatro alla Scala, his opera La rappressaglia was so successful that he was awarded the title “maestro di cartello.” In 1823 Stuntz became Vice-Kapellmeister of the Munich Hofkapelle and in 1825 first Hofkapellmeister, succeeding Peter von Winter. As the “national composer and festive conductor” of Bavaria, Stuntz’s music was played at major inauguration ceremonies – for example, the opening of the Valhalla or the laying of the foundation stone of the Befreiungshalle and the unveiling of the Bavaria. He is also considered the founder of male choral singing in Munich. He died in Munich in 1859.

Photo credit: Etching by Joseph Hartmann Stuntz circa 1830. Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Ausstellungskataloge, 38.

On May 14, the Munich Opera Horns will perform an eclectic program of music for horn from the last five centuries. Ludwig Senfl, with whose permanent appointment in 1523 by Duke Wilhelm IV in Munich the history of the Bayerisches Staatsorchester can be traced, is represented as well as his successor Orlando di Lasso. Original compositions for horn by Anton Reicha and perhaps the most famous horn player in the long tradition of the Bayerisches Staatsorchester, Franz Strauss, are performed alongside arrangements for the instrument – for example, the ballet music from Mozart’s opera Idomeneo.

The program of the 6th Academy Concert, conducted by the General Music Director of the Bayerisches Staatsorchester Vladimir Jurowski, will open with an English rarity rarely heard on the continent, Ralph Vaughan Williams’ Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis: a precious piece that blends memory and the present in an enchanting way – presented by the strings of the Staatsorchester. Later on, two soloists can be expected: Gerhard Oppitz takes the solo part in Robert Schumann’s Piano Concerto, which Schumann originally composed for his wife Clara, who also played the piano part at the premiere. For Gustav Mahler’s Fourth Symphony, soprano Louise Alder joins the orchestra.

Photo creddit: Franz von Lenbach: Clara Schumann. https://androom.home.xs4all.nl/biography/a002056.htm

In her free time Anna-Maija Hirvonen is interested in philosophy, psychology, mysticism and spirituality. She especially enjoys vacationing in the Peruvian Amazon. There she has been able to make many discoveries concerning the greatest questions of humanity.

Photo credit: Wilfried Hösl

On April 29th Stefan Ambrosius, Steffen Schmid and Simon Unseld played at the event “Tube-Trio: A tuba rarely comes alone” at KulturBunt Neuperlach as part of the event series “Celebrate!”

Peter von Winter was born in Mannheim on August 28, 1754, and began his career as a violinist in the court orchestra there, where he also played double bass in the meantime. During his participation in the orchestra, he became intensively acquainted with Italian and German opera before composing his own operas. In 1778 he moved to Munich when a large part of the Mannheim orchestra was called there. During a stay in Vienna, he studied for several months with Antonio Salieri, and in 1787 he was appointed vice kapellmeister of the Munich court orchestra, then kapellmeister in 1798, when he directed mainly church music and Italian opera. His own operas were celebrated at that time in Naples, Venice and Vienna, later also in London. Together with Emanuel Schikaneder, the librettist of The Magic Flute, Winter created a sequel to Mozart’s popular opera entitled The Labyrinth or The Struggle with the Elements. Mozart himself, however, referred to Winter as his “greatest enemy” in a letter to his father in 1781. Along with Carl Maria von Weber, Peter von Winter’s Singspiele were significant pioneering works in the field of German opera before Richard Wagner. In addition, in 1811 Winter, together with members of the Munich Hofkapelle, was involved in the founding of the Musikalische Akademie: the Munich Concert Association, which still exists today. Winter worked in Munich until his death in 1825.

Image credit: Johann Nepomuk Haller, The Composer and Kapellmeister Peter von Winter (1754-1825), 1825, Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen - Neue Pinakothek Munich, URL: https://www.sammlung.pinakothek.de/de/artwork/ZKGPvAyxgA

After the performance of A Midsummer Night’s Dream on April 1 at the National Theatre, the fifth event of the series “Encounters” took place. The audience met musicians of the Bayerisches Staatsorchester in the Rheingoldbar.

On March 12, the 4th chamber concert of the Bayerisches Staatsorchester took place in the Allerheiligen Hofkirche. Markus Wolf, So-Young Kim, Adrian Mustea, Emanuel Graf, Carlos Vera Larrucea and Julian Riem played music by Richard Strauss, Karl Amadeus Hartmann as well as Hans Pfitzner. The photos show impressions from the rehearsals.

Frank Bloedhorn, trumpeter of the Bayerisches Staatsorchester, about the Aida trumpets, which are used in our new production Aida. Here you can find out why this instrument has such a special and long history.

The violinist, Kapellmeister and composer Paul Grua was born in Mannheim on February 1, 1753 and received his musical training from his father Carlo Pietragrua, who as Kapellmeister at the Electoral Palatinate Court under the Electors Carl Philipp and Carl Theodor had been responsible for all areas of court music. Paul Pietragrua worked in the Mannheim court orchestra before being sent to study in Bologna and Parma in 1777. After the Mannheim court moved to Munich, Paul Pietragrua was appointed vice kapellmeister in 1779 before serving as Kapellmeister of vocal music at the Munich court from 1784. In 1780 Paul Pietragrua’s carnival opera Telemaco was premiered at the Cuvilliés Theatre in Munich, after which the composer concentrated on church music. He held his post of Kapellmeister in Munich until his death in 1833, a total of nearly half a century.

Photo credit: https://www.digitale-sammlungen.de/de/view/bsb00054636?page=6,7 Location: Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek -- Slg.Her 1725

In her free time, Verena Kurz likes to go running or ride her road bike towards the mountains. For Verena Kurz, the best part of her job is experiencing everything live. The variety and spontaneity in the evening and the unbridled emotions on stage and in the pit are simply fun for her.

Photo credit: Wilfried Hösl

Markus Kern likes boating in his spare time and his favorite musician is Jessy Norman. If he hadn’t become a musician, Markus Kern would be working for the criminal police today.

Photo credit: Wilfried Hösl

Andrea Bernasconi was probably born in 1706 in Marseille and composed several operas before coming to Munich. He also worked in Venice at the Ospedale della Pietà as “maestro di capella”. In 1753 he was appointed vice kapellmeister at the Munich court by the Elector Maximilian III Joseph in Munich, to whom he also gave music lessons. After the death of the Hofkapellmeister Giovanni Porta, Bernasconi took over his position in 1755. Bernasconi’s operas were performed in numerous European cities, but most of them in Munich: for example, La clemenza di Tito in 1768, before Mozart was to compose an opera of the same name, or Agelmondo in 1760 and Demetrio in 1772. Bernasconi remained in office until his death in Munich in 1784.

Image credit: From Pietro Metastasio, Andrea Bernasconi – Demetrio. Location: Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek -- Bavar. 4015-4,1/4 http://www.mdz-nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn=urn:nbn:de:bvb:12-bsb10381988-6,