Lorin Maazel has announced he is quitting as chief conductor of the Munich Philharmonic a year earlier than planned due to health reasons.
Maazel took over in 2012 and was due to step down at the end of next season and hand over the baton to Valery Gergiev.
Maazel has said that, should his health allow, he might be able to conduct some of the 2014/2015 concerts.
Here's the statement (in German) from Munich's culture authorities:
Pressemitteilung
12.06.2014
Rücktritt von Maestro Lorin Maazel als
Chefdirigent der Münchner Philharmoniker
Maestro Lorin Maazel wird aus gesundheitlichen Gründen sein Amt als Chefdirigent der
Münchner Philharmoniker niederlegen. Wie er mitteilte, verläuft sein Genesungsprozess
langsamer als erhofft, sodass er in seiner Verantwortung für die Münchner Philharmoniker
seinen Verpflichtungen nicht nachkommen kann. Sollte es seine Gesundheit erlauben, sei er
jedoch gerne bereit, einzelne Konzerte mit den Münchner Philharmonikern zu dirigieren.
Dass die erfolgreiche Zusammenarbeit zwischen dem Maestro und dem städtischen
Orchester in der kommenden Spielzeit 2014/2015 nun nicht wie geplant zu seinen Ehren
vertieft werden kann, bedauern alle Beteiligten außerordentlich.
„In Konzerten mit Lorin Maazel hat unser Publikum Sternstunden der Klassik erleben dürfen.
Das Orchester war höchst motiviert, in der kommenden Saison weitere herausragende
Konzerterlebnisse mit ihm zu gestalten. Wir bedauern es sehr, dass es ihm nicht möglich
sein wird, die fordernde Aufgabe als Chefdirigent weiter auszuüben. Und wir danken ihm
gleichzeitig für sein bisheriges Wirken. Wir wünschen ihm eine baldige Genesung, damit er
rasch wieder die Energie hat, die ihn als Künstler und Persönlichkeit besonders auszeichnet",
so Dr. Hans-Georg Küppers, Kulturreferent der Landeshauptstadt München.
„Die Nachricht, dass Lorin Maazel in der nächsten Spielzeit nicht wie geplant mit uns
weiterarbeiten kann, hat uns sehr getroffen. Wir haben jedoch großes Verständnis für diese
Entscheidung und wünschen ihm das Beste. Es stellt uns vor große Herausforderungen, die
Saison 2014/2015 zu disponieren. Das Orchester hat aber in den letzten Wochen gezeigt,
dass es mit solchen Ausnahmesituationen professionell umzugehen weiß – hervorragende
Konzertkritiken haben das bestätigt. Ich bin zuversichtlich, dass wir weiterhin ein attraktives
Programm für unser Publikum anbieten können und danke bereits jetzt für das Verständnis
und entgegengebrachte Vertrauen", so Intendant Paul Müller.
„Für die Münchner Philharmoniker war und ist Lorin Maazel ein Glücksfall. Von seinem
musikalischen Verständnis, seiner schlagtechnischen Präzision und seinem Umgang mit dem
Orchester werden wir noch lange profitieren. Wir wünschen uns sehr, dass er wieder
vollständig gesund wird und freuen uns jederzeit auf ein Wiedersehen", so Orchestervorstand
Stephan Haack.
Die Münchner Philharmoniker werden zunächst versuchen, für die bis Jahresende von
Maestro Maazel abgesagten Konzerte angemessene Lösungen zu finden. Über personelle
und programmatische Änderungen werden die Presse und das Publikum laufend informiert.
Derzeit arbeitet die Intendanz bereits daran, die betroffenen Konzerte in München und
anstehende Tourneen neu zu planen. Die angebotenen Abonnements bleiben grundsätzlich
bestehen. Wie das „Chef-Abonnement" (h5), das ab Oktober beginnt, aussehen wird, soll
Ende Juli feststehen. Alle Abonnentinnen und Abonnenten werden umgehend über
Neuigkeiten in Kenntnis gesetzt.
Thursday, June 12, 2014
Sunday, June 8, 2014
Don Giovanni, Staatstheater Mainz
Staatstheater Mainz
June 7th, 2014
Don Giovanni - Heikki Kilpeläinen
Leporello - Hans-Otto Weiss
Donna Anna - Tatjana Charalgina
Donna Elvira - Patricia Roach
Don Ottavio - Thorsten Büttner
Zerlina - Alexandra Samouilidou
Masetto - Dmitriy Ryabchikov
Commendatore - José Gallisa
Conductor - Hermann Bäumer
Director - Tilman Knabe
Stage - Wilfried Buchholz
Costumes - Eva-Mareika Uhlig
Tilman Knabe's action-packed production of Don Giovanni couldn't possibly be more different to Christof Loy's masterly new staging running concurrently just 40 kilometres away in Frankfurt.
While Loy's offers us an extremely personal, deeply melancholic but psychologically probing portrait of the aging Giovanni, Knabe's reading is extrovertly, unapologetically political and has the look and feel of a computer war game.
His overriding interest seems to be in the westernized idea of "freedom", his staging an examination of the "clash of cultures" -- between our hedonistic, self-obsessed West and the Middle East with its Jihadist wars and corrupt ruling classes.
Wilfried Buchholz's revolving set portrays a run-down hotel in a dusty town in an unnamed Middle East state.
Giovanni resembles Julian Assange and his Parka-wearing sidekick Leporello films the Don's sexual exploits with a tablet computer and stores them all on a USB stick.
The Commendatore is a (Christian) religious leader assassinated by snipers, bombs explode, sirens go off, there are air raids during which town dwellers are repeatedly chased through the streets by soldiers or cower in bombed-out shells of buildings.
We see Pussy Riot and Femen protestors.
Donna Anna wears military khaki and Don Ottavio is also some high-ranking military official.
Donna Elvira, heavily pregnant, smokes and drinks and then in Act 2 appears in Rambo attire, complete with bazooka, to give birth.
She then reappears again at the end to present the newborn baby, wrapped in bloodied rags, to Giovanni as "the last proof of her love".
Masetto seems to be a human trafficker who has seized Zerlina's passport and regularly beats her.
But he is sexually ambivalent, too, and allows himself to be seduced by Giovanni (disguised as Leporello).
Zerlina is a nymphomaniac who needs no persuasion at all to rip her clothes and mount the prostrate Giovanni.
But she throws fake blood all over herself to accuse him at the end of Act 1.
It looks as if Giovanni will meet a fiery death at the end, too, when he is overpowered and doused in petrol, with Donna Anna standing above, threatening to drop a match.
But Don Giovanni escapes when she, in turn, is overpowered and in a defiant final pose, he rips off his shirt to reveal the word "Liberta" scrawled across his chest.
Even if in the Frankfurt production, Loy's title character is anything but likeable, Knabe's worldview is so joyless, so unredeemably misanthropic that you're left neither liking nor caring about any of the characters.
There's no denying that Knabe has plenty of ideas. But he fails to follow through with any of them with any coherence or cogency.
Unlike Loy in Frankfurt, he never really engages with the text and all too frequently resorts to gimmickry.
And with a bewildering amount of superfluous action going on onstage, and earfuls of extraneous sound effects, it's over-directed, too, and easy to get lost or distracted.
Teams of cameramen and journalists constantly appear on stage for no apparent reason, Donna Anna noisily shreds documents while Ottavio sings an aria.
I wish the evening had been musically more interesting.
Knabe's idea of Personenregie is to stand the singers all at the front of the stage.
But everything seemed to be at a relentless forte, with little attempt made to alter shade or colour or really work with the words.
Patricia Roach as Donna Elvira came closest to bringing her character to life.
Tatjana Charalgina was a relentlessly shrill Donna Anna, Thorsten Büttner a vocally wooden and one-dimensional Ottavio.
Neither Heikki Kilpeläinen as Giovanni nor Hans-Otto Weiss as Leporello left any lasting vocal impression.
But that may not be entirely the fault of the singers.
Knabe is so preoccupied with shoving our noses in his concept and political message that he forgets to inject any life into the characters who remain cyphers.
Nevertheless, no-one stood out as a real vocal actor. And it all sounded as if they were singing from a teleprompter with no attempt to inject any meaning into the words.
Much the same could be said of the orchestral playing under conductor Hermann Bäumer, too, which was marred by rushed, scrappy tempi and some duff intonation throughout.
Of course, it's not really fair to compare the two productions side by side: a small house like Mainz will simply not have the same resources as the opera in Frankfurt.
But for all its visual overload, Knabe's treatment didn't leave me wanting to see it again, while Loy's continues to reap rewards even after repeated viewings.
June 7th, 2014
Don Giovanni - Heikki Kilpeläinen
Leporello - Hans-Otto Weiss
Donna Anna - Tatjana Charalgina
Donna Elvira - Patricia Roach
Don Ottavio - Thorsten Büttner
Zerlina - Alexandra Samouilidou
Masetto - Dmitriy Ryabchikov
Commendatore - José Gallisa
Conductor - Hermann Bäumer
Director - Tilman Knabe
Stage - Wilfried Buchholz
Costumes - Eva-Mareika Uhlig
Tilman Knabe's action-packed production of Don Giovanni couldn't possibly be more different to Christof Loy's masterly new staging running concurrently just 40 kilometres away in Frankfurt.
While Loy's offers us an extremely personal, deeply melancholic but psychologically probing portrait of the aging Giovanni, Knabe's reading is extrovertly, unapologetically political and has the look and feel of a computer war game.
His overriding interest seems to be in the westernized idea of "freedom", his staging an examination of the "clash of cultures" -- between our hedonistic, self-obsessed West and the Middle East with its Jihadist wars and corrupt ruling classes.
Wilfried Buchholz's revolving set portrays a run-down hotel in a dusty town in an unnamed Middle East state.
Giovanni resembles Julian Assange and his Parka-wearing sidekick Leporello films the Don's sexual exploits with a tablet computer and stores them all on a USB stick.
The Commendatore is a (Christian) religious leader assassinated by snipers, bombs explode, sirens go off, there are air raids during which town dwellers are repeatedly chased through the streets by soldiers or cower in bombed-out shells of buildings.
We see Pussy Riot and Femen protestors.
Donna Anna wears military khaki and Don Ottavio is also some high-ranking military official.
Donna Elvira, heavily pregnant, smokes and drinks and then in Act 2 appears in Rambo attire, complete with bazooka, to give birth.
She then reappears again at the end to present the newborn baby, wrapped in bloodied rags, to Giovanni as "the last proof of her love".
Masetto seems to be a human trafficker who has seized Zerlina's passport and regularly beats her.
But he is sexually ambivalent, too, and allows himself to be seduced by Giovanni (disguised as Leporello).
Zerlina is a nymphomaniac who needs no persuasion at all to rip her clothes and mount the prostrate Giovanni.
But she throws fake blood all over herself to accuse him at the end of Act 1.
It looks as if Giovanni will meet a fiery death at the end, too, when he is overpowered and doused in petrol, with Donna Anna standing above, threatening to drop a match.
But Don Giovanni escapes when she, in turn, is overpowered and in a defiant final pose, he rips off his shirt to reveal the word "Liberta" scrawled across his chest.
Even if in the Frankfurt production, Loy's title character is anything but likeable, Knabe's worldview is so joyless, so unredeemably misanthropic that you're left neither liking nor caring about any of the characters.
There's no denying that Knabe has plenty of ideas. But he fails to follow through with any of them with any coherence or cogency.
Unlike Loy in Frankfurt, he never really engages with the text and all too frequently resorts to gimmickry.
And with a bewildering amount of superfluous action going on onstage, and earfuls of extraneous sound effects, it's over-directed, too, and easy to get lost or distracted.
Teams of cameramen and journalists constantly appear on stage for no apparent reason, Donna Anna noisily shreds documents while Ottavio sings an aria.
I wish the evening had been musically more interesting.
Knabe's idea of Personenregie is to stand the singers all at the front of the stage.
But everything seemed to be at a relentless forte, with little attempt made to alter shade or colour or really work with the words.
Patricia Roach as Donna Elvira came closest to bringing her character to life.
Tatjana Charalgina was a relentlessly shrill Donna Anna, Thorsten Büttner a vocally wooden and one-dimensional Ottavio.
Neither Heikki Kilpeläinen as Giovanni nor Hans-Otto Weiss as Leporello left any lasting vocal impression.
But that may not be entirely the fault of the singers.
Knabe is so preoccupied with shoving our noses in his concept and political message that he forgets to inject any life into the characters who remain cyphers.
Nevertheless, no-one stood out as a real vocal actor. And it all sounded as if they were singing from a teleprompter with no attempt to inject any meaning into the words.
Much the same could be said of the orchestral playing under conductor Hermann Bäumer, too, which was marred by rushed, scrappy tempi and some duff intonation throughout.
Of course, it's not really fair to compare the two productions side by side: a small house like Mainz will simply not have the same resources as the opera in Frankfurt.
But for all its visual overload, Knabe's treatment didn't leave me wanting to see it again, while Loy's continues to reap rewards even after repeated viewings.
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