KONSTANTIN KRIMMEL, WOLFRAM RIEGER & BRIGITTE FASSBAENDER

Konstantin Wecker

Konstantin Wecker

Singer-songwriter Konstantin Wecker delivers a follow-up to his acclaimed programme »Utopia« in 2023 with »Utopia 2.0 – Wir werden weiter träumen« (We will keep on dreaming). Wecker has long been dreaming of a life free of domination. That dream is far from over, and the poetic and political visionary’s longing for boundless peace and freedom endures. The singer and composer is now reviving his programme »Utopia« in a 2.0 version. As the title suggests, this is not simply a sequel, but a substantial further development of the 2021 programme – with never-before-heard arrangements as well as his latest thoughts and poems.

Konstantin Wecker

A unique stage gala with film music and songs written by Konstantin Wecker. This concert tour through Germany, Austria and Switzerland is a real labour of love for the Munich musician, songwriter, poet and film composer. For the first time, Wecker will be presenting a selection of his fantastic film scores from over 45 years on stage, as well as many of his greatest songs and musical melodies. As on the celebrated Utopia tours, the Konstantin Wecker Band with Jo Barnikel, Fany Kammerlander, Norbert Nagel, Jürgen Spitschka and a surprise guest will provide the opulent sound for the concerts.

Konstantin Wecker

Munich musician, songwriter, poet, and film composer Konstantin Wecker presents the diverse and opulent sound of his magnificent film scores, such as the music for the television series "Kir Royal" or the film satire "Schtonk!". The audience can look forward to a unique evening with film music and many well-known Wecker songs, pictures, and stories from and about legends of cinema and television.

Lied concert with Konstantin Krimmel

The young German-Romanian baritone Konstantin Krimmel won several competitions early in his career and is now part of the ensemble at the Bayerische Staatsoper. From 2021 to 2023, he was a BBC New Generation Artist.Lied singing is an important part of his artistry, and he has recorded songs by composers such as Schubert and Silvestrov on a couple of CDs with pianist Hélène Grimaud. For his debut at Konserthuset, he performs songs by Brahms, Vaughan Williams, and Schubert.Magnus Svensson is the artistic director of Konserthuset’s Lied concerts. In addition to concerts in the Nordic region and elsewhere in Europe, he has also performed in Russia and the US. Since 2012, he has also worked at the Royal Swedish Academy of Music with re-publishing older Swedish music.

Jakub Hrůša, Konstantin Krimmel

»Mahler is a must!« That was absolutely clear to Jakub Hrůša when our journey together began in 2016 – as his late Romantic music is »genetically very close« to both him and ourselves. We have already performed five of his symphonies together in recent years. This programme includes the enchanting »Blumine« movement, which Mahler erased from his autobiographical first symphony and described himself as a »blissful infatuation«: he wrote it in 1884 as a young conductor when he had a crush on a soprano. However, his affection was not returned – and a year later, the »Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen« (»Songs of a Travelling Companion«) emerged from his emotional misery. Together with Konstantin Krimmel, we embark on the restless wanderings of the lovesick artist. After that we say: Not only Mahler is a must. For some time now, Jakub Hrůša has also been working more intensively on Bruckner, as he has recognised that only an orchestra that »really loves this music enough« will be able to make it work. He described the phase in which we immersed ourselves in the Symphony No. 4 in the 2018/2019 season as a »blissful experience with Bruckner« – and it was deepened even further: In the 2020 pandemic, we recorded our Chief Conductor’s personal take on all three versions of the work for a phenomenal and award-winning recording. In this programme, the »Romantic« is performed in the 1878/1880 version – first in Bamberg, as is traditional, of course. Then we will once again become »travelling companions« ourselves and present the works in two of the best halls in Europe: in the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam and (for the 10th time already!) in Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie – where we have come to love and appreciate the inspiring acoustics.

Diana Damrau & Nikolai Schukoff / NDR Radiophilharmonie / Dirk Kaftan

»Art is not just beauty, art should move people as well,« says Diana Damrau. There can be no doubt that she does this to excellent effect: for years now, the celebrated soprano has been filling opera houses and concert halls all over the world with her radiant voice and a peerless intensity of expression. Yet the appealing Bavarian singer has no airs and graces, nor does she think in terms of musical pigeonholes. Good-humoured and completely authentic, she sings opera and sacred repertoire with the same verve as musicals and film songs. Discount for all under 30: Exclusively for this concert, anyone under 30 can book the REDticket. This means that even the best available seats only cost € 12. Proof of age must be shown when attending the concert, otherwise the difference to the original price will have to be paid. Diana Damrau and her colleague Nikolai Schukoff devote their Elbphilharmonie concert to the great operetta composers, from the »waltz king« Johann Strauss and Berlin native Paul Lincke to Emmerich Kálmán and Franz Lehár. An evening of lovely waltzes and other tunes that should move the audience’s hearts – and their feet as well.

Wagner: Die Walküre

Richard Wagner’s opera »Die Walküre« is a passionate exploration of big themes such as love and betrayal, loyalty and rebellion. The god Wotan wanted to rule through contracts rather than violence but, as a result of broken promises, becomes increasingly entangled in problems until blood begins to flow. Finding no solutions, Wotan finally cries: »One thing alone do I want: the end!« But his daughter Brünnhilde thwarts his plans… At the Hamburg International Music Festival, there is an opportunity to experience the opera in historical original sound for the first time under conductor Kent Nagano. At the festival, Kent Nagano is not conducting »his« orchestra, the Hamburg State Opera, but rather the Dresdner Festspielorchester, Concerto Köln and a top-class cast of soloists, who explore the playing and singing techniques of the 19th century. »More intimate tone colours, a more multi-layered and transparent sound, freed from the ballast of the centuries,« say the performers about the project, which seems to have been tailor-made for the transparent acoustics of the Elbphilharmonie Grand Hall. One of Wagner’s most famous pieces, the »Ride of the Valkyries« – famously used by director Francis Ford Coppola as background music to a helicopter attack in the anti-war film »Apocalypse Now« – thus sounds altogether different.

NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra / Alan Gilbert

It only lasts seven minutes, but it is nonetheless monumental: Arnold Schoenberg’s melodrama »Ein Überlebender aus Warschau« (A Survivor from Warsaw). Schoenberg had readopted the Jewish faith, and he wrote the piece, which opens with a fierce trumpet signal, in 1947 to commemorate the uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto. The score mixes the narrative of a man hiding in the sewers with German commands, martial rhythms – and finally the hopeful Hebrew words »Schma Yisrael«, which the Jews use to prepare for death. The part of the narrator is taken by Dominique Horwitz, himself the son of Jewish parents. The French-German actor and chansonnier is in great demand for performances of literary works of music, from Tom Waits’s »Black Rider« to Stravinsky’s »Histoire du soldat«. And the soloists in the second part of the programme likewise have resounding names: among them are the American soprano Susanna Phillips, alto Gerhild Romberger and baritone Michael Nagy. »War and Peace« is the motto of the Hamburg International Music Festival, and chief conductor Alan Gilbert and his NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra place the emphasis on a work of hope and brotherly love: Beethoven’s world-famous Ninth Symphony. The overwhelming finale culminates in Friedrich Schiller’s lines »All men shall be brothers«, which win the day against all the powers of destruction. Beethoven not only touched a nerve in his own time by ending the symphony with a large-scale chorus of rejoicing: nowadays, everyone is familiar with the melody in the guise of the European anthem. Even the playing time of a compact disc, when the CD format was introduced, was geared to enable Beethoven’s oversized Ninth to be played without a break.

NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra / Alan Gilbert

It only lasts seven minutes, but it is nonetheless monumental: Arnold Schoenberg’s melodrama »Ein Überlebender aus Warschau« (A Survivor from Warsaw). Schoenberg had readopted the Jewish faith, and he wrote the piece, which opens with a fierce trumpet signal, in 1947 to commemorate the uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto. The score mixes the narrative of a man hiding in the sewers with German commands, martial rhythms – and finally the hopeful Hebrew words »Schma Yisrael«, which the Jews use to prepare for death. The part of the narrator is taken by Dominique Horwitz, himself the son of Jewish parents. The French-German actor and chansonnier is in great demand for performances of literary works of music, from Tom Waits’s »Black Rider« to Stravinsky’s »Histoire du soldat«. And the soloists in the second part of the programme likewise have resounding names: among them are the American soprano Susanna Phillips, alto Gerhild Romberger and baritone Michael Nagy. »War and Peace« is the motto of the Hamburg International Music Festival, and chief conductor Alan Gilbert and his NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra place the emphasis on a work of hope and brotherly love: Beethoven’s world-famous Ninth Symphony. The overwhelming finale culminates in Friedrich Schiller’s lines »All men shall be brothers«, which win the day against all the powers of destruction. Beethoven not only touched a nerve in his own time by ending the symphony with a large-scale chorus of rejoicing: nowadays, everyone is familiar with the melody in the guise of the European anthem. Even the playing time of a compact disc, when the CD format was introduced, was geared to enable Beethoven’s oversized Ninth to be played without a break.