Andris Nelsons

On Thursday, June 16, 2022, after two years of the coronavirus pandemic, the Vienna Philharmonic was able to welcome back an audience without restrictions to its traditional Summer Night Concert. This year's atmospheric highlight of the summer music season was dedicated to solidarity with Ukraine and to Europe's musical heritage. In the festively illuminated park of Schönbrunn Palace, they delighted a huge audience with popular classical music by Dvořák, Smetana, Rossini, Beethoven, and others. One of the program's highlights was the waltz "Farewell" by Ukrainian composer Mykola Lysenko. Andris Nelsons conducted this year's Summer Night Concert, with Gautier Capuçon as cello soloist.

Tim Albery's Olivier-nominated production for The Royal Opera delves deep into the psychology of Wagner's cursed wanderer and his beloved Senta, detailing the monomania and uncompromising idealism that finally drives them apart. Michael Levine's elemental single set is dominated by a rolling metal hull that represents the Dutchman's phantom ship, the poverty of Senta's home and the treacherous sea.

Lucas & Arthur Jussen are currently the most successful young piano duo. Accompanied by the Gewandhaus Orchestra under the baton of Andris Nelsons, they follow in the footsteps of composer Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy and his sister Fanny with Mendelssohn's First Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra.

Fifty years after the death of Dmitri Shostakovich, the Gewandhaus in Leipzig is paying tribute to one of the most played composers of the 20th century with a festival entirely dedicated to him. The programme for the opening concert in the futuristic setting of the Great Hall includes the Piano Concerto No. 2 in F major, with Daniil Trifonov as soloist, and the Symphony No. 4 in C minor.

Vienna Philharmonic’s annual Summer Night Concert takes place in the unique setting of the spectacular Schönbrunn Palace Gardens in Vienna. This year’s concert focuses on popular works from the 19th and 20th centuries that highlight Europe's rich musical heritage. Norwegian opera singer and recitalist Lise Davidsen performs arias from Richard Wagner's Tannhäuser and Giuseppe Verdi's La forza del destino. The prominent Czech composer Bedrich Smetana is also celebrated in his bicentennial year. Maestro Andris Nelsons returns to conduct the orchestra for the second time.

Franco Zeffirelli's magnificient staging of Puccini's final opera - a fairy tale set in a mythical China - is one of the most popular in the Met repertory. In this Live in HD production, Maria Guleghina takes on the title role and Marcello Giordani is Calaf, the unknown prince. Marina Poplavskaya and Samuel Ramey co-star, and Andris Nelsons conducts in his Met debut.

John Copley's enduring production of one of the most famously melodious and popular of all operas is a classic of the Royal Opera repertory. With historically accurate designs by Julia Trevelyan Oman and an excellent cast headed by Hibla Gerzmava and Teodor Ilincai, this 2009 revival, in which conductor Andris Nelsons makes a distinguished Royal Opera House debut, does full justice to Puccini's masterpiece. Recorded 2009.

To mark the 50th anniversary of Dmitri Shostakovich's death, the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and the Boston Symphony Orchestra perform his Symphony No. 7, known as the ‘Leningrad’, a symbol of resistance against fascism.