Four-time Grammy winner Renee Fleming presents her first full-length Lieder album in almost two decades, featuring a selection of favorite songs from Brahms, Schumann, and Mahler, including Brahm's "Lullaby" and a breathtaking performance of Mahler's Rückert Lieder with Christian Thielemann and the Munich Philharmonic.

An operatic dream came true in May 2016, when two singers made their role debuts as Lohengrin and Elsa at the Dresden State Opera.
Previously at home in French and Italian lyric tenor roles, Piotr Beczala was expanding his repertory in a direction that many opera fans had long wanted him to explore, while Anna Netrebko – previously hailed as the “queen of bel canto” – was undertaking her first Wagnerian role. It was also her first foray into the lyric-dramatic repertory.

On the occasion of its 50th anniversary, the Salzburg Easter Festival presents a 'Re-creation' of Die Walküre: of Herbert von Karajans musico-theatrical vision of the 19th century masterwork, with which the legendary Maestro opened the very first Easter Festival in 1967. The top-ranking ensemble of singers performs in the faithfully reconstructed scenery of the original production with impressive video backdrops inspired by the original glass paintings. Christian Thielemann, who has been assistant of Karajan in his beginnings, counts among the worlds foremost Wagner conductors, ' there is an absolute polish to this performance that is exceptional' writes the financial Times about the conductor and orchestra. The critics are full of praise for this 'musically ravishing Walküre' (Frankfurter Allgmeine) and its excellent ensemble of soloists'.

On the occasion of its 50th anniversary, the Salzburg Easter Festival presents a 'Re-creation' of Die Walküre: of Herbert von Karajans musico-theatrical vision of the 19th century masterwork, with which the legendary Maestro opened the very first Easter Festival in 1967. The top-ranking ensemble of singers performs in the faithfully reconstructed scenery of the original production with impressive video backdrops inspired by the original glass paintings. Christian Thielemann, who has been assistant of Karajan in his beginnings, counts among the worlds foremost Wagner conductors, ' there is an absolute polish to this performance that is exceptional' writes the financial Times about the conductor and orchestra. The critics are full of praise for this 'musically ravishing Walküre' (Frankfurter Allgmeine) and its excellent ensemble of soloists'.

DG presents the 2016 live recording of Lohengrin at the Dresden State Opera, conducted by Christian Thielemann and starring Piotr Beczala in the title role and Anna Netrebko as Elsa. Beczala’s Lohengrin was deemed “nothing short of spine tingling” by Opera News and ON hailed Netrebko’s performance in her first Wagnerian role as “utterly at home in Wagner’s Romantic universe.”

Director Sven- Erich Bechtolf “has again delved deeply into music and text”, observed the opera magazine Opernnetz in its rave review of the performance captured here. “In Rolf Glittenberg’s beautiful Jugendstil salon, he is constantly in touch with the heartbeat of the story […] As Ariadne, Soile Isokoski radiates enchanting vocal beauty as she forms endless nuances in one blossoming phrase after another. Daniela Fally sings the gruellingly difficult part of Zerbinetta with great flexibility, acting it with nonchalant coquettishness.

The 2019 New Year's Concert will be conducted for the first time by Christian Thielemann. A native of Berlin, Thielemann has been a regular and welcome guest of the Vienna Philharmonic since 2000, with the result that his first New Year s Concert may be seen as setting an example and providing an appropriate tribute to his previous work with the orchestra. According to the orchestra s chairman, Daniel Froschauer, orchestra and musicians trust each other completely: "The profound musical understanding and trust that have existed from the outset and that have always functioned perfectly have subsequently borne remarkable fruit in the symphonic repertory as well."

Renée Fleming performs in a wonderful version of Der Rosenkavalier with an all star cast. Sophie Koch, Diana Damrau, Franz Hawlata, Jonas Kaufmann perform in this Decca release with the Munchner Philharmoniker and Christian Thielemann conducting. For this filming, Baden-Baden Festival Opera is re-staging the celebrated Herbert Wernicke production, already seen in Salzburg (1995) and Paris (1998) – a stylish pastiche of vast mirrors, Viennese Baroque decorations, Hollywood-esque staircases and early 20th century evening wear.

After Tristan und Isolde (2016), Parsifal (2017) and Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (2018) this is the fourth installment of the exclusive, multiyear partnership between Deutsche Grammophon and the Bayreuth Festival, in which the Yellow Label is the exclusive audiovisual partner of the mythical Wagner festival, releasing each edition's new production on Blu-ray.

The 2019 New Year's Concert will be conducted for the first time by Christian Thielemann. A native of Berlin, Thielemann has been a regular and welcome guest of the Vienna Philharmonic since 2000, with the result that his first New Year s Concert may be seen as setting an example and providing an appropriate tribute to his previous work with the orchestra. According to the orchestra s chairman, Daniel Froschauer, orchestra and musicians trust each other completely: "The profound musical understanding and trust that have existed from the outset and that have always functioned perfectly have subsequently borne remarkable fruit in the symphonic repertory as well."

This is a Beethoven Symphonies Cycle of the 21st century! Christian Thielemann and the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra perform Beethoven Symphonies Nos. 1 – 9 incl. and each DVD includes a one-hour-long documentary for each symphony.
Includes an hour-long documentary for each symphony where Maestro Thielemann and Joachim Kaiser (the most famous German music critic) discuss and analyze in an entertaining conversational exchange Thielemann’s interpretation, complemented by excerpts from rehearsals as well as by comparisons of Beethoven cycles with Karajan, Bernstein etc. – no aspect of Beethoven’s symphonic œuvre will remain unaffected!

Filmed live in Baden-Baden by the veteran director Brian Large, Renée Fleming makes her debut in the role of Ariadne together with fellow key Strauss interpreters Sophie Koch and Christian Thielemann, following on from their Rosenkavalier triumph. Thielemann conducts the Staatskapelle Dresden, the orchestra to whom Strauss dedicated his Alpine Symphony and which premiered Feuersnot, Salome, Elektra, Der Rosenkavalier and Daphne. Fleming's voice might have been made for Ariadne and she achieved a great personal triumph in this production: “The chief glory of the evening was hearing Renée Fleming, the Straussian soprano par excellence, making her role debut as Ariadne… As the possessor of what is, possibly, the most beautiful soprano voice in the world, she put her vocal treasures in the service of an empathic, nuanced interpretation of the role. From the creamy top, through a rich, warm middle, to the bewitching, darker colours of her lower register, Fleming poured her magnificent sound into Strauss’s enchanting melodic arcs, animating the sadness, vulnerability, and desire of the bereft princess…” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

2014 marks a year of celebration recognizing the 150th birthday year of the German late-Romantic orchestral, operatic and lied master composer, Richard Strauss (1864-1949). Arabella (premiered 1933, Dresden) was the last of the half dozen Strauss works to feature a libretto by the great Austrian writer Hugo von Hofmannsthal. This production, from the most recent Salzburg Easter Festival is, after Capriccio, the second of three Richard Strauss operas C Major is releasing in honor of the composers birth, life and work. The star-laden cast includes soprano Renèe Fleming, baritone Thomas Hampson, Albert Dohmen (Covent Garden, Wiener Staatsoper, MET) and Gabriela Beaková (Wiener Staatsoper, Covent Garden). With Christian Thielemann and the Staatskapelle Dresden, the music of Richard Strauss is in the best of hands. (ORF) Thielemann gets the best out of the cast…especially Renée Fleming with her luxurious soprano.