Sun, Jul. 07, 2024, 11.00 am | Elbphilharmonie, Grand Hall
Joseph Haydn: Scena di Berenice Hob. XXIVa:10 for soprano and orchestra
Béla Bartók: "The Miraculous Mandarin" Concert Suite op. 19
Gustav Mahler: Symphony No. 4 in G major
Conductor: Adam Fischer
Soprano: Julia Lezhneva
Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Hamburg
Birthplace:
Budapest, Hungary
Studies:
Composition and conducting in Budapest as well as in Vienna with the legendary Hans Swarowsky
Prizes:
International Classical Music Award for lifetime achievement (2022), Wolf Prize in Music for his outstanding artistic achievements and his humanitarian commitment (2018), International Classical Music Award for the complete recording of all Mozart symphonies (2015), two Echo Klassik-Awards for the recordings of all Joseph Haydn symphonies (2006 and 2008), "Conductor of the Year" for his production "Der Ring des Nibelungen" (Opernwelt-Magazin, 2002), two Grand Prix du Disque awards (1980 and 1987), et al.
Adam Fischer is an honorary member of the Wiener Staatsoper and the Musikverein für Steiermark in Graz. He is the bearer of the Order of Dannebrog awarded by the Danish Queen and was awarded the title of Honorary Professor by order of the Austrian Federal President.
Repertoire:
Extensive German and Italian opera repertoire
Career stages:
Founder and Artistic Director of the Budapest Wagner Days (since 2008), Principal Conductor of the Düsseldorfer Symphoniker (since 2015) and Artistic Advisor of the Tonhalle Düsseldorf, Chief Conductor of the Danish Chamber Orchestra (since 1998), Founder of the Haydn Days in Eisenstadt (founded in 1987) and founder as well as honorary conductor of the Haydn Philharmonie, Artistic director of the Budapest Opera (2007 to 2010), general music director in Mannheim (2000-2005), Kassel (1987 to 1992), Freiburg (1981 to 1983), as well as after his studies répétiteur and conductor in Graz, Helsinki, Karlsruhe and Munich
Stages:
Wiener Staatsoper, Metropolitan Opera, Teatro alla Scala, Bayerische Staatsoper, Semperoper Dresden, Oper Zürich, Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Opéra Bastille, Salzburger Festspiele, Bayreuther Festspiele, Musikverein Wien, New York Carnegie Hall, Barbican Centre and Royal Festival Hall London, Elbphilharmonie, Philharmonie Berlin, Tonhalle Düsseldorf, et al.
Cooperation with orchestras:
Wiener Philharmoniker and Wiener Symphoniker, Berliner Philharmoniker, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Bamberger Symphoniker, Münchner Philharmoniker, London Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Mozarteum Orchester Salzburg, Tonhalle Orchester Zürich, Orchestre de Paris, Chicago and Boston Symphony Orchestra, NHK Symphony Orchestra, et al.
Birthplace:
Sakhalin, Russia
Studies:
Moscow Conservatory Academic Music College, London’s Guildhall School
Master class:
with Elena Obraztsova, Alberto Zedda, Richard Bonynge and Thomas Quasthoff
Prizes:
Singer of the year at OPUS Klassik 2018, ECHO classical prize, first prize at the Mirjam Helin International Singing Competition in Helsinki (2009), first prize at the Paris International Opera Competition (2010)
Important roles:
Morgana (Alcina), (Il barbiere di Siviglia), Angelica (Orlando Furioso), Galatea (Polifemo), Susanna/Barberina (Le nozze di Figaro), Asteria (Tamerlano)
Stages:
Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Royal Albert Hall, Barbican Centrein London, Severance Hall in Cleveland, Lincoln Center in New York, NHK Hall in Tokyo, Bunka Kaikan in Tokyo, Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Madrid Auditorium, Salle Pleyel, Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris, Wiener Konzerthaus, Theater an der Wien, Staatsoper Unter den Linden Berlin, Laeiszhalle Hamburg, Philharmonie Essen, Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie, Palais de Beaux Arts in Brussels, The Bolshoi Theatre, Melbourne Recital Centre, St. Petersburg Philharmonic, Salzburger Festspiele, Salzburg Mozartwoche, Baden-Baden Festspielhaus, Gstaad Menuhin Festival, Chorégies d’Orange, Verbier Festival, Händel-Festspiele Halle, Quincena Musical, Wratislawia Cantans, Misteria Paschalia, Rossini Opera Festival, S. Richter “December Nights” Festival in Moscow, Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival, Lucerne Festival, Dubrovnik Festival, Kissinger Sommer, Nordland Musikfestukke Bodö, et al.
Cooperations with directors:
Kasper Holten, Uwe Eric Laufenberg, Christof Loy, Gilbert Deflo, Max Emanuel Cencic, Rolando Villazón et al.
Cooperation with conductors:
Marc Minkowski, Giovanni Antonini, Adam Fischer, Sir Antonio Pappano, Herbert Blomstedt, Alberto Zedda, Paavo Järvi, Vladimir Jurowski, Philippe Herreweghe, Franz Welser-Möst, Sir Roger Norrington, René Jacobs, Andrea Marcon, Fabio Biondi, Jean-Christoph Spinosi, Diego Fasolis, Ottavio Dantone, Konrad Junghänel, et al.
The Philharmonic State Orchestra is Hamburg’s largest and oldest orchestra, looking back on many years of musical history. When the “Philharmonic Orchestra” and the “Orchestra of the Hamburg Municipal Theatre” merged in 1934, two tradition-steeped orchestras combined. Philharmonic concerts have been performed in Hamburg since 1828, artists such as Clara Schumann, Franz Liszt and Johannes Brahms being regular guests of the Philharmonic Society. The history of the opera company goes back even further: Hamburg has been home to musical theatre since 1678, even if a regular opera or theatre orchestra was only formed later. To this day, the Philharmonic State Orchestra has embodied the sound of the Hansa City, a concert and opera orchestra in one.
During its long history, the orchestra encountered great artist personalities. Apart from composers of the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries, such as Telemann, Tchaikovsky, Strauss, Mahler, Prokofiev and Stravinsky, since the 20th century chief conductors such as Karl Muck, Joseph Keilberth, Eugen Jochum, Wolfgang Sawallisch, Horst Stein, Aldo Ceccato, Christoph von Dohnányi, Gerd Albrecht, Ingo Metzmacher and Simone Young have shaped the orchestra’s sound. Renowned conductors of the pre-war era such as Otto Klemperer, Wilhelm Furtwängler, Bruno Walter, Karl Böhm and Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt gave brilliant performances, as did outstanding conductors of our times: suffice it to mention Christian Thielemann, Semyon Bychkov, Kirill Petrenko, Adam Fischer and Sir Roger Norrington.
Starting with the 2015/2016 season, Kent Nagano has taken on the position of Hamburg’s General Music Director and Chief Conductor of the Philharmonic State Orchestra and the Hamburg State Opera and since June 2023 also its honorary conductor. In his first season Kent Nagano initiated a new project, the Philharmonic Academy, focusing on experimentation and chamber music. In 2016, Nagano and the Philharmonic toured South America, followed by concert tours to Spain and Japan in 2019, and in the spring of 2023, the Philharmonic State Orchestra made its debut at New York's Carnegie Hall under his direction, which was acclaimed by audiences and the press. Since 2017 Kent Nagano and the Philharmonic State Orchestra have continued the traditional Philharmonic Concerts at the new Elbphilharmonie, for which they commissioned Jörg Widmann to compose the oratorio ARCHE, which was given its world premiere during the hall’s opening festivities. The concert recording has been released by ECM, for which Widmann received the OPUS KLASSIK as Composer of the Year 2019, and ARCHE was performed again in 2023 to great acclaim.
The Philharmonic State Orchestra offers approximately 35 concerts per season and performs more than 240 performances per year at the Hamburg State Opera and the Hamburg Ballet John Neumeier, making it Hamburg’s busiest orchestra. The stylistic bandwidth covered by the 140 musicians, ranging from historically informed performance practice to contemporary works and including concert, opera and ballet repertoire, is unique throughout Germany. Chamber Music has a long tradition at the Philharmonic State Orchestra: what began in 1929 with a concert series for chamber orchestra has been continued since 1968 by a series of chamber music only.
In 2008 Simone Young and the Philharmonic State Orchestra won the Brahms Award of the Schleswig-Holstein Brahms Society. The orchestra has recorded the complete Ring by Wagner as well as the complete symphonies of Johannes Brahms and Anton Bruckner – the latter in the rarely-performed original versions – as well as works by Mahler, Hindemith and Berg, and has released DVDs of opera and ballet productions by Hosokawa, Offenbach, Reimann, Auerbach, J.S. Bach, Puccini, Poulenc and Weber.
The members of the Philharmonic State Orchestra feel equally beholden to Hamburg’s musical tradition and responsible for the city’s artistic future. Since 1978 the musicians have been participating in education programmes in Hamburg’s schools. Today, the orchestra maintains a broad education programme, including school and kindergarten visits, patronage for music projects, introductory events for children and family concerts. The orchestra’s own academy prepares young musicians for their professional careers. The Philharmonic’s musicians thereby make an equally enjoyable and valuable contribution to tomorrow’s music education in the music metropolis of Hamburg.
The "Scena di Berenice", not exactly regularly performed today, was composed by Joseph Haydn during his second visit to London. The content is classical aria material: a loving woman, here the soprano Julia Lezhneva, has been abandoned by her partner and now laments sonorously ... 130 years later, a work by Béla Bartók caused a far-reaching scandal: the fiery dance pantomime "The Miraculous Mandarin" had the then Lord Mayor Konrad Adenauer banned in Cologne in 1926. That's how barbaric the music seemed to the listeners. And indeed: Bartók was not concerned with music as edification. He wanted to depict reality, which at the beginning of the 20th century was not always harmonious. With the Fourth Symphony, probably Gustav Mahler's lightest, we jump back to the beginning of the century in the second half of the concert. But beware: behind the light of this symphony there are also dark shallows. Even at a children's concert at New York's Carnegie Hall in 1960, the great Mahler rediscoverer Leonard Bernstein said, "You'll hardly believe it: the man who wrote this happy-go-lucky music was one of the most unhappy people of all time!"
"Bartók shapes the timbres of the orchestral instruments so characteristically that the 'stage' is created in your own mind - perhaps this work sparked my interest in opera."
Bettina Rühl, violist
Introduction 60 minutes before the start of the event
Venue: Elbphilharmonie, Grand Hall, Platz der Deutschen Einheit 4, 20457 Hamburg
Prices: € 83,00 / 65,00 / 51,00 / 36,00 / 14,00
