2014 is also the 300th anniversary of Christoph Willibald Gluck’s birth. Two opera houses in the place where he worked are anticipating this anniversary with new productions: the first is at Theater an der Wien on 8 November with the rarely-performed Iphigenie en Aulide (Torsten Fischer/Alessandro de Marchi), followed by the Staatsoper, which stages the Paris version of Alceste beginning on 12 November (Christof Loy/Ivor Bolton).

In the run-up to the Rameau anniversary year in 2014 marking the 250th anniversary of the composer’s death, his rarely-performed one-act ballet Anacréon will be presented by vocal soloists, the Choir of Magdalen College and the renowned Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. Jonathan Huw Williams conducts the first performance of his new edition of the work, published in the Opera Omnia Rameau, in a concert performance on 9 November in the Sheldonian Theatre Oxford.

(22.11.2014) The Volkstheater Rostock is offering a special bel canto highlight on 9 January 2015, a concert performance of Rossini’s oper Maometto II using the new Critical Edition by Hans Schellevis. On the podium is the renowned English Rossini specialist David Parry, who conducted this seldom-performed opera last year at the Garsington Festival and has recorded it on CD.

Handel set his opera Poro in distant India. However, the conflicts that develop in it are universally applicable and enabled Handel to express through it his entire compositional maturity.

The confrontation of religions was as current at the time of the Old Testament as it is today. One such conflict takes centre stage in Handel’s oratorio Samson until its fatal outcome.

Telemann’s Passion to a text by Brockes is distinguished by its powerful emotions and their skilful realisation using rich compositional means. A rewarding alternative for Passiontide concerts.

[16.02.2012] Leoš Janáček’s artistic opera Osud, which the composer never heard staged during his lifetime, returns to the place where it received its German premiere. The work was first performed in a staged version in October 1958 on consecutive days in Brno and in Stuttgart. The revised edition, published as part of the Janáček Complete Edition, will be used in the staging by the new production team at the Stuttgart Opera: Sylvain Cambreling conducts Fate: Destiny – Osud in the production by Jossi Wieler and Sergio Morabito. Janáček’s “theatrical work, emerging entirely out of the spirit of his music, whose lyrical and dramatic high points are amongst the great, unique moments of his output in their originality,” is presented with another Expressionist artistic drama, Schoenberg’s “Die glückliche Hand”. The first performance takes place on 11 March 2012.