Sir Simon Rattle · BRSO hip

Sir Simon Rattle

“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.

Sir Simon Rattle

Sir Simon Rattle

Sir Simon Rattle

“I have an indescribable desire to write an opera once again.” Mozart’s wish, expressed in 1777, was finally fulfilled in the fall of 1780, when he received a commission from Munich to write a grand opera seria for the upcoming carnival season. The excellence of the Munich (formerly Mannheim) orchestra, and the subject matter involving the conflict between divine law and human passion, between duty and love, inspired Mozart to write one of his most elaborate and innovative stage works. Idomeneo has long been one of Rattle’s favorite pieces. As with Haydn’s Creation, Mozart’s first operatic masterpiece will give Rattle the opportunity to work intensively with the chorus and to further deepen his involvement with historical performance practice in Munich. He will be joined by a superb cast of singers: Andrew Staples in the demanding title role, Sabine Devieilhe and Magdalena Kožená as the touching passionate lovers Ilia and Idamante, and Elsa Dreisig as the jealous, desperate Elettra.

Sir Simon Rattle

“I have an indescribable desire to write an opera once again.” Mozart’s wish, expressed in 1777, was finally fulfilled in the fall of 1780, when he received a commission from Munich to write a grand opera seria for the upcoming carnival season. The excellence of the Munich (formerly Mannheim) orchestra, and the subject matter involving the conflict between divine law and human passion, between duty and love, inspired Mozart to write one of his most elaborate and innovative stage works. Idomeneo has long been one of Rattle’s favorite pieces. As with Haydn’s Creation, Mozart’s first operatic masterpiece will give Rattle the opportunity to work intensively with the chorus and to further deepen his involvement with historical performance practice in Munich. He will be joined by a superb cast of singers: Andrew Staples in the demanding title role, Sabine Devieilhe and Magdalena Kožená as the touching passionate lovers Ilia and Idamante, and Elsa Dreisig as the jealous, desperate Elettra.

Sir Simon Rattle

“I have an indescribable desire to write an opera once again.” Mozart’s wish, expressed in 1777, was finally fulfilled in the fall of 1780, when he received a commission from Munich to write a grand opera seria for the upcoming carnival season. The excellence of the Munich (formerly Mannheim) orchestra, and the subject matter involving the conflict between divine law and human passion, between duty and love, inspired Mozart to write one of his most elaborate and innovative stage works. Idomeneo has long been one of Rattle’s favorite pieces. As with Haydn’s Creation, Mozart’s first operatic masterpiece will give Rattle the opportunity to work intensively with the chorus and to further deepen his involvement with historical performance practice in Munich. He will be joined by a superb cast of singers: Andrew Staples in the demanding title role, Sabine Devieilhe and Magdalena Kožená as the touching passionate lovers Ilia and Idamante, and Elsa Dreisig as the jealous, desperate Elettra.

Sir Simon Rattle

“Thus might we die, that together / ever one, without end / never waking, never fearing / namelessly enveloped in love / given up to each other / to live only for love!” In Act 2 of the music drama, Tristan and Isolde assure each other of their boundless love, which outlasts even death. “And regardless of how often you perform it, it continues to be shocking,” says Sir Simon Rattle. For the BRSO Chief Conductor, this music by Wagner, in which every bar trembles and sways until everything finally dissolves, is a narcotic, an addictive drug. Rattle continues his series of Wagner operas in concert performances with the brilliant Lise Davidsen as Isolde, who is singing this role for the first time. This will undoubtedly be an eagerly awaited highlight of the early part of the concert season.

Sir Simon Rattle

“Thus might we die, that together / ever one, without end / never waking, never fearing / namelessly enveloped in love / given up to each other / to live only for love!” In Act 2 of the music drama, Tristan and Isolde assure each other of their boundless love, which outlasts even death. “And regardless of how often you perform it, it continues to be shocking,” says Sir Simon Rattle. For the BRSO Chief Conductor, this music by Wagner, in which every bar trembles and sways until everything finally dissolves, is a narcotic, an addictive drug. Rattle continues his series of Wagner operas in concert performances with the brilliant Lise Davidsen as Isolde, who is singing this role for the first time. This will undoubtedly be an eagerly awaited highlight of the early part of the concert season.

Sir Simon Rattle & BRSO academy

“A group like this academy is the future of music. There is no question for me to want to be part of it”, Simon Rattle says. When he became the new Chief Conductor, he also assumed patronage of the BRSO’s renowned training center. He had already pointed out that academy students were getting better and better during his time in Berlin: “There is nothing they can’t do.” And so, for the first joint project with the BRSO Academy, he chose a particularly demanding work right away: Schubert’s Winterreise by Hans Zender. The work’s subtitle, “a composed interpretation”, suggests that it goes beyond a mere orchestral arrangement. Zender illuminates Schubert’s depths with stylistic elements of modernism – which poses considerable technical and interpretive challenges for the young musicians. The vocal part is performed by Allan Clayton, one of today’s leading tenors, who most recently excelled in the title role of Brett Dean’s Hamlet at the Bayerische Staatsoper.

Sir Simon Rattle

On 15 January 2020 the BRSO played a Mahler symphony for the last time before the onset of the pandemic: the “Resurrection” Symphony, in memory of Mariss Jansons. No one could have guessed that Mahler and Bruckner, two pillars of the repertoire, would soon vanish from concert programmes for almost two years. So it is a special sign of hope that the orchestra is finally bringing Mahler symphonies to life again. After the fourth symphony in October under the dircetion of Klaus Mäkelä, the future principal conductor Simon Rattle now conducts the ninth symphony with its nimbus between bold anticipation of modernism and late romantic swan song. For the BRSO, this is at the same time a departure into a new chapter of its Mahler performances, because with Simon Rattle, no less a fervent Mahler aficionado is at the helm of the orchestra as his predecessors Jansons, Maazel and Kubelík once were.