Saturday, August 4, 2007

Bayreuth reruns from this year's Festival top today's fare:

• Deutschlandradio Kultur / DR P2 - Live from the Festspielhaus, we have another opportunity to hear this summer's Tannhäuser, featuring a new entrant to the sparse ranks of Wagner tenor, Frank van Aken, and a leading Wolfram of today, Roman Trekel.
• MDR Figaro / NDR Kultur / RBB KulturRadio - Also from this summer's Bayreuth Festival, Das Rheingold, the first day of a complete Ring des Nibelungen under the superb baton of Christian Thielemann.
• WWFM - Finally, we take a trip back to a Bayreuth of fifty years ago: Keilberth's Ring des Nibelungen of 1955, starting with a Das Rheingold, featuring Gustav Neidlinger's celebrated Alberich in peak form.



• KBPS - At the top of today's offerings outside the Bayreuth orbit, Brenda Harris, whose last-minute Vitellia for an indisposed Carol Vaness in the second act of a MET Clemenza di Tito proved so exciting some years back, takes on Bellini's supreme challenge, the title role in Norma (from Portland Opera).
• LA Opera (Numerous stations) - Monteverdi's L'incoronazione di Poppea, with Susan Graham, Frederica von Stade, David Daniels, Christine Brandes, Kurt Streit and Reinhard Hagen, conducted by Harry Bicket.
• CBC Two - Yvonne Naef is featured in one of the towering works of all time, Berlioz's Les Troyens, under the baton of Sylvain Cambreling.
• Radio Oesterreich International - Christa Ludwig transforms Mistress Quickly into the lead role in a "live" Falstaff from 1980.
• Auditorium - True opera history for Gigli fans, as he is partnered in a "live" L'Elisir d'Amore by Rina Gigli; Gianandrea Gavazzeni conducts.

These and other offerings covering all possible opera interests are on tap for a busy afternoon and evening.

Happy listening!

Geoffrey