Sun, Sep. 03, 2023, 8.00 pm | Elbphilharmonie, Grand Hall
Felix Stachelhaus: Logistic Festive Overture for Brass Ensemble - commissioned by the Philharmonic State Orchestra Hamburg
Sergei Prokofiev: "Romeo and Juliet" - Suite No. 2 and excerpt from Suite No. 1
Camille Saint-Saëns: Act 2 from the opera "Samson et Dalila
Musikalische Leitung: Kent Nagano
Dalila: Elīna Garanča
Samson: SeokJong Baek
Oberpriester des Dagon: Egils Silins
Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Hamburg
Kent Nagano is considered one of today’s outstanding conductors for both operatic and orchestral repertoire. Since September 2015, he has been General Music Director of the Hamburg State Opera and Chief Conductor of the Philharmonic State Orchestra Hamburg. In addition, he is committed as Artistic Director of the Ring project “The Wagner Cycles” of Dresdner Musikfestspiele with Dresdner Festspielorchester and Concerto Köln, and as patron of the Herrenchiemsee Festival. 2023 he was appointed Honorary Conductor of the Philharmonic State Orchestra, in 2021 of the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal, in 2019 of the Concerto Köln, and in 2006 of the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin.
The 2023/2024 season in Hamburg begins with four concerts, performing with the Philharmonische Akademie at the Laeiszhalle, then with the Philharmonic State Orchestra at the Rathausmarkt Open Air and the Elbphilharmonie. This will be followed by a series of opera productions at the State Opera in September and October, with a premiere of Mussorgski’s Boris Godunow in a production by Frank Castorf and a premiere of Strauss’s Salome in a production by Dmitri Tcherniakov, as well as performances of Sciarrino’s Venere e Adone and Britten’s Peter Grimes. Furthermore, as in every season Nagano will conduct symphonic concerts with the Philharmonic State Orchestra at the Elbphilharmonie, including the New Year’s performance.
His past years in Hamburg include opera productions such as Les Troyens, Lulu, Lady Macbeth von Mzensk, the world premiere of Stilles Meer and German premiere of Lessons in Love and Violence, the "Philharmonische Akademie" at St. Michaelis, open-air concerts at the Rathausmarkt and the world premiere of Pascal Dusapin's work Waves for organ and orchestra at the Elbphilharmonie. Orchestral tours with the Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Hamburg have taken Kent Nagano to Japan, Spain and South America.
Kent Nagano has worked with the world's leading international orchestras, including the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestre Philharmonique Radio France, the Orchestre de l’Opéra national in Paris, the Chicago and Detroit Symphony Orchestra, the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, and the Wiener Symphoniker. Special projects were productions of Wagner's Das Rheingold with Concerto Köln and the Bernstein opera A quiet place at the Paris Opera. His operatic work has included Dusapin‘s Il viaggio, Dante at the Festival d‘Aix-en-Provence, Hindemith's Cardillac and Poulenc's Dialogues des Carmélites at the Opéra National de Paris and Henze’s The Bassarids and the premiere of Saariaho's L’amour de loin at the Salzburg Festival. Other world premieres conducted by Nagano include Bernstein's A White House Cantata and the operas Alice in Wonderland by Unsuk Chin, Three Sisters by Peter Eötvös and The Death of Klinghoffer and El Niño by John Adams.
The 2023/24 season will see Kent Nagano make a wide variety of appearances at the Maison symphonique in Montréal, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the Tonhalle in Zurich, the Philharmonie in Berlin, the Konzerthalle in Bamberg and the Kulturpalast in Dresden. In addition, he will conduct the Orchestre de l'Opera de Lyon and lead a new production of Ligeti’s Le Grand Macabre by Krzysztof Warlikowski at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich.
Under the artistic direction of Kent Nagano and the Intendant of the Dresdner Musikfestspiele Jan Vogler, Wagner's "Ring Tetralogy" will be performed in the artistic context of the period in which it was composed, based on the latest findings of research into Wagner and performance practice, and integrated into an extensive supporting program as part of the multi-year project "The Wagner Cycles" of the Dresdner Musikfestspiele from 2023 to 2026. The prelude was the performance of "Das Rheingold" at the Dresden Music Festival in 2023 and the tour to Cologne, Ravello and Lucerne under the musical direction of Kent Nagano. With "Die Walküre," the second work in the epochal narrative will follow in 2024.
Highlights of Kent Nagano's collaboration with the OSM as Music Director from 2006 to 2020 included the inauguration of the orchestra’s new concert hall La Maison Symphonique in September 2011, performances of the complete cycles of Beethoven and Mahler symphonies, Schoenberg's Gurrelieder, concert versions of Wagner's Tannhäuser, Tristan und Isolde and Das Rheingold, Honegger's Jeanne d'Arc au Bücher, and Messiaen's Saint François d'Assise. Tours have taken Nagano and the orchestra to Canada including the Northern Territories, Japan, South Korea, Europe (latest 2019), Latin America and the USA. In July 2018, Kent Nagano conducted Krzysztof Penderecki’s St. Luke Passion with the OSM at the Salzburg Festival opening concert.
His recordings with the OSM on Sony Classical/Analekta include Mahler’s Orchestral Songs with Christian Gerhaher in 2013 and a complete recording of all of Beethoven’s symphonies in 2015. Decca released a recording of the North American premiere of L'Aiglon, a rarely performed opera by Honegger and Ibert in 2016, conducted by Nagano in 2015. Further releases by Decca are Danse Macabre with works by Dukas, Saint-Saens, Ives and others in 2016 as well as a recording of Bernstein's A quiet place in 2018 on the occasion of the composer's 100th birthday. John Adams' Common tones in simple time & harmony (Decca) was released in 2019, the Lukas Passion by Penderecki (BIS) and works by Ginastera, Bernstein and Moussa (Analekta) in 2020.
At the Bayerische Staatsoper, where he was General Music Director from 2006 to 2013, Kent Nagano commissioned new operas such as Babylon by Jörg Widmann, Das Gehege by Wolfgang Rihm and Alice in Wonderland by Unsuk Chin. New productions included Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov and Khovanshchina, Strauss' Ariadne auf Naxos and Die Frau ohne Schatten, Poulenc's Dialogues des Carmelites, Messiaen’s Saint François d'Assise, Berg’s Wozzeck, George Benjamin's Written on skin and Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen. Tours took Nagano and the Bavarian State Orchestra through Europe and Japan. In addition to Bruckner's Symphonies Nos. 4 and 7 (Sony), Kent Nagano has released several opera performances with the Bavarian State Orchestra on DVD: Unsuk Chin's opera Alice in Wonderland (2008) and Mussorgsky's Chowanschtschina (2009) with unitel classica/medici arts, Dialogue des Carmélites with Bel Air Classiques (2011) and Lohengrin (2010) with Decca.
Another very important period in Nagano’s career was his time as Artistic Director and Chief Conductor of the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin from 2000-2006. He performed Schönberg’s Moses und Aron with the orchestra (in collaboration with Los Angeles Opera) and took them to the Salzburg Festival to perform both Zemlinsky’s Der König Kandaules and Schreker’s Die Gezeichneten, as well as to the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden with Parsifal and Lohengrin in productions by Nikolaus Lehnhoff. Recordings with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin for Harmonia Mundi include repertoire as diverse as Bernstein’s Mass, Bruckner’s Symphonies Nos. 3 & 6, Beethoven’s Christus am Ölberge, Wolf’s Mörike-Lieder, Mahler’s Symphony No. 8, Schönberg’s Die Jakobsleiter and Friede auf Erden, as well as Brahms’s Symphony No. 4 and Schönberg’s Variationen für Orchester Op. 31. In June 2006, at the end of his tenure with the orchestra, Kent Nagano was given the title Honorary Conductor by members of the orchestra – only the second recipient of this honour in their 60-year history. To this day he maintains a close friendship with the orchestra.
In October 2019, Kent Nagano and Mari Kodama expanded their joint recordings of Beethoven's works for piano and orchestra with Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 0 E-flat Major WoO 4, a nearly unknown work from the composer’s youth, and his Rondo for Piano and Orchestra WoO 6 with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin. The complete edition of Beethoven’s piano concerti was released on the Berlin Classics label.
Nagano was awarded Grammys for his recordings of Busoni’s Doktor Faust with Opéra National de Lyon, Prokofjew’s Peter and the Wolf with the Russian National Orchestra and Saariaho’s L’amour de Loin with the Deutsches Symphonieorchester Berlin. He has worked with labels such as BIS, Decca, Sony Classical, FARAO Classics and Analekta for many years, and has also recorded CDs with Berlin Classics, Erato, Teldec, Pentatone, Deutsche Grammophon and Harmonia Mundi.
To celebrate Kent Nagano's 70th birthday in 2021, a 3-CD box set of works by Olivier Messiaen was released in October on the BR Klassik label. The release includes live recordings of the works Poèmes pour Mi, Chronochromie and La Transfiguration de Notre Seigneur Jésus-Christ from his concerts with the Symphonieorchester und Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks, demonstrating Nagano's close familiarity with Messiaen's musical language in a special way.
In September 2021, Kent Nagano published his second book with Berlin Verlag. In "10 Lessons of my Life", he recalls ten deeply personal encounters from which he learned important lessons, not only for his career but for his life more broadly. Among those experiences are encounters with the Icelandic pop artist Björk, Frank Zappa, Leonard Bernstein, Pierre Boulez and the Nobel Prize winner in physics Donald Glaser.
In 2015 Kent Nagano published "Erwarten Sie Wunder!" also in Berlin Verlag, a passionate appeal for the relevance of classical music in today's world. In 2019 the book was released in English by the Canadian McGill-Queen's University Press under the title ″Classical Music - Expect the Unexpected" and in 2015 under "Sonnez, merveilles!" in French by Éditions du Boréal.
Born in California, Nagano maintains close connections with his home state and was Music Director of the Berkeley Symphony Orchestra from 1978-2009. His first major successes came with the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1984, when Messiaen appointed him assistant to conductor Seiji Ozawa for the premiere of his opera Saint François d'Assise. Nagano’s success in America led to European appointments: Music Director of Opéra National de Lyon (1988-1998) and Music Director of the Hallé Orchestra (1991-2000). Kent Nagano became the first Music Director of Los Angeles Opera in 2003 having already held the position of Principal Conductor for two years.
Kent Nagano was awarded an honorary doctorate from McGill University in Montréal in 2005, an honorary doctorate from the Université de Montréal in 2006, and an honorary doctorate from San Francisco State University in 2018. Since 2017, Kent Nagano has been a "Compagnon" of the "Ordre des arts et des lettres" of Québec and in the fall of 2023, Kent Nagano was also awarded the title of "Chevalier" in the "Ordre des art et des lettres" of France. In February 2024, Kent Nagano was awarded the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany by the Federal President.
During the 2022/23 season, Garanča’s engagements include Princess Eboli Don Carlos at the Teatro di San Carlos Naples, Amneris Aida at the Wiener Staatsoper and Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Dalila at the Deutsche Staatsoper Berlin, Venus Tannhäuser at the Salzburg Easter Festival, a recital at the Vienna Musikverein, and concerts with the Teatro alla Scala, Munich Philharmonic Orchestra, Orquesta Filarmónica de Gran Canaria and Berliner Philharmoniker.
Garanča was born into a musical family in Riga, Latvia, and studied at the Latvian Academy of Music with her mother. She began her professional career as a resident artist with the Südthüringischer Staatstheater in Meiningen and later with Oper Frankfurt. She is particularly famed for her portrayal of Bizet’s Carmen and was described by the New York Times as “the finest Carmen in 25 years…” following her appearance at the Metropolitan Opera. The production was broadcast in more than 1,000 cinemas worldwide and is one of the most viewed and successful “Live in HD”. Garanča has also performed Carmen at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Wiener Staatsoper, Bayerische Staatsoper, Teatro alla Scala, Palau de les Arts Reina Sofía Valencia, and others, to critical acclaim.
Recent opera appearances also include Dalila Samson et Dalila, along with roles debuts as Kundry in Wagner Parsifal and de Bouillon Adriana Lecouvreur at the Wiener Staatsoper, Princess Eboli at the Opéra national de Paris, Santuzza Cavalleria rusticana at the Opernhaus Zürich, Octavian in a new production of Der Rosenkavalier at the Metropolitan Opera (broadcast in cinemas worldwide) and her return to Covent Garden as Dalila in a new Richard Jones production. Many concert performances during 21/22 included Mahler Rückert-Lieder in her debut with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra conducted by Riccardo Muti, and a performance at the Broad Stage, Santa Monica with pianist Malcolm Martineau featured among her recital appearances.
In 2005, Garanča became an exclusive artist with Deutsche Grammophon (DG). Her first solo recording Aria Cantilena was released in 2007; her albums Romantique and Meditation both won ECHO Klassik awards. Her first non-core-classical album Sol y Vida was released in 2019, and has been unanimously praised by critics. Her first solo recital album was in recorded with pianist Malcolm Martineau in 2020 and explores a contrasting selection of Lieder by Brahms alongside Schumann’s song cycle Frauenliebe und Leben. The latest release on DG – Live From Salzburg (December 2021) – features Garanča singing Wagner's Wesendonck and Mahler's Rückert Lieder with the Wiener Philharmoniker, conducted by Christian Thielemann, and was recorded at the Salzburg Festivals in 2020 and 2021. A critically-acclaimed recording of Elgar Sea Pictures with Daniel Barenboim and Staatskapelle Berlin has also been released recently on Decca.
Garanča is recipient of numerous national and international awards for her performances and recordings, including 1999 winner of the Mirjam Helin International Singing Competition, numerous ECHO KLASSIK awards, Singer of the Year at the 2020 OPUS-KLASSIK for her Sol y Vida disc, Musical America’s ‘Vocalist of the Year’ 2010, MIDEM's ‘Singer of the Year’ 2007, and a Grammy nomination. In 2013 she was honoured with the title of ‘Kammersängerin’ by the Wiener Staatsoper for her devotion to the House, singing over 160 performances and 18 roles since her debut in 2003.
His critically-acclaimed portrayal of Samson was not only a house and role debut, but also his professional debut as a tenor, having transitioned from baritone over the coronavirus lockdown period. As a baritone, he was an Adler Fellow and a member of the Merola Programme at the San Francisco Opera, as well as a former resident artist of the Lyric Opera of Kansas and an alumnus of the Manhattan School of Music.
Recent highlights include as series of role debuts as Turiddu Cavalleria Rusticana at the Royal Opera House, conducted by Antonio Pappano, and Radamès Aida in concert with Karel Mark Chichon and the Orquesta Filarmónica de Gran Canaria alongside Elīna Garanča.
This season will include a series of major house and role debuts across Europe and the US, along with his return to the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden as Radamès Aida. Further ahead, Baek looks forward to making his much-anticipated Metropolitan Opera debut in New York.
Origin:
Latvia
Studies:
Latvian Academy of Music
Prizes:
Hans Gabor Belvedere Singing Competition, Third Prize (1989), R. Stolz Hamburg
Wettbewerb, First Prize (199) Francisco Vinas International Singing Contest, Second Prize
(1992), Bilbao-Bizkaia International Singing Competition, Second Prize (1992), Concours International de Chant de Toulouse, First Prize (1993), Concours de Chant Paris, First Prize (1993), Marian Anderson Competition, Third Prize (1996)
Important parts:
Wotan (Die Walküre/Das Rheingold), Der Wanderer (Siegfried), Pizarro/Don Fernando
(Fidelio), Le Grand Prêtre de Dragon (Samson et Delila), Amfortas and Klingsor (Parsifal),
Friedrich von Telramund (Lohengrin), Der Holländer (Der fliegende Holländer),
Kurwenal/König Marke (Tristan und Isolde), Jochanaan (Salome), Barak (Die Frau ohne
Schatten), Orest (Elektra), Demon (Demon), Rangoni/Boris (Boris Godunov), Escamillo
(Carmen), Scarpia (Tosca), Mephisto (Faust), Sebastiano (Tiefland), Jago (Otello), Giorgio
Germont (La Traviata), et al.
Stages:
Gran Teatro del Liceu, Staatsoper Unter den Linden, Metropolitan Opera, Chicago
Opera, Semperoper Dresden, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Bayreuther Festspiele, Opera Bilbao
ABAO, Bayerische Staatsoper, Mariinsky Theatre, Dresdner Philharmonie, Tokyo Nomori
Spring Festival, New National Theater Tokyo, Opéra national de Paris, Opernhaus Leipzig,
Ungarische Staatsoper, Opernhaus Zürich, Teatro Real Madrid, Royal Opera House Covent
Garden, Opéra de Monte-Carlo, Chorégies d'Orange, NCPA Beijing, Deutsche Oper am
Rhein, Oper Köln, Wiener Staatsoper, Budapest Wagner Festival, Ravinia Festival Chicago,
Latvian National Opera, Bregenzer Festspiele, Verbier Festival, Tanglewood Music Festival,
Savonlinna Opera Festival, Glyndebourne Festival, et al.
Cooperation with directors:
Achim Freyer, Sven-Eric Bechtolf, Günter Krämer, Robert Wilson, Hugo de Ana, Damiano
Michieletto, Uwe Eric Laufenberg, Claus Guth, Harry Kupfer, Philipp Stölzl, Yuval Sharon,
André de Toth, Viesturs Kairish, Ausgust Everding, Mariusz Trelinski, Hans Neuenfels, Götz
Friedrich, et al.
Cooperation with conductors:
Marek Janowski, Christian Thielemann, Philippe Jordan, Andris Nelsons, Christoph von
Dohnányi, Zubin Mehta, Ricardo Mutti, Fabio Luisi, Seiji Ozawa, James Conlon, Nikolaus
Harnoncourt, Kent Nagano, Marcello Viotti, Marc Minkowski, Andrew Davis, Colin Davis,
Daniele Gatti, Vladimir Fedosseyev, Neeme Järvi, Hartmut Haenchen, Mariss Jansons,
Sebastian Weigle, Kazushi Ono, Valery Gergiev, Gennady Rozhdestvensky, et al.
The Philharmonic State Orchestra is Hamburg’s largest and oldest orchestra, looking back on many years of musical history. When the “Philharmonic Orchestra” and the “Orchestra of the Hamburg Municipal Theatre” merged in 1934, two tradition-steeped orchestras combined. Philharmonic concerts have been performed in Hamburg since 1828, artists such as Clara Schumann, Franz Liszt and Johannes Brahms being regular guests of the Philharmonic Society. The history of the opera company goes back even further: Hamburg has been home to musical theatre since 1678, even if a regular opera or theatre orchestra was only formed later. To this day, the Philharmonic State Orchestra has embodied the sound of the Hansa City, a concert and opera orchestra in one.
During its long history, the orchestra encountered great artist personalities. Apart from composers of the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries, such as Telemann, Tchaikovsky, Strauss, Mahler, Prokofiev and Stravinsky, since the 20th century chief conductors such as Karl Muck, Joseph Keilberth, Eugen Jochum, Wolfgang Sawallisch, Horst Stein, Aldo Ceccato, Christoph von Dohnányi, Gerd Albrecht, Ingo Metzmacher and Simone Young have shaped the orchestra’s sound. Renowned conductors of the pre-war era such as Otto Klemperer, Wilhelm Furtwängler, Bruno Walter, Karl Böhm and Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt gave brilliant performances, as did outstanding conductors of our times: suffice it to mention Christian Thielemann, Semyon Bychkov, Kirill Petrenko, Adam Fischer and Sir Roger Norrington.
Starting with the 2015/2016 season, Kent Nagano has taken on the position of Hamburg’s General Music Director and Chief Conductor of the Philharmonic State Orchestra and the Hamburg State Opera and since June 2023 also its honorary conductor. In his first season Kent Nagano initiated a new project, the Philharmonic Academy, focusing on experimentation and chamber music. In 2016, Nagano and the Philharmonic toured South America, followed by concert tours to Spain and Japan in 2019, and in the spring of 2023, the Philharmonic State Orchestra made its debut at New York's Carnegie Hall under his direction, which was acclaimed by audiences and the press. Since 2017 Kent Nagano and the Philharmonic State Orchestra have continued the traditional Philharmonic Concerts at the new Elbphilharmonie, for which they commissioned Jörg Widmann to compose the oratorio ARCHE, which was given its world premiere during the hall’s opening festivities. The concert recording has been released by ECM, for which Widmann received the OPUS KLASSIK as Composer of the Year 2019, and ARCHE was performed again in 2023 to great acclaim.
The Philharmonic State Orchestra offers approximately 35 concerts per season and performs more than 240 performances per year at the Hamburg State Opera and the Hamburg Ballet John Neumeier, making it Hamburg’s busiest orchestra. The stylistic bandwidth covered by the 140 musicians, ranging from historically informed performance practice to contemporary works and including concert, opera and ballet repertoire, is unique throughout Germany. Chamber Music has a long tradition at the Philharmonic State Orchestra: what began in 1929 with a concert series for chamber orchestra has been continued since 1968 by a series of chamber music only.
In 2008 Simone Young and the Philharmonic State Orchestra won the Brahms Award of the Schleswig-Holstein Brahms Society. The orchestra has recorded the complete Ring by Wagner as well as the complete symphonies of Johannes Brahms and Anton Bruckner – the latter in the rarely-performed original versions – as well as works by Mahler, Hindemith and Berg, and has released DVDs of opera and ballet productions by Hosokawa, Offenbach, Reimann, Auerbach, J.S. Bach, Puccini, Poulenc and Weber.
The members of the Philharmonic State Orchestra feel equally beholden to Hamburg’s musical tradition and responsible for the city’s artistic future. Since 1978 the musicians have been participating in education programmes in Hamburg’s schools. Today, the orchestra maintains a broad education programme, including school and kindergarten visits, patronage for music projects, introductory events for children and family concerts. The orchestra’s own academy prepares young musicians for their professional careers. The Philharmonic’s musicians thereby make an equally enjoyable and valuable contribution to tomorrow’s music education in the music metropolis of Hamburg.
With this concert, we thank Klaus-Michael Kühne and his Kühne Foundation for their generous support of the Philharmonic State Orchestra. Guest for this special occasion is star singer Elīna Garanča, with SeokJong Baek and Egils Silins at her side. Under the baton of General Music Director Kent Nagano, they join forces with the Philharmonic State Orchestra to present a highly emotional and deeply dramatic program: from highlights from Prokofiev's ballet "Romeo and Juliet," which the composer himself compiled into three orchestral suites, to the centerpiece of the opera "Samson et Dalila." Going back to a biblical material, Saint-Saëns' music tells of the resistance of the Hebrew slaves who, under their leader Samson, rebel against the Philistines. A well-kept secret protects Samson's strength - until Dalila snatches it from him, tempting him with love. Here, too, Shakespeare's prophecy from "Romeo and Juliet" comes true with thunderclaps: "And love dares what love can do" - even the greatest betrayal.
Venue: Elbphilharmonie, Grand Hall, Platz der Deutschen Einheit 4, 20457 Hamburg
