Kent Nagano with Modest P. Mussorgsky’s opera “Boris Godunov” at the Hamburg State Opera (September 2023)

This coming Saturday, 16 September, Kent Nagano will open the 2023/24 season of the Hamburg State Opera with Modest P. Mussorgsky’s opera Boris Godunov in a new production by Frank Castorf.

The years between the death of Ivan the Terrible and the ascension of the Romanov family to the throne are known in Russia as the “Time of Troubles”. During this time, Boris Godunov strives to gain power with an iron determination. However, the ghosts of the past catch up with him and he dies a madman, abandoned and betrayed by everyone. In the meantime, the country sinks ever deeper into corruption, putsches and intrigue. A new “Time of Troubles” dawned during Modest Mussorgsky’s lifetime: the old order faltered and could not survive, everyone felt it. During a period of political upheaval and shaken by dramatic developments in his private life, Mussorgsky created a work about the arrogance of power and the eroticism of betrayal – as contradictory and fascinating as his personality itself.

More information can be found here.

16. September     Hamburg, Staatsoper      
Philharmonic State Orchestra Premiere
Mussorgski: Boris Godunov
Director: Frank Castorf
Set: Aleksandar Denić
Costumes: Adriana Braga Peretzki
Lighting: Rainer Casper
Video: Andreas Deinert, Severin Renke, Jens Crull, Maryvonne Riedelsheimer
Dramaturgy: Patric Seibert
Further performances: 20., 23., 26., 28. Sep, 4., 7. Okt

Live on NDR Kultur – Kent Nagano and Jan Vogler with the Philharmonic State Orchestra (April 2023)

After the acclaimed world premiere at New York’s Carnegie Hall on 22 April, Kent Nagano, Jan Vogler and the Philharmonic State Orchestra Hamburg will present the German premiere of Sean Shepherd’s new work for for cello, (children’s/youth) choirs and orchestra based on a cycle of poems by the poet Ulla Hahn as well as works by Brahms and Beethoven at the International Musikfest Hamburg at the Elbphilharmonie. This will be followed by another performance at Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie on 30 April and at Dresden’s Kulturpalast on 5 May.

NDR Kultur will broadcast the concert live from the Elbphilharmonie on Friday, 28 April 2023 at 8pm CET.

Kent Nagano in Berlin (April 2023)

On Saturday, April 8, 2023, Kent Nagano returns to Berlin to present a special program, matching the Easter days, with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester and the Audi Jugendchorakademie.

The concert will be broadcast live at 8:03 p.m. on Deutschlandfunk Kultur: https://www.deutschlandfunkkultur.de/konzert-100.html

Program

Johannes Brahms: ‘Ein deutsches Requiem’ for soli, choir and orchestra (Bremen version)

Reconstruction of the version Brahms put together for the Bremen performance on April 10, 1868 – still without the fifth movement, but with inserted movements by Bach, Handel, Tartini and Schumann.

Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Kent Nagano
Audi Youth Choir Academy
Martin Steidler – choral conducting

Rachael Wilson – mezzo-soprano
Konstantin Krimmel – baritone
Marina Grauman – violin
Jakub Sawicki – organ

Piano en famille (March 2023)

Together with Mari Kodama, Momo Kodama and Karin Nagano, Kent Nagano presented a special program in Geneva, including Mozart’s Piano Concerto for Three Pianos and Poulenc’s Piano Concerto for Two Pianos, with the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande. In April, Mari Kodama travels to the US for concerts with the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra conducted by Lan Shui: the program includes Mendelssohn’s 1st Piano Concerto.

The Dresden Music Festival launches an artistic and academic Wagner Project with the Dresden Festival Orchestra and Concerto Köln (March 2023)

As part of a comprehensive artistic and academic project, the Dresden Music Festival will explore the original sound of Richard Wagner, starting in 2023. The project’s mission is to present an annual concert performance of one part of Richard Wagner’s opera tetralogy »Der Ring des Nibelungen« by the Dresden Festival Orchestra and Concerto Köln under the baton of Kent Nagano, using historical instruments and the linguistic style of the time of its creation. The performance of Richard Wagner’s »Das Rheingold« at Dresden’s Kulturpalast on June 14, 2023 marks the project’s official launch.
The project under the artistic leadership of Festival Intendant Jan Vogler and conductor Kent Nagano will bring together Wagner experts and performers from all over the world in Dresden.

»The Dresden Music Festival is proud to deliver new impulses from Dresden to the world with this visionary project. I am sure that this new ›Ring‹ from Dresden and the musicological research involved will have a lasting influence on the reception and interpretation of Wagner’s music,« says Jan Vogler, Intendant of the Dresden Music Festival.

»From the instruments to vocal style and the general treatment of words – much of what we experience today during typical Wagner performances differs from the customs at Wagner’s time. We look forward to delving into the fascinating musical world of the 19th century together with our audience, which also includes asking critical questions that are necessary when it comes to a person such as Wagner,« says Kent Nagano, Artistic Director of the Wagner Project and Conductor Laureate of Concerto Köln.

The »Rheingold« premiere on June 14 will be accompanied by a comprehensive Wagner program. Under the leadership of the project’s academic curator PD Dr. Kai Müller, musicians from both orchestras will offer a workshop concert on the evening before the premiere, illustrating academic aspects of historical performance practice with musical examples. On the day of the premiere, the Kulturpalast will host an exhibition with several stations on Wagner’s oeuvre, short lectures in the foyer and a Wagner Café, from 12 noon onwards.

Cast of »Das Rheingold« on June 14, 2023 in Dresden:
Derek Welton (Wotan)
Dominik Köninger (Donner)
Mauro Peter (Loge)
Tansel Akzeybek (Froh)
Katrin Wundsam (Fricka)
Nadja Mchantaf (Freia)
Gerhild Romberger (Erda)
Daniel Schmutzhard (Alberich)
Thomas Ebenstein (Mime)
Tijl Faveyts (Fasolt)
Tilmann Rönnebeck (Fafner)
Ania Vegry (Woglinde)
Ida Aldrian (Wellgunde)
Eva Vogel (Floßhilde)

Kent Nagano conducts premiere in Hamburg (January 2023)

On 22 January, Kent Nagano conducts the premiere of Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk in a production by Angelina Nikonova. The story of the opera is based correspondent tale by Nikolaj Leskow. Other performances are 25, 28 and 31 January, and 4 and 8 February. More information can be found here.

“A woman becomes a murderess, but still the 26-year-old composer Shostakovich has sympathy for her. Katerina Ismailova – killer and victim at the same time – frees herself from a business world full of dullness, greed and cruelty by poisoning her Father-in-law in order to be able to live with her lover. This is accompanied by music of radical vitality that vehemently expresses the right to one’s own desire, to recklessly lived freedom. The international success from Leningrad to New York, from Stockholm to Zurich was abruptly ended when Stalin expressed his disapproval. Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk also became a work of fate for the composer.” (Hamburg State Opera, 2023)

Musical direction: Kent Nagano
Production: Angelina Nikonova
Stage and costumes: Varvara Timofeeva
Lighting: Igor Fomin
Dramaturgy: Ralf Waldschmidt
Choir: Eberhard Friedrich

 

“Ring” project in historically informed performance practice (December 2022)

The year 2023 marks the beginning of a major musical and scientific project in Dresden to research and perform Richard Wagner’s “Der Ring des Nibelungen” in historical performance practice. With the opening concert and premiere of “Rheingold” in Dresden on 14 June 2023, the Dresden Festival Orchestra together with Concerto Köln under the artistic direction of Kent Nagano will perform Richard Wagner’s “Ring” in a historically informed perspective.

Continuing the “Wagner Readings” initiated in 2016 by Kent Nagano, Concerto Köln and the Kunststiftung NRW, a relaunch of the project will take place together with the Dresden Festival Orchestra as part of the Dresden Music Festival. With the new location in Dresden – the city where Wagner spent his childhood and youth, the premiere site of three operas and the starting point of the conceptual history of the “Ring” – groundbreaking impulses can be expected in the development and implementation of this performance workshop. A unique feature is the scientifically based reconstruction of the instrumental, vocal, linguistic and stage practice of Wagner’s time, for which renowned musicians and scholars from various disciplines are working closely together.

The new 2022/23 season in Hamburg with Kent Nagano (October 2022)

Kent Nagano starts the 2022/23 season with the opening concerts of the 195th season of the Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Hamburg on 2 and 4 October and the premiere of the new production of Wagner’s Der fliegende Holländer in a production by Michael Thalheimer on 23 October at the Staatsoper.

All information about concerts with Kent Nagano in Hamburg can be found here. An overview of premieres and revivals at the Staatsoper in Hamburg can be found here.

 

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