Der Fischer

From the symphony to the song would seem to be an enormous step: from the largest form for the largest orchestra to the smallest form for the smallest ensemble. Gustav Mahler nonetheless brought them together and interwove them in previous symphonies as well as in ‘Das Lied von der Erde’. "The long, endlessly stretched crescendo on the single note "e" (filled with so much desire) leads to the final part of Abschied, which I can only describe with the word ‘cosmic’. The voice is surrounded by floating meteors, objects, particles or stars, which move in various directions and speeds. We have left the atmosphere and look back on the beautiful green and blue planet." - Iván Fischer, conductor

Gaetano Donizetti (1797-1848) wrote his first opera at the early age of 21, which over the next 25 years was to be followed by another seventy. From 1830 onwards his operas caught the attention of the public and remained on the programmes, which was unusual at that time. When in 1841 the sought-after opera composer was on yet another of his tours, he was approached by the manager of the Vienna Kärntnertortheater, Bartolomeo Morelli, who requested him to set Linda di Chamonix to music after a libretto by Gaetano Rossi. Donizetti, who was keen to establish himself in Vienna, having already done so in Paris and Milan, accepted the commission.

It is one of the tragic losses of music history that not a single note of Johann Sebastian Bach’s St. Mark Passion is of certain transmission. Attempts to reconstruct it have usually not advanced beyond the halfway point, but Andreas Fischer has now carried this task through to completion. This version of the St. Mark Passion consists exclusively of music by Bach - which is perhaps why it creates an especially authentic impression in this performance with his St. Catharinen - Cantorey of Hamburg.

This 2006 production from the Zurich Opera is a traditional one by Nicolas Joël in veteran Ezio Frigerio's wonderfully evocative, highly coloured sets. Then Adám Fischer in the pit leads a remarkably strong yet subtle account of the score, which – when played and sung like this – is once more revealed as one of Verdi's greatest masterpieces. Four of the principals easily surpass their DVD rivals. Stemme offers a deeply considered, expressive and superbly sung Aida, one for whom the work's vocal perils do not seem to exist. Add to that acting that goes to the heart of the matter, and one is left breathless in admiration after so many sopranos not truly fitted to the part. Licitra has done nothing better than his Radames here. At last fulfilling his potential, he sings the role with an open-hearted sincerity and a heroic voice up to the part's exigent demands.

Filmed live at the Vienna State Opera in December 1983, Jean-Pierre Ponnelle’s elegant staging of Manon captures all the pathos of Massenet’s masterpiece. Adam Fischer leads an all-star cast featuring the incomparable Edita Gruberova in the title role and the brilliant Francisco Araiza as Le chevalier des Grieux. Massenet’s Manon was immensely successful from the outset, and it has remained a hit ever since its world premiere in Paris in 1884.

Schubert knew madness. He knew it to the depths of his soul and feared it. And out of his fear he wrote the greatest monument to love lost, to death lost, to madness found. He wrote Die Winterreise, the most hopeless art work ever conceived by the despairing mind of man. Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau is the voice of Winterreise. In small part, this is because he recorded it seven times between 1952 and 1990. In larger part, this is because he is able to transform himself into the despairing lover. Yet Fischer-Dieskau is still the most lucid and most technically controlled of madmen. As Ingmar Bergman remarked on actor Max von Sydow, "If I'd had a psychopath to present these deeply psychopathic roles, it would have been unbearable". At 55, Fischer-Dieskau returned to Winterreise in 1980, no longer the sad swain or the suicidal lover, but as a man bowed with age and burdened with an interpretive past. His voice far past freshness, Fischer-Dieskau still has something to say concerning Winterreise, indeed, about man's fate. Accompanied by the self-effacing Daniel Barenboim, Fischer-Dieskau sings of the meaninglessness of love of the pointlessness of life.