Bertrand Hussel

Calixto Bieito's famously controversial 2002 production of Mozart's great opera sets the action in the late twentieth century and brings to life an ancient story brilliantly retold. Bertrand de Billy conducts an energetic cast led by Wojtek Drabowicz in the title role, with the Liceu's Orchestra Academy.

Soprano Natalie Dessay leaves the dizzy heights of Bellini’s Amina, Donizetti’s Marie and Massenet’s Manon to inhabit the more discreet emotional and vocal world of Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande with a cast of fellow francophones.
“There’s more to life than top notes,” Natalie Dessay has said. She has, of course, made her reputation with the florid, stratospheric heroines of Romantic French and Italian opera, but in this new DVD from Vienna she portrays a heroine who presents few opportunities for vocal display, but many for subtle characterisation – Debussy’s Mélisande. Dessay had sung the role just once before, in concert in Edinburgh in 2005. Pelléas et Mélisande is full of ambiguity and its vocal lines closely reflect Maurice Maeterlink’s often enigmatic text. A few unaccompanied, ballad-like phrases are the closest Mélisande gets to an aria.

With Joyce DiDonato as Cinderella capturing all hearts – not just Prince Charming’s – Massenet’s enchanting, sophisticated retelling of the classic fairytale makes its debut at Covent Garden in a charming and witty production by Laurent Pelly. The Cinderella story seen through the eyes of the belle époque, Massenet’s Cendrillon was first performed at the Opéra-Comique in Paris in 1899 and its gorgeous score embraces pathos, pastiche, broad humour, subtle eroticism and sheer magic.In Summer 2011, its debut at London's Royal Opera House was built around mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato, who first took on the title role at the Santa Fe festival in 2006.

Arthaus presents the world première of the unabridged version of Don Carlos at the Vienna State Opera, in a staging by the worldrenowned German director Peter Konwitschny. This staging in its unabridged version remains true to Giuseppe Verdi’s originally vision of his grand opera, when it was premiered in Paris in 1867. However, during the rehearsals it soon became clear that Don Carlos would not fi t within the convention of duration, and Verdi was forced, against his will, to make cuts. Over the next 20 years, he would repeatedly turn out new versions of the opera, none of which ultimately left him satisfied.

Pierre Bertrand, winner of the Victoires du Jazz 2017 for his latest album "JOY" offers in 2018 an ambitious new project "Le Voyage Impossible", a reinterpretation with his Caja Negra ensemble of the "Far East Suite" by Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn. Pierre Bertrand & Caja Negra is a group placed under the signs of travel and otherness, with the meeting of musicians and singers from aesthetics that usually only rarely meet: jazz and flamenco.

The title of this album evokes not only the life-long journey of all these musicians, but also a lasting friendship between soprano Barbara Hannigan and the Emerson String Quartet. One of the greatest string quartets of the last four decades, the Emersons will disband in October 2023. Barbara and the Emersons were determined to record Schoenberg's Quartet No. 2 since they started performing the work together in 2015.