(2.10.2014) As its first new production of the 2014/15 season, the Bayerische Staatsoper Munich has programmed Janáček’s Věc Makropulos/The Makropulos Case. The director is Arpad Schilling, and on the podium is the Czech conductor Tomáš Hanus, a renowned Janáček specialist. For this production he has collaborated with Bärenreiter-Verlag to produce a critical new edition, the main aim of which is to reconstruct the version of the premiere given in Brno. The eagerly awaited first performance of this version takes place on 19 October 2014.

(25.3.2014) The French musicologist Paul Prévost sets new standards with his edition of Gounod’s Faust, the first to be based on the previously unavailable composition autograph and the printed edition of 1860. He has painstakingly detailed all the stages of work of the through-composed version which was performed for many decades at the Paris Opéra from 1869. The result of his researches can be heard from 10 May at the Nederlandse Opera Amsterdam. Alex Ollé’s new production is conducted by Marc Minkowski. At the Baden-Baden Whitsun Festival Thomas Hengelbrock conducts Gounod’s masterpiece for the first time, also using the new edition. Bartlett Sher’s new production receives its first performance on 6 June. There is also a spectacular line-up of singers including Charles Castronovo (Faust) and Erwin Schrott (Méphistophélès).

Although the autograph manuscript is still not available to consult, the renowned British musicologist Hugh Macdonald has published a new edition of Bizet’s early masterpiece Les Pêcheurs de perles which is as close to an Urtext edition as possible. For the orchestration of the numbers which are only present in the vocal score, he has used a violin conducting score from the library at the Paris Opera. This also contains sections which were cut before the premiere. The edition also publishes the dialogue texts which were replaced  by recitatives before the 1863 performances, as well as a newly-edited timpani part. Soloists, chorus and orchestra of the Staatstheater Nuremberg conducted by Gábor Káli will present the results of these musicological researches for the first time on 29 April 2016 as part of a series of concert performances.

(10.6.2014) Performances of Franz Schubert’s most important opera continue to be rare events. So this year’s Salzburg Festival project to stage Fierabras in a highly promising new production and encourage debate about it once more is all the more remarkable. The director is Peter Stein, and conductor Ingo Metzmacher. The musicians of the Vienna Philharmonic will be playing from performance material from the New Schubert Edition specially produced for this production by Bärenreiter-Verlag. The first performance in the Haus für Mozart is on 13 August.

Theater Osnabrück is the first German opera house to stage a production of Antonín Dvořák’s seldom-performed opera Vanda. It has achieved a magnificent performance in every respect. The dramaturg responsible for the production introduces the work.

(31.5.2014) The 2014 Handel Festival in Halle again sees two first performances using the Halle Handel Edition (HHA). This year’s new opera production on 6 June features Handel’s seldom-performed Arminio of 1737, conducted by Bernhard Forck and directed by Nigel Lowery. The oratorio Solomon follows a week later, performed on 11 June in the Marktkirche. Top soloists, the Kölner Kammerchor and the Collegium Cartusianum perform, conducted by Peter Neumann. In addition, the Halle Handel Edition (HHA) features prominently in this year’s programme, with Amadigi, Riccardo Primo, Giove in Argo and a revival of the 2013 production of Almira.

Gluck’s beginnings as a composer of opera seria are now overshadowed by his ‘reform’ operas. Demofoonte, now being published in the Gluck Complete Works, offers an excellent opportunity for theatres to become more familiar with Gluck’s early works.