Gratuitous Soprano Duet – Aber der Richtige (aus Arabella)

Sigh! I didn't get to see all of this in the live webcast. I am hoping an enterprising pirate...er...fan might have snagged 'n' shared it. Meanwhile, I found this kindly posted by the Bayerische Staatsoper. Anja Harteros and Hanna-Elisabeth Müller…

Sigh….that’s all…just…sigh!

Well, there is one more thing. I am tempted into a bit of fantasy opera casting. I am thinking, well, AH has sung the Marschallin, and HEM will be a marvelous Sophie (she makes her debut as Sophie in Amsterdam this fall). Who would be your choice of Octavian to place between them?

Arabella from the Bayersiche Staatsoper (Live on July 11)

From the STAATSOPER.TV website:

Bayerische Staatsoper will at 7 p.m. on Saturday, 11 July show the new production of Arabella by Richard Strauss with Anja Harteros in the title role.

With this opera, the film director Andreas Dresen will make his debut at Bayerische Staatsoper. Standing on the podium of Bayerisches Staatsorchester will be the Swiss conductor and musical director of the Paris Opera, Philippe Jordan. Anja Harteros will be participating in a Festival premiere for the fourth time after her premiere performances in Alcina (2005),Lohengrin (2009) and Il trovatore (2013). Singing at her side will be Kurt Rydl (Count Waldner), Doris Soffel (Adelaide),Hanna-Elisabeth Müller (Zdenka) and Joseph Kaiser (Matteo). Thomas J. Mayer, who was heard most recently at Bayerische Staatsoper as Wotan in Der Ring der Nibelungen (2012 and 2015), will be performing Mandryka.

Gratuitous Friday Double Feature – The Merry Widow Waltz

I said I wanted to hear more from Stéphanie d'Oustrac; and this clip is one of the first I came across. Of course she's sung a lot of real French music, and a lot her performances can be found on YouTube. But here is something that couldn't be much more different than her recent appearances as Orphée. Duetting with her is the (unknown to me) tenor Philippe Do, who sounds like he's worth searching out, too. 

Singing the Merry Widow outdoors seems to be a very European thing to do. Right on the same page as the above video (thank you, YouTube, for being one of the biggest time sinks in my life) is this performance from Hanna-Elisabeth Müller (seen recently in Munich with very big hair as Servillia) and Martin Mitterrutzner (noted previously in this blog.) Could they be any more charming?