Keywords: Tour Concert, Vocal Music
| Sir Simon Rattle | Conductor |
| Anja Kampe | Soprano |
| Danae Kontora | Soprano |
| Gerhild Romberger | Alto |
| Simon O'Neill | Tenor |
| Peter Hoare | Tenor |
| Michael Volle | Bariton |
| Georg Nigl | Bariton |
| Franz-Josef Selig | Bass |
| Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks |
| “Siegfried” opera in three acts, concert performance | Richard Wagner |
These events are similar in terms of concept, place, musicians or the program.
“The Mount Everest of music”: that’s what American stage director Peter Sellar’s once called Bach’s St Matthew Passion. Now Simon Rattle will scale this summit of western music with his future Munich ensembles, the BRSO and the Bavarian Radio Chorus. The choice team of vocal soloists likewise raises expectations. A key role is conferred upon the Evangelist, who not only relates the story of the Passion, but participates in and responds to it inwardly as a witness. With British tenor Mark Padmore this part will be taken by one of the most charismatic Evangelists of our time. For the BRSO it marks a happy reunion with a longstanding artistic friend – and a former artist-in-residence.
Simon Rattle felt no hesitation in commencing his tenure as Chief Conductor of the Chor and Symphonieorchester des BR with Haydn’s Creation. “It contains everything. The whole world. It looks both towards the past and far into the future of everything music can be. It is balance and revolution at the same time, a true work of the Enlightenment.” Magnificent choruses, graceful melodies, the finest polyphony, all firmly anchored in an optimistic view of humanity: “Anyone who doesn’t automatically feel better after hearing it really needs help,“ Simon Rattle says with a wink.” The Creation is healthy in a very honest way.” But health also includes a good dose of humor, and Haydn provides it, even in a setting as sacred as the Creation story. At the same time, a work radiating light also casts some shadows on our own present. What has remained of the spirit of the Enlightenment? And what have we done with the “world, so great, so wonderful”?
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