Andrea Lorenzo Scartazzini’s third opera follows on from his earlier works with a subject full of archaic power. Edward II was commissioned by the Deutsche Oper Berlin and receives its first performance on 19 February 2017. The opera tells a story from the England of the 14th century about King Edward II, who ruled for twenty unhappy years and left a country in chaos. Power struggles, affairs and intrigues about Edward’s homosexual relationships provide a theatrical subject matter for a drama of relationships and politics. Following Scartazzini’s successful collaboration with the librettist Thomas Jonigk on Der Sandmann, the team comes together again with director Christof Loy for this production. Thomas Søndergård conducts.

For the anniversary year “Luther 2017. 500 Jahre Reformation" Charlotte Seither has composed Inschrift for choir and orchestra, a commentary on Bach’s cantata Christ lag in Todes Banden  BWV 4. It can be performed following on from this cantata, but also as an independent work, and is scored for the same forces as the original work (choir and strings), with the addition of two recorders and (several) trombones playing the chorale melody. The premiere on 30 April in the Erlöserkirche Herten/Recklinghausen will be given by the Hertener Kantorei with members of the Dortmund Philharmonie conducted by Elke Cernysev. – (photo: Marco Bussmann)

Jetzt und in der Stunde des Todes is the subtitle of Heinz Winbeck’s monumental Symphony No. 5, his composition based on Bruckner lasting almost an hour. The three movements using motifs, especially from the Finale of Anton Bruckner’s 9th Symphony, are not in fact one of the many speculative attempts to complete the magnificent torso, but a musical paraphrase on material from the sketches. Without quoting from it literally, Bruckner’s music is constantly present. The work receives its German premiere at the 2017 Ultraschall Festival in Berlin on 22 January, performed by the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester under Dennis Russell Davies. – In the same concert Marisol Montalvo will sing in „tríptico vertical“ by Philipp Maintz.

The combination of clarinet and string quartet, epitomised by such famous predecessors as Mozart, Brahms and others, is explored afresh by Beat Furrer: “A temporality stretched to the extremes – the clarinet is integrated into the sound of the string quartet. In a constant accelerando, different aspects of the sound of the clarinet are brought into focus, with the clarinettist speaking vowels into the instrument, producing an inharmonious, complex, speech-like sound.”

The first run of performances has taken place, and what remains are memories of two magnificent hours of contemporary music theatre. Miroslav Srnka’s South Pole was widely acclaimed. A look back.

Dieter Ammann’s glut for orchestra takes an energetic extreme state as the theme of the composition. “A world whose inner glow, shaped into sound, drives towards the external.” This is how the Swiss composer describes his orchestral work which was premiered in 2016. Now two performances are lined up in Zurich and Vienna on 25 and 26 January 2018 with a specialist in the extreme: Teodor Currentzis conducts the Philharmonia Zurich, followed by the  Austrian premiere in the Konzerthaus Wien – tension is pre-programmed.

Just a year after its successful premiere at the Bayerische Staatsoper, Miroslav Srnka’s double opera South Pole receives its first performance in a reduced and revised version at the Staatstheater Darmstadt. The theatre’s artistic director Karsten Wiegand directs the legendary race between Robert Falcon Scott and the Norwegian Roald Amundsen in the Antarctic, which Srnka’s composition realizes as a musical conflict between two teams in a tremendous arc of tension. The conductor is Johannes Harneit. The first performance takes place on 27 May 2017. Further performances are planned for 10, 18 and 21 June. (Photo: Vojtěch Havlik)