Heinz Holliger: Lunea
 | Label: ECM Catalog: 4856322 Format: CD Heinz Holliger's "dream opera" Lunea, premiered to great acclaim at the Zurich Opera House, weaves together plot lines from the life and thought of the Hungarian-born Austrian poet Nikolaus Franz Niembsch (1802-1850), who wrote under the name Nikolaus Lenau. Lenau's last, fragmentary writings fired Holliger's imagination, resulting in a multi-layered work with a wonderfully evocative lead role for baritone Christian Gerhaher. The Neue Zürcher Zeitung wrote: "Here Christian Gerhaher can display all his sensitivity in dealing with the finest nuances of language and bring to bear his almost unlimited spectrum of tonal-dynamic gradations in tone. In this way the poet Lenau speaks most directly without the detour via the stage - namely directly from the tones ...". An extensive 120-page booklet in German and English, with the complete libretto by Händl Klaus and synopses of each of the opera's 23 scenes, as well as an essay by Roman Brotbeck, a performance note by Christian Gerhaher, score fragments, performance photos and more accompany the 2-CD set. Price: $49.98 |