Anna Skryleva, General Music Director in Magdeburg, made a virtue out of necessity brought about by the pandemic for the new production of Mozart’s last opera she conducted in May 2020, reducing the orchestral writing to just twenty musicians in a careful, yet sensitive arrangement. The result is a translucent chamber music version, which promises to become an attractive option for smaller opera houses well beyond the current restrictions. The performance material is now available on hire from Bärenreiter/Alkor.

It is hard to believe, but Jean-Philippe Rameau’s Opus summum et ultimum “Les Boréades”, only premiered in 1975 in London, has never before been heard in a German opera house. This is no doubt because of the problematic access to the posthumously-published work. Long awaited by the music world, and by connoisseurs of Rameau in particular, Bärenreiter has just published a critical new edition meticulously prepared by Sylvie Bouissou, Editorial Director of the “Opera Omnia Rameau”. The enterprising Oldenburg Staatstheater, renowned for its Rameau productions, did not want to miss out on this double chance, and on 2 October presents the first German production of “Les Boréades” – at the same time the first performance using the new edition. Under director Christoph von Bernuth, Rameau’s legacy proves to be a parable of the Enlightenment and of striking timeless relevance. Alexis Kossenko conducts once again, following his triumphant success with Rameau’s comédie-ballet “Les Paladins” two years ago in Oldenburg. A further eleven performances are scheduled until 20 November. This gives opera connoisseurs from the larger musical centres the opportunity to experience the programming policy and high artistic level of one of the smaller German opera houses.

Georg Philipp Telemann’s Orpheus opera for the Gänsemarkttheater in Hamburg stands apart from typical works of its time in its opulence. Unfortunately the surviving sources are incomplete. But now, a basis for effective performances is provided by the volume from the Telemann Selected Edition published by Bärenreiter. Amongst Telemann’s surviving Hamburg stage works, “Die wunderbare Beständigkeit der Liebe oder Orpheus” (TVWV 21:18) can be regarded as the most unusual, and at the same time the most problematic in its surviving form. Of all the operas produced at the Theater am Gänsemarkt, it was not only unusual but also unique in that the libretto contains a combination of German, Italian and French; the first known performance of the opera as a “concert” on 9 March 1726, staged by the famous singer Margaretha Susanna Kayser (1690–1775), was peculiar and requires further explanation. “Orpheus” was originally conceived as a typical repertoire opera with different set designs, rich action on stage and varied chorus and dance scenes. It is unclear why the piece was only performed as a concert in 1726. But one-off performances of this type presented an opportunity for the opera house to earn some income, despite the theatres being closed during Lent when opera performances were forbidden in Hamburg.

In 1994 René Jacobs made his debut at the Deutsche Staatsoper Berlin with Telemann’s “Orpheus”. 27 years later the renowned conductor returns to a work he loves, highlighting its uniqueness. He was inspired by Wolfgang Hirschmann’s critical new edition, which was published in the Telemann Edition in 2011. Bärenreiter has now produced performance material for the forthcoming series of concert performances in major European cities. The missing sections of this opera, which survives incomplete, have been added in sympathetic style by Jacobs, including the Overture from Telemann’s opera “Miriways” and music by contemporaries such as Georg Caspar Schürmann and Maurice Green. The conductor discussed the details of his performance version in the accompanying interview. The tour, with specially selected singers and the Belgian early music ensemble B’Rock begins on 21 October in Antwerp (Concertgebouw) and ends on 30 October in Barcelona (Gran Teatre del Liceu), René Jacobs’ 75th birthday. Other venues are Amsterdam (Concertgebouw) on 23 October, Cologne (Philharmonie) on the 25th, and Tourcouing (Théâtre) on 28 October.

The courtly Opéra-ballet “Les Fêtes d'Hébé” was premiered in May 1739 at the Académie royale de musique in Paris and was immediately extremely successful. Rameau had probably not reckoned on such a resounding success with a work he had evidently composed very quickly, to a libretto by dilettante authors who shared the same box at the Opéra – Antoine-César Gaultier de Montdorge and Louise-Angélique Rondin de La Tournerie. Their idea of writing a libretto for a ballet occurred to them following the performances of “Les Indes galantes” in 1735. In that year, Rameau had been unable to perform his tragedy Samson, based on a libretto by Voltaire, because of the censor, and so he decided to re-use a large portion of the music from Samson in his score for “Les Fêtes d’Hébé”.

A glimpse into the not-too-distant future: In their new opera "Singularity," composer Miroslav Srnka and author Tom Holloway dramatize mind games about computerized people, updates, and human and technical malfunctions. Their opera is a fast-paced play with set pieces of the cyber world, combining vision with farce and a glimpse into human abysses.  Expressly composed for young voices, “Singularity” was written for the opera studio of the Bavarian State Opera in Munich. Nicolas Brieger signed responsible for the production of the premiere on 5 June 2021 in the Cuvilliés Theatre, the Klangforum Wien played under the baton of Patrick Hahn. The opera was performed both live and per live-stream. The live-stream is still accessible. "Singularity" is the third opera by Miroslav Srnka and Tom Holloway commissioned by the Bavarian State Opera, following “Make No Noise” and “South Pole”.

Following the multi prize-winning first CD recording of the dialogue version of Gounod’s “Faust”, edited and reconstructed by Paul Prévost, this can now be seen on the stage for the first time. With set designs by Herbert Murauer, renowned director Johannes Erath has conceived his production specially for Oper Köln’s venue in the Staatenhaus, creatively approaching this with current distancing rules in mind. The production embodies both the spirit of the Opéra Comique and the musical interpretation by Music Director François-Xavier Roth, the Gürzenich Orchester and the vocal soloists. These are largely drawn from the ensemble of Oper Köln, with Anne-Catherine Gillet (Marguerite) as the sole guest artist. Audiences will be particularly excited to hear the second part of Faust’s famous aria “Salut! demeure chaste et pure”, only recently rediscovered. This was cut from the Paris premiere on 19 March 1859 at the Théâtre Lyrique because of a change of singer at short notice, and has now been published exclusively in a Bärenreiter edition. Young Woo Kim gives the belated premiere of the young Faust’s Cavatina in the original two-part version on 5 June 2021. The first performance and all subsequent performances will be given by Oper Köln both with a live audience and streamed, on a pay as you wish basis.