Three prestigious operas will come to Japan from the music capital of Vienna. Three great conductors of this age are scheduled to conduct these operas: Marek Janowski, Adam Fischer, and Riccardo Muti.
Richard Strauss's opera Ariadne auf Naxos has been performed twice in Japan, the first time in 1980 and the second in 2000, and it is the most Viennese of his works. Conductor Marek Janowski has inherited the orthodox music traditions of Germany; however, many years have passed since he last conducted an opera, and his two performances this year--of Der Ring des Nibelungen at the Bayreuth Festival in the summer and of Ariadne auf Naxos during the Wiener Opernball Japan Tour--are the most anticipated performances in the opera world for 2016.
This ninth Japanese tour by the Wiener Staatsoper will be the first in which it performs Wagner's Die Walküre. The conductor for this performance will be the long-awaited and well-known Wagner specialist Adam Fischer. He convincingly won the hearts of theatergoers for his performances of the Die Walküre in Bayreuth, the land of Wagner's birth, and at the Wiener Opernball, so this performance is expected to be spectacular.
Riccardo Muti is scheduled to conduct Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro. Muti considers himself the definitive conductor of Mozart's operas. Mozart understood Italian as well as his own native language, so it is necessary to truly understand Italian to comprehend the deep meaning and nuances behind this work. For this reason, the production features young Italian singers who are active on the international stage. This should be the best performance of The Marriage of Figaro to date, combining the superb musical skills of Muti and the timeless renditions of Ponnelle.
Three maestro conductors will each conduct his favorite opera. This highly praised production features a meticulously selected group of singers and the world's best opera orchestra, the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, whose elite members are selected from the Vienna State Opera Orchestra. These incredibly rich operas are the most moving operas in recent years and should not be missed.
Photo:Wiener Staatsoper / Michael Poehn
