Nina Stemme and Anna Larsson in Recital

Nina Stemme and AnnaLarsson sing Mahler, Strauss, Brahms, and some brand new Swedish songs in this recital recorded on April 23, 2014 (The actual singing starts about four minutes into the program.)

Nina Stemme sopran

Anna Larsson alt
Matti Hirvonen piano

Programme below:

Spring and Summer with Dorothea Röschmann

From Sveriges Radio:

Haydn: The Seasons (Spring and Summer)

Dorothea Röschmann, soprano

Joachim Bäckström, tenor

Andrew Foster-Williams, baritone

Swedish Radio Chorus and Orchestra

Philipp von Steinaecker, conductor

The first half of the program contains Haydn’s Symphony 94 (which contains that famous "Papa Haydn" theme that the baritone also sings in the Seasons.) The intermission feature includes:

• 59 minutes: English Interview about the Seasons with Andrew Foster-Williams and Joachim Bäckström (sadly, DR does not participate)
• 1 hour, 10 minutes:  DR singing a (Handel?) aria

The Seasons starts at about 1 hour, 23 minutes.

Everyone is in great voice, and the chorus sounds particularly spring-like, too!

Reminder of Online Operas to be Thankful for (Some for a limited time!)

Video

If you haven't watched La Clemenza di Tito from La Monnaie yet, you have only a few more days to do so. Go watch it. Now!

And, for one day only, the Bayerische Staatsoper's new production of Die Frau Ohne Schatten starting at 6 PM (CET), which is around noon New York time on Sunday, December 1.  

Audio

Next Monday and for seven days thereafter, you can hear the recent Wozzeck from Covent Garden with Simon Keenlyside and Karita Mattila on BBC Radio 3.

Dvorak's Armida is still available for listening (for a few days) at Sveriges Radio, who also have a recent performance of Britten's Gloriana (also Covent Garden, with a cast including Toby Spence and Kate Royal) for about a month. 

Finally, the latest Orfeo ed Euridice from Paris with Franco Fagioli as Orfeo and Malin Hartelius (sigh) as Euridice (yes, it's in Italian, which actually sounded rather odd (but awesome) to me, since the most recent performances I've heard were in French) on francemusique.com. This wonderful performance is available for about four weeks. 

Dvorak's Armida and other Operatic Delights from Sveriges Radio

Dvorak: Armida

Dvorak wrote an opera about Armida and Rinald(o), too? Well, why not? A whole boatload of other composers did (most notably Handel and Rossini.) This month on Sveriges Radio (Sweden) you can hear a performance from the Czech Republic of Dvorak's relatively rare opera. Rumor has it he modeled his work on Wagner's Tannhäuser. Maybe so, but I Dvorak also drew a lot from his "New World" influences.  

Dvorak's music is really lovely (I still need to sit down seriously with Rusalka!) and I'd like to explore this opera further. It turns out that the blog Operalia has a link to a video of this same Czech performance. (I have yet to successfully download anything from that site; any tips would be greatly appreciated.)

Nina Stemme

Sveriges Radio broadcasts operas weekly, and most of them (except for the ones from the stingy Peter Gelb) are archived for 30 days. Dvorak's Armida is available for about three more weeks. November offerings are listed on the Sveriges Radio website. 

Of particular interest this month is the live broadcast (on November 30) of the Stockholm Royal Opera premiere of a new production of Salome, starring Nina Stemme.

In between is a L'Elisir d'Amore from Gothenburg and Britten's Gloriana from Covent Garden. When seeking intersting opera broadcasts, don’t forget Sweden’s Sveriges Radio!

Britten's Spring Symphony in Sweden - Radio Broadcast

Anne Sofie von Otter, Daniel Harding, Mark Padmore

They're celebrating the Centenary of Benjamin Britten in Sweden, too (and they even imported some Brits to help them out.) Under the direction of Daniel Harding, the Swedish Radio Chorus and Symphony presented Britten's Spring Symphony on May 24th this year.

Opera From Sweden – Reimann's Lear: On-Demand Audio for a Week

Rickard Söderberg, Fredrik Zetterström och Karolina Andersson.
Foto: Janne Wieslander/Sveriges Radio

On April 27, 2013 the Malmö Opera gave the Swedish premiere performance of Aribert Reimann’s Lear, which had its world premiere in 1978. Here is a set of brief video excerpts. Below that is the full audio stream, which is available from Sveriges Radio for only seven more days. Apparently you can also download the audio if you are of a mind to download from file-sharing sites.

Verdi: Simon Boccanegra – Radio Broadcast from Sweden

While we are waiting for the Vienna concert to be released commercially... (I was going to say on CD, then I remembered I really don't buy very many CDs any more; and I'm more likely to download it. This makes me wonder how my readers are consuming commercially recorded music these days. Should we take a poll?)