Following on from the first concert performance of Andreas Jacob’s critical new edition of Camille Saint-Saëns’ Samson et Dalila in November 2015 at the Theater Basel, the staged premiere on 4 October takes place in no less a theatre than the Opéra National de Paris. It is this first new production of this opera at Opéra national de Paris for 25 years. At the helm is chief conductor Philippe Jordan, and the director is the much sought-after Italian Damiano Michieletto. Aleksandr Antonenko and Anita Rachvelishivili in the title roles are arousing high expectations, not only amongst French opera fans.

(30.4.2015) This year not one, but two opera volumes from the Halle Handel Edition will be put to the test at both the Handel Festivals in Germany. The Göttingen Festival opens on 15 May 2015 with a new production of Agrippina directed by Laurence Dale and conducted by Laurence Cummings. John E. Sawyer is responsible for the long-awaited new edition. The performance material contains the Venetian version from the 1709 premiere, as well as additional alternative music numbers or numbers not used then. The Halle Festival follows on 5 June 2015 with a new production of the seldom-performed opera Lucio Cornelio Silla of 1713, which Terence Best has edited for the HHA. The Handel Festival Orchestra is conducted by Enrico Onofri, and the director is Stephen Lawless. Two days later, on 7 June 2015, Fabio Biondi conducts his Ensemble “Europa Galante” in a concert performance of Handel’s last stage work Imeneo, with a top-class line-up of soloists. The Dublin version of 1742 will be performed, which Donald Burrows reconstructed in 2002 for the relevant HHA volume.

Antonio Cesti’s opera L’Orontea of 1656 is back on the stage. Oper Frankfurt is including the witty piece in its repertoire, using the new edition by Álvaro Torrente for the first time.

Cavalli’s Orione is great fun, precisely because the opera differs from what we might expect from a mid-17th century work. The Urtext edition published as part of the Cavalli Complete Edition by Bärenreiter offers a starting-point for entertaining performances.

The circumstances surrounding the composition of Handel’s opera Lucio Cornelio Silla are not clear. But because of its interesting characters and outstanding music, it deserves a new chance. The Handel Festival Halle is reviving the work this summer.

(30.4.2015) On 10 May Beat Furrer’s new opera la bianca notte / die helle nacht after Dino Campana will be premiered in Hamburg. The poet, who narrates in order to survive, becomes the inspiration for a music theatre work which deals with the question of identity. The textual basis are the Canti orfici by Dino Campana, who allowed the futuristic ideas of his time to flow into poetic texts full of suggestive power. The conductor at the Hamburg Staatsoper is Simone Young.

(25.2.2015) Theater Magdeburg is exploring new territory with the first German performance of an opera by the Czech composer Zdeněk Fibich (1850–1900). Nevěsta messinská (The Bride of Messina) receives its first performance on 14 March 2015 in the opera house in Magdeburg. Alongside Smetana and Dvořak, Fibich is regarded as one of the three most important Czech opera composers of the Romantic period.  In his opera, based on Schiller’s tragedy, he follows the intentions of the classical theatre reformer, and combines dramatic choral scenes with convincing role portrayals and the leitmotivic-psychological interpretation of characters and situations.