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Los Angeles Opera Releases DVD of Live Performances of Recovered Voices Operas

Nov. 02, 2010

The Los Angeles Opera has just announced the release of live performances of its Recovered Voices series, conducted by James Conlon. A recent press release from LA Opera comments:

LA Opera productions of rarely performed works-a 2008 double bill of Viktor Ullmann's The Broken Jug (Der zerbrochene Krug) and Alexander Zemlinsky's The Dwarf (Der Zwerg) as well as a 2009 presentation of Walter Braunfels' The Birds (Die Vögel)-are set for release this autumn on DVD and Blu-ray by Naxos. "These important video releases, recorded live in performance at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion and conducted by James Conlon, feature productions from LA Opera's celebrated Recovered Voices series, which is devoted to presenting the works of composers who were affected by the rise of the Third Reich," said [Eli and Edythe Broad General Director, Placido] Domingo. "The striking beauty and incredible diversity of these works has made their neglect during the last eight decades one of the great injustices in music history. LA Opera is the only major American opera company to regularly program the works of these nearly forgotten composers, so I am proud that audiences around the world will now be able to enjoy these wonderful productions."

The videos, released on the Arthaus Musik label, will be distributed by Naxos Music. The double bill of The Broken Jug and The Dwarf is available for purchase now, and The Birds will be released for sale on November 16, 2010.

James Conlon conducts all of LA Opera's Recovered Voices presentations, an initiative that began when he became Music Director of the Company in 2006.

LA Opera's Recovered Voices series began in  2007 with a concert that included operatic excerpts from works by Walter Braunfels, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Ernst Krenek, Franz Schreker, Erwin Schulhoff and Viktor Ullmann, as well as a complete concert performance of Alexander Zemlinsky's A Florentine Tragedy. In the 2008 season, LA Opera presented a double bill featuring fully-staged performances of Ullmann's The Broken Jug (a U.S. premiere) and Zemlinsky's The Dwarf.  In 2009 the series featured the U.S. premiere of Braunfels' The Birds and in 2010 Schreker's The Stigmatized (Die Gezeichneten), marking the first staging of a Schreker opera in the United States.

Learn more on the life and music of Viktor Ullmann, Erwin Schulhoff and Erich Wolfgang Korngold at schott-music.com.

For more on Alexander Zemlinsky, Walter Braunfels and Ernst Krenek, visit universaledition.com

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