Salzburg

This concert programme dedicated to the second half of the 19th Century was one of the highlights of the 2012 Salzburg Festival. Mariss Jansons, chief conductor of the Concertgebouw Orchestra and winner of the Cannes Classical Award, and soprano Nina Stemme offer a “superlative concert experience” (Kurier). Swedish soprano Nina Stemme is outstanding in her performance of Wagner’s Wesendonck-Lieder. Brilliant readings of Richard Strauss’ tone poem Don Juan and Johannes Brahms symphony No. 1 complete this extraordinary concert performance.

The opening concert of the Salzburg Festival, for many regarded as the world's most renowned music festival, is by tradition a high-profile event and the 2011 gala presented here was one of the best in memory. Pierre Boulez, the "grand seigneur of subtle minimalism and exquisitely beguiling sounds" (Der Standard), assembled a cast of tremendous destinction to join the Vienna Philharmonic for this prestigious concert, conceived as a tribute to Gustav Mahler: Dorothea Roschmann, Anna Larsson, Johan Botha and rising star Anna Prohaska. After two works by Mahler's pupil Alban Berg, featuring Roschmann and Prohaska, the main event of the concert if Mahler's large-scale cantata Das klagende Lied - a "great spectral opera for the mind's eye" (Vienna Zeitung).