Korngold: Violanta, Op. 8 (Live) Annemarie Kremer, Michael Kupfer-Radecky, Norman Reinhardt, Orchestra and Chorus Teatro Regio Torino & Pinchas Steinberg

• Erich Wolfgang Korngold (1897 - 1957): Violanta, Op. 8:
• 1Violanta, Op. 8: Vorspiel (Live)05:22
• Scene 1:
• 2Violanta, Op. 8, Scene 1: Unsere Barke blüht schon (Live)02:54
• 3Violanta, Op. 8, Scene 1: He, was machst du? (Live)05:20
• Scene 2:
• 4Violanta, Op. 8, Scene 2: Schweigt still! Wie oft hab ichs gesagt (Live)02:46
• Scene 3:
• 5Violanta, Op. 8, Scene 3: Ich hol dich. Komm! (Live)01:50
• 6Violanta, Op. 8, Scene 3: Sie hasst ihn! (Live)03:13
• 7Violanta, Op. 8, Scene 3: Wein! Blumen! Lichter! Geigenhauch… (Live)02:05
• Scene 4:
• 8Violanta, Op. 8, Scene 4: Violanta? (Live)03:21
• 9Violanta, Op. 8, Scene 4: Aus den Gräbern (Live)02:07
• 10Violanta, Op. 8, Scene 4: Dann hör ich durch Nacht und Stille (Live)01:45
• 11Violanta, Op. 8, Scene 4: Violanta! Ja, du wirst ihn töten (Live)02:18
• 12Violanta, Op. 8, Scene 4: Ja, du wirst ihn töten! (Live)01:25
• 13Violanta, Op. 8, Scene 4: Dicht Aug in Aug (Live)01:40
• Scene 5:
• 14Violanta, Op. 8, Scene 5: Barbara! Bring Lichter! (Live)03:07
• 15Violanta, Op. 8, Scene 5: Wie ging das Märchen, Barbara (Live)02:40
• 16Violanta, Op. 8, Scene 5: Interludio (Live)02:28
• 17Violanta, Op. 8, Scene 5: Der Sommer will sich neigen (Live)03:11
• Scene 6:
• 18Violanta, Op. 8, Scene 6: Wie schön seid Ihr (Live)03:31
• 19Violanta, Op. 8, Scene 6: Noch nicht das Lied! (Live)03:50
• 20Violanta, Op. 8, Scene 6: Sterben wollt ich oft (Live)05:15
• 21Violanta, Op. 8, Scene 6: Mona Violanta? (Live)05:08
• 22Violanta, Op. 8, Scene 6: Nie hab ich gelebt im Augenblick (Live)03:42
• 23Violanta, Op. 8, Scene 6: Reine Liebe, die ich suchte (Live)03:09
• 24Violanta, Op. 8, Scene 6: Violanta! (Live)02:28
• Scene 7:
• 25Violanta, Op. 8, Scene 7: Du riefst, hier bin ich (Live)02:09
• 26Violanta, Op. 8, Scene 7: Still, mich tragen Wogen silberrein! (Live)02:28
• Total Runtime01:19:12

Info for Korngold: Violanta, Op. 8 (Live)

The musical setting of the work is one where different styles meet and clash. The work is imbued with German romanticism, but we also hear echoes of the world of operetta, and of the lightness of Strauss. Violanta’s score has flashes of Debussy at the same time as Schönberg and Bartók; it wraps the listener in a gloomy atmosphere before expanding a few measures later into a hugely intense, lyrical phrase. Although Violanta might initially appear as a verismo love drama, some elements actually distance it from this connotation.Korngold's music, with its highly refined orchestration, perfectly paints the contrast between the dark and deathly atmosphere of the oppressive world which Simone forces upon his wife and the sudden glimpses of life, sensuality and passion brought by Alfonso, making Violanta one of the masterpieces of the early twentieth century. Driven by a powerful desire to take revenge on the man who had seduced her sister, leading to her suicide, Violanta persuades her husband Simone to become her accomplice and kill him. But after meeting and enticing her victim – Alfonso, the illegitimate son of the King of Naples – her feelings turn into passion, and her heart is overturned. So strong is her love for him now that in order to save Alfonso’s life she takes the blow meant for him and dies.Korngold sets this opera in an imaginary, decadent fifteenth-century Venice, reflecting a fascination for the Renaissance and for the themes of passion and death that were in vogue at the time. Pier Luigi Pizzi, stage director, costume and lighting designer for this production, chose to set the action at the beginning of the 1920s in a decadent Venice, where distant echoes of a melancholic Carnival add a sense of gloom to the whole performance. Here is how he decided to portray the main characters:

“Violanta is an eerie woman; she’s moody, delusional and eccentric; a dark lady, vaguely vampiric. This opera is a bourgeois drama about lack of communication. This yearning for a total, absolute life without any rules signifies the failure to lead a normal life, to resign to routine, to accept one’s solitude ... Alfonso is a seducer in the style of D’Annunzio, no woman can resist him ... One must look at these characters from a certain distance, with irony, make them live in the literary environment in which they were born ... Simone Trovai is the typical cuckolded husband. Pathetic... I based my direction on a story which I try to strip of all banalities, also its setting, preferring to exploit the dramatic atmosphere created by the music.”

Conductor Pinchas Steinberg declared: “This music is full of colours, full of emotions; it’s incredible the scale of emotions and colours and expression that [Korngold] puts in this score, not only for the orchestra but also for the singers, and it’s a miracle that a 17-year-old boy could write such a thing...”

Annemarie Kremer, soprano (Violanta)
Michael Kupfer-Radecky, baritone (Simone Trovai)
Norman Reinhardt, tenor (Alfonso)
Peter Sonn, tenor (Giovanni Bracca)
Anna Maria Chiuri, mezzo-soprano (Barbara)
Coro del Teatro Regio di Parma
Orchestra del Teatro Regio di Parma
Pinchas Steinberg, conductor

Annemarie Kremer
The Dutch soprano Annemarie Kremer studied singing, piano and dance in Maastricht and made her debut as Ilia (IDOMENEO) at Theater Aachen.

Since her 2011 debut in the title role of Richard Strauss’s SALOME at the Vienna Volksoper Annemarie Kremer has established herself as one of the most distinguished performers of complex Strauss, Wagner and Puccini roles. She sang the title role in SALOME to great acclaim at the Vienna Volksoper, in São Paulo, Beijing, Moscow, Hong Kong, Teatro San Carlo in Naples, at the Aalto Theater in Essen and at the State Theatre of Lower Saxony in Hanover.

Her performance of the title role in Bellini’s NORMA at her UK debut at Opera North in 2012 was a tremendous success; the production received the TMA Award and brought her the title of Best Female Singer of the Year in 2012 from the opera magazine Opernwelt as well as a nomination for the International Opera Oscars. She gave her debut in Germany in 2014 with the same production of NORMA at Theater Chemnitz.

Her repertoire includes the title roles in AGRIPPINA, MADAMA BUTTERFLY, LUISA MILLER, MANON LESCAUT, MÉDÉE, NORMA, RUSALKA, SALOME, TOSCA and TURANDOT. She has also taken the roles of Micaëla (CARMEN ), Marie (LA FILLE DU RÉGIMENT), Maddalena di Coigny (ANDRÉ CHENIER), Ursula (MATHIS DER MALER), Heliane (DAS WUNDER DER HELIANE), Hanna Glawari (THE MERRY WIDOW), Donna Anna and Donna Elvira (DON GIOVANNI), Ilia (IDOMENEO), Vitellia (LA CLEMENZA DI TITO), Contessa (LE NOZZE DI FIGARO), Feldmarschallin (DER ROSENKAVALIER), Rosalinde (DIE FLEDERMAUS), Mina (AROLDA), Giselda (I LOMBARDI ALLA PRIMA CROCIATA), Desdemona (OTELLO), Elisabeth (TANNHÄUSER) and Isolde (TRISTAN UND ISOLDE).

Highlichts of the 2019/2020 season include TRISTAN UND ISOLDE in Karlsruhe, RISE AND FALL OF THE CITY OF MAHAGONNY in Parma and STIFFELIO in St. Gallen.

Annemarie Kremer has been invited to give guest appearances at the opera houses in Amsterdam, Beijing, Chemnitz, Dortmund, Dresden, Essen, Frankfurt am Main, Freiburg, Graz, Hanover, Hong Kong, Leeds, Leipzig, Linz, Monte Carlo, Moscow, Naples, Oldenburg, São Paulo, Stockholm, Stuttgart, Waitsfield (Virginia), Vienna, Wiesbaden, Wuppertal and Zagreb.

Annemarie Kremer has recorded several CDs, featuring music composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (concert arias, masses, sacred works), Ludwig van Beethoven’s 9th Symphony, the complete recording of AGRIPPINA (George Frideric Handel) and DAS WUNDER DER HELIANE (Erich Wolfgang Korngold).

Booklet for Korngold: Violanta, Op. 8 (Live)