Following just a few weeks after the world premiere of Beat Furrer’s opera “Violetter Schnee” at the Staatsoper Berlin, Bavarian Radio’s “musica viva” concert series is devoting two evening concerts to the composer and conductor on 8 and 9 March 2019. “Schnee-Szenen” (Snow Scenes) for two sopranos and orchestra (text by Händl Klaus based on a novel by Vladimir Sorokin) is a concert version of excerpts from “Violetter Schnee”. It receives its premiere in the first portrait concert with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Peter Rundel. Furrer’s stirring Piano Concerto – with soloist Nicolas Hodges – is followed by the large-scale choral cycle “Enigma 1–7” with the Bavarian Radio Chorus conducted by Rupert Huber. At the ensemble concert with Klangforum Wien on 9 March in the Allerheiligen Hofkirche, “Kaleidoscopic memories” receives its German premiere. The programme also includes the chamber music works “spur”, “Ira-Arca”, “intorno al bianco” and “Invocation VI”.

Ľubica Čekovská has composed “Three fragments from Stabat mater” for the Bavarian Radio Chorus. This receives its premiere at a performance of the original version of Antonín Dvořák’s setting of the “Stabat mater” for soloists, chorus and piano op. 58 on 2 March 2019 in Munich. Three unaccompanied compositions complement Dvořák’s seven-movement original version with the verses which he did not set from the medieval poem of sorrow, forming a kind of lingering echo to Dvořák’s composition. The conductor is Howard Arman.
The idea for the title for Ľubica Čekovská’s new orchestral composition is a singing orchestral line which she has composed as a homage to her native land, eastern Slovakia. “Cantus Simplicissimus” was commissioned by the Slovak State Philharmonic in Košice, the capital of eastern Slovakia, the region where Humenné, the composer’s birthplace, also lies. The premiere will be conducted by Michael Zlabinger on 21 February 2019 in Košice.

Three figures, captured in the voice of one special soloist. Composer Lucia Ronchetti has written “Speranze fuggite, sparite da me”, an adaptation of Francesco Cavalli’s “Giasone”, for the countertenor Valer Sabadus. The work receives its premiere in the Philharmonie Cologne on 25 March 2019. Lucia Ronchetti describes her composition as a “Drammaturgia” for countertenor and ensemble. Looking back, the text by Giacinto Andrea Cicognini narrates the experience of three characters from the legend of the Argonauts – Orestes, Jason and Hypsipyle: their longing and waiting, their despairing love.

Emile Zola’s novel “Thérèse Raquin” is not for the faint hearted. It tells the story of a ruthless crime, of insanity and self-destruction. Philipp Maintz (photo: Paavo Blåfield) has chosen the subject of a young woman who murders her spouse for his chamber opera “Thérèse”, which receives its premiere on 14.4.2019 at the Salzburg Easter Festival in a co-production with the Hamburg Staatsoper. The music theatre work created is an unusual collaboration, for the libretto is the first work by Otto Katzameier, who also sings the baritone role of Laurent, and he has chosen an unusual narrative form for his text. Marisol Montalvo sings the title role and Renate Behle the role of the mother. The production is by Georges Delnon, and the conductor is Nicolas André. The German premiere takes place on 18.5.2019 in the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg.

45 years after the publication of the C Minor Mass K. 427 in the New Mozart Edition, the work is being performed for the first time in a new edition on 14 and 15 April 2019 in the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg. This new edition reflects the latest state of research, whilst also responding to requirements for practical performance. The editor of the edition, which is published in collaboration with the Stiftung Mozarteum Salzburg, is the renowned musicologist there Ulrich Leisinger. He has completed the missing passages in Mozart’s fragmentary-surviving mass setting in a subtle and stylistically appropriate way. The first performance using this edition features top soloists, the ChorWerk Ruhr and the Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Hamburg under the direction of its chief conductor Kent Nagano.