Edward Gardner

Víkingur Olafsson and the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra Perform Ravel and Grieg @ Musikfest Bremen Festival 2022

The virtuoso pianist Víkingur Olafsson electrifies the Bremen Festival with Edvard Grieg's “Piano Concerto in A minor” (1868).

Parsifal - PBO

A young man ignorant of everything, including his own name, arrives at the Kingdom of the Holy Grail. Is he the ‘pure fool, enlightened by compassion’, who, it has been prophesied, will purify the realm? OperaVision is live from Bergen for a concert staging of Parsifal, Richard Wagner’s final music drama which is unlike anything that went before or has come since. It can feel more like a ritual ceremony than an opera – grand yet intimate, somehow occupying its own space and time. At the heart of Parsifal is a curious, magical treatment of the symphony orchestra that appears to give the voices above it all the space and autonomy they need.

Tchaikovsky: Eugene Onegin

Inspired by Pushkin's masterpiece of Russian literature, Tchaikovsky’s opera provides a sublime portrait – both ironic and sympathetic – of a character embittered by society life, rejecting love out of vanity, killing his friend the poet Lenski out of pride and spending the rest of his days in abject despair. A repertoire classic, Willy Decker’s streamlined production makes the Paris Opera echo once more to the strains of Russian romantic music. Edward Gardner conducts an exceptional cast including Peter Mattei in the title role and Anna Netrebko as Tatiana.

London Philharmonic Orchestra: The Planets

Edward Gardner conducts the London Philharmonic Orchestra and the London Youth Choir in Gustav Holst’s celestial orchestral suite The Planets, filmed at Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall for Marquee TV. From the warlike force of “Mars” to the mystic fade of “Neptune,” Holst’s seven-movement masterwork journeys through astrology, imagination, and the outer reaches of the human spirit.