The new edition of Antonín Dvořáks masterwork presents not a “new” Rusalka – conductors, performers, and audiences will find the same Czech masterpiece that has been enjoyed for over 100 years but the oprea in its definitive form, with all practical and musicological issues considered, well-documented, and clearly presented.

Cavalli's opera "Scipione Affricano" offers many possibilities for realisation on stage. In addition to the love plot, the opera also deals with the themes of freedom and slavery. The new edition which is part of the critical edition “Francesco Cavalli-Opere” offers opera houses a dependable basis.

“Il matrimonio segreto” by Domenico Cimarosa is the opera buffa par excellence. It is all the more astonishing that to this day there is no reliable edition that takes all sources into account. The new edition from the series "Masterpieces of Italian Opera" now remedies this.

One of the most influential works in music history is reflected on in Charlotte Seither’s “stilles begehren” for flute, clarinet, horn, percussion, violin, viola, violoncello and double bass. Within the framework of the project “RingRauschen” at the Staatsoper Berlin new chamber music on the Ring cycle by Richard Wagner will be premiered by the echo ensemble berlin conducted by Manuel Nawri. Charlotte Seither’s calendar, which is packed with premiere entries, shows September 24 as the next date. This is when “red roots” for piano will be performed by Shaghajegh Nosrat at the Beethovenhaus Bonn. On October 13, „wer / wir sind; atem / finden“, two pieces for women’s choir, will be premiered by the Berlin Oratorio Choir and the Hauptstadt Sinfonie-Orchester under the baton of Thomas Hennig. On October 16, a new work for piano trio will be performed by members of the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin. An honorable invitation marked the end of the summer: On August 30, Charlotte Seither’s “lauschgut” for inside piano, interpreted by Mark Menzies, constituted the German contribution at the World (New) Music Days in New Zealand.

This new publication offers a source-critical edition of Mozart’s fragmentary “Requiem” (Bärenreiter-Verlag) as well as an alternative to the traditional Süßmayr version. When completing the fragment, the editor Michael Ostrzyga drew on comprehensive comparative and analytical studies of Mozart’s church style and compositional workmanship. The influence of Handel and Bach manifested in his final years, particularly in the “Requiem” fragment, is taken into account in those sections requiring completion or fresh composition. At two points readers may choose between alternative movements (or sections), since proceeding from Süßmayr’s historical version, two divergent options cannot be weighed against each other but each one may well reflect Mozart’s intentions. The new completion offers choirs and orchestras the opportunity to perform this legendary work in a well thought through version based on the most up-to-date research.

To celebrate the 200th birthday of the Norwegian playwright Ludvig Holberg in 1884 Edvard Grieg was commissioned to write an open-air cantata for the ceremony. But he also refers to Holberg in his instrumental music. The result was a “powdered wig piece” (as Grieg wrote to his publisher) that hearkens back to Holberg’s era – a historicising suite of baroque dances for piano, ranging from an exhilarating prelude and several dance numbers to a Bachian “air” and an impetuous “rigaudon”. Later Grieg arranged his suite for string orchestra. This version became one of his most popular compositions. For the new scholarly-critical Urtext edition (Bärenreiter-Verlag) Christoph Rinne-Schroeder has meticulously examined the original print and compared it with previously neglected performance material annotated by Grieg himself.

Miroslav Srnka has composed a concerto for the harpsichordist Mahan Esfahani and the Gürzenich-Orchester Cologne. François-Xavier Roth conducts the world premiere of "Standstill" on 11 September in Cologne. Three questions on his new work to the composer.

It is hard to believe, but Gaetano Donizetti’s lyrical tragedy, premiered in 1844 in Naples, has never before been performed in a German opera house. The story deals with the Queen of Cyprus, who came from a noble Venetian family, and the work is full of entrancingly beautiful, almost soulful music. The Klangvokal Musikfestival, always ready to push the boundaries, is now including this operatic rarity in its programme. It will be performed on 11 June 2022 in the Konzerthaus Dortmund with hand-picked vocal soloists and the Rundfunkchor and Funkhausorchester conducted by Giacomo Sagripanti. The Stadttheater Gießen is going a step further and presents “Caterina Cornaro” on 27 November 2022 as the first staged performance in German-speaking countries, directed by Anna Drescher and conducted by Vladimir Yaskorski.

Ambroise Thomas initially conceived the role of Hamlet for high male voice, and wrote the first sketches in the tenor clef. When it became known that the charismatic singer-actor Jean-Baptiste Faure was to play the part of Hamlet, the composer adapted the existing music for bass-baritone. Soon after the premiere in 1868 at the Académie Impériale de Musique in Paris, a vocal score of the tenor version was published, endorsed by Thomas, which he had probably even made himself. Reconstructed from the sources by Hugh Macdonald as part of his new edition of “Hamlet” for Bärenreiter · Alkor, this version can be heard for the first time on 15 July at the Festival Radio France Occitanie Montpellier. The American star tenor John Osborn sings the role of the Danish Prince. Michael Schønwandt conducts the chorus of the Opéra and the Orchestre National Montpellier Occitanie. The concert performance will be broadcast by Radio France at a later date.