Label: Challenge Classics
Format: SACD
Barcode: 0608917260526
Catalog number: CC 72605
Releasedate: 22-11-13
Format: SACD
Barcode: 0608917260526
Releasedate: 22-11-13
Manfred Trojahn’s Orest in its world premiere in Amsterdam. Live-recording from the first performances. In this fine production, with its new chief conductor Marc Albrecht is firmly in command of a first-rate cast, the company makes a good case for its survival.
Trojahn wrote a close story with a harmonic language tha is more rooted in the past.
Trojahn wrote a close story with a harmonic language tha is more rooted in the past.
- This opera is a world premiere
- Dietrich Henschel sings the title role – a marvellous Orest
- The magazin “Opernwelt” nominated “Orest” as the Best World Premiere in 2012
- It doesn’t sound like opera as we know it, but the kind of music you’d have in very good contemporary films: frightening, but also very beautiful (like lyrical David Lynch films or horryfying like Hitchcock thrillers) (Timeout Amsterdam, December 2011)
- Things the non-opera audience knows about: crime scenes, Christmas gatherings that go really wrong, elements of a
thriller, but it’s also got a serious bit of modern music (Timeout Amsterdam, December 2011) - There’s enough lyricism in it, enough moments of aria-likeness for the more mainstream operagoer to feel comfortable (Timeout Amsterdam, December 2011)
- Orest stems from the emotion. It is not about contemporary or modern. Trojahn is looking for the beauty of sound and sensuality. But even crisis can shelter hope. In a broken world, there is still beauty to live for. (De Telegraph, December 2011)
- This is a SACD that comes with a beautiful stylish book illustrated with fascinating pictures from the set and includes libretto
Manfred Trojahn’s Orest enjoyed its world premiere in Amsterdam amid spectacular splashes of gore and commensurate splatters of sound.
The Netherlands Opera commissioned Trojahn’s sixth opera to end a series that has focused on the House of Atreus, rounding off the cycle of violence by adding the murder of Helen of Troy to the carnage surrounding Iphigenie, Idomeneo and Elektra.
Trojahn has written his own libretto, based on Euripides and is narrative follows the Greek story closely, but he skirts around Apollo’s apotheosis of Helen, preferring to leave behind a pool of blood and a number of open questions.
Perhaps the subject matter, with its myriad musical and literary allusions, steered Trojahn towards a harmonic language more rooted in the past than he might otherwise have adopted. Certainly Strauss’s influence is amply audible.
The Netherlands Opera commissioned Trojahn’s sixth opera to end a series that has focused on the House of Atreus, rounding off the cycle of violence by adding the murder of Helen of Troy to the carnage surrounding Iphigenie, Idomeneo and Elektra.
Trojahn has written his own libretto, based on Euripides and is narrative follows the Greek story closely, but he skirts around Apollo’s apotheosis of Helen, preferring to leave behind a pool of blood and a number of open questions.
Perhaps the subject matter, with its myriad musical and literary allusions, steered Trojahn towards a harmonic language more rooted in the past than he might otherwise have adopted. Certainly Strauss’s influence is amply audible.