| Date and venue | Title |
|---|---|
| 24-Apr-2013 Theater an der Wien | Berlioz's Béatrice et Bénédict at the Theater an der Wien |
 Béatrice et Bénédict is Hector Berlioz’s last work; he wrote it between 1860 and 1862 for the theatre that patron Edouard Bénazet had built in Baden-Baden, then Germany’s most chic health resort. As the work proved an instant success, Bénazet probably never regretted that Berlioz had talked him out of a work set in the Thirty Years’ War in favour of a light opéra comique which is loosely based based on Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing.Read full review... | |
| 1-Mar-2013 Musikverein: Großer Saal | Cornelius Meister's Sibelius at the Vienna Musikverein doesn't quite take flight |
 Jean Sibelius is purported to have written part of his Symphony no. 5 after having witnessed a large flock of swans take flight from his home in rural Finland. Whether this story is apocryphal or not, the “swan theme” has become part of the Western musical subconscious, with quotations showing up in jazz and pop music for much of the last century. In this performance, Cornelius Meister, conducting the ORF RSO, made individual moments in this work sing, without really giving a good sense of its overall shape.
Read full review... | |
| 12-Dec-2012 Konzerthaus: Großer Saal | Meister, Mozart and Martinů with the RSO Wien |
| Cornelius Meister has long been a champion of young Czech composer Miroslav Srnka, not only as chief conductor of the RSO Wien but also in Heidelberg, where he was Generalmusikdirektor from 2005 until earlier this year. Reading Lessons is a work commissioned by Heidelberg that now comes to Vienna as part of a broader Srnka focus in the current RSO season (just last month Nicolas Hodges premiered a piano concerto with the orchestra), though presentation as part of the staid overture-concerto-symphony format has done his voice fewer favours this time around. Read full review... | |
| 18-Oct-2012 Theater an der Wien | Il trittico scores a hat-trick at the Theater an der Wien |
 Following a string of misses, the Theater an der Wien emerges from its recent dry patch with a new production of Puccini’s triptych which offers a winning cast, the best playing heard at the house in months, and a smart production.
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