Dvdfab Photo

Together with photographer Mat Hennek, French star pianist Hélène Grimaud, comes up with a multimedia concert project at the Grand Hall of Hamburg's Elbphilharmonie. Grimaud's virtuous piano performance is accompanied by Hennek's highly praised photo series "Woodlands", which depicts genuine portraits of trees, Grimaud's piano recital includes works by romantic and impressionistic composers. They are connected by seven "Transitions", written exclusively for Grimaud by British composer and DJ Nitin Sawhney. The motives of Hennek's Woodlands series create an extraordinary visual backdrop, which in combination with Grimaud´s pianistic "impeccable clarity and articulation" (Hamburger Abendblatt) and the Elbphilharmonie's splendid acoustics grants a concert experience of a special kind.

‘A mix of futurism à la Metropolis, fantasy à la Batman and quotes from Piranesi’s Carceri, juxtaposed in the form of photo montages, enhanced with…robots, a helicopter, a shark and the winged vehicle of a pop star Pope’, was how the Neue Zürcher Zeitung described this astonishing Salzburg Festival production of Berlioz’s Benvenuto Cellini. The high-calibre cast, headed by Burkhard Fritz as the temperamental Renaissance artist and the 26-year-old Latvian soprano Maija Kovalevska as Teresa, the woman with whom he tries to elope, is conducted by Valery Gergiev who ‘pulled out all the stops. He whips the Vienna Philharmonic into a delirium similar to that which possibly took hold of the composer’. (Der Standard) This is French grand opera at its fast-paced and spectacularly-staged best.