News Release
Live Recording of Dvořák’s Rusalka by Franz Welser-Möst
and The Cleveland Orchestra to be Released Internationally
on the Orfeo Label September 27
Opera recorded during Cleveland Orchestra’s sold-out performances at the 2008 Salzburg Festival
Release date: September 16, 2011
CLEVELAND – A live audio recording of Dvořák’s Rusalka performed by Music Director Franz Welser-Möst and The Cleveland Orchestra, the Vienna State Opera Chorus, and an international cast of soloists at the Salzburg Festival in August 2008 has been released by the Orfeo label. The CD will be available through retailers and available for download online in the United States on September 27, 2011. It is now available in the Cleveland Orchestra Store at Severance Hall.
These performances of Rusalka marked the first time that The Cleveland Orchestra presented an opera production and played from the orchestra pit at the Salzburg Festival. The five sold-out Rusalka performances were part of a Festival residency that also included Franz Welser-Möst conducting the Orchestra in three different concert programs. Prior to the staged Salzburg performances, Franz Welser-Möst led The Cleveland Orchestra in concert performances of Rusalka in Cleveland in June 2008.
London’s Sunday Times praised the Salzburg Festival performance, calling it “the most spellbinding account of Dvorak’s miraculous score I have ever heard, either in the theatre or on record…. I doubt this music can be better played than by the Clevelanders, the most ‘European’ of the American orchestras, with wind and brass soloists to die for and a string sound of superlative warmth and sensitivity.” The London Sunday Telegraph review said, “the playing of the Cleveland Orchestra under Franz Welser-Möst is sumptuously beautiful and exquisitely detailed, allowing Dvorak's operatic masterpiece to weave a strong spell at its first-ever Salzburg showing.”
Described by the composer as a lyric fairytale in three acts, The Cleveland Orchestra’s Rusalka featured “a first-rate cast of singer-actors” (Financial Times):
- Piotr Beczala, tenor (Prince)
- Emily Magee, soprano (Foreign Princess)
- Camilla Nylund, soprano (Rusalka, a water nymph)
- Alan Held, bass-baritone (Vodnik, a water gnome)
- Birgit Remmert, mezzo-soprano (Jezibaba, a witch)
- Adam Plachetka, bass-baritone (Gamekeeper)
- Eva Liebau, soprano (Turnspit)
- Daniel Schmutzhard, baritone (Hunter)
- Anna Prohaska, soprano (First Wood Nymph)
- Stephanie Atanasov, mezzo-soprano (Second Wood Nymph)
- Hannah Esther Minutillo, mezzo-soprano (Third Wood Nymph)
Stage directors for Rusalka were Jossi Wieler and Sergio Morabito. The Vienna State Opera Chorus was prepared by chorus master Jörn H. Andresen. Sets were designed by Barbara Ehnes. Costumes were designed by Anja Rabes, lighting design was by Olaf Freese, and video was by Chris Kondek. The choreographer was Altea Garrido. Austrian Radio produced the recording.
Product Details
Rusalka – Dvořák
The Cleveland Orchestra
Franz Welser-Möst, Music Director
Live Recording August 17, 2008
ORFEO D’OR
Catalog No.: 792113
U.S. Distribution: Qualiton Imports Ltd.
qualiton.com
Media review copies available from: qualiton@qualiton.com
Rusalka is available at the Cleveland Orchestra Store. Call 216-231-7478 or visit the Store online.
The Cleveland Orchestra
The upcoming 2011-12 season marks The Cleveland Orchestra’s tenth season under the leadership of Music Director Franz Welser-Möst. Founded in 1918, The Cleveland Orchestra today reaches a broad and loyal constituency at home and internationally through concerts, community engagement, touring, residencies, and recordings and radio broadcasts. The Orchestra under Mr. Welser-Möst has become one of the most sought-after performing ensembles in the world and Ohio’s most visible international ambassador. Under Welser-Möst’s direction, it has re-established itself as an operatic ensemble, presenting staged productions of the three Mozart/Da Ponte operas at Severance Hall in recent seasons and planning a concert performance of Richard Strauss’s Salome at Carnegie Hall for the 2011-12 season.
In concerts at its winter home at Severance Hall and at each summer’s Blossom Festival, in residencies from Miami and New York to Vienna, and on tour around the world, The Cleveland Orchestra sets the highest standards of artistic excellence and creative programming. The Cleveland Orchestra’s educational programs have introduced more than four million Cleveland-area schoolchildren to symphonic music. For additional information, visit clevelandorchestra.com.
The Cleveland Orchestra acknowledges Raiffeisenlandesbank Oberösterreich, Erste Bank, and Jones Day for their generous support and sponsorship of Cleveland Orchestra performances and residency activities at the 2008 Salzburg Festival.
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Press Contacts
Ana Papakhian, 216-231-7476; Email
Jennifer Schlosser, 216-231-7518; Email
