ANTONIO PAPPANOORCHESTRA DELL’ACCADEMIA NAZIONALE DI SANTA CECILIACORO DELL’ACCADEMIA NAZIONALE DI SANTA CECILIA

BENJAMIN BRITTENWar Requiem

Anna NetrebkoIan Bostridge

Thomas Hampson

ANTONIO PAPPANOORCHESTRA DELL’ACCADEMIA NAZIONALE DI SANTA CECILIA

CORO DELL’ACCADEMIA NAZIONALE DI SANTA CECILIA

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Unitel GmbH & Co. KG, Germany · Tel. +49.89.673469-630 · info@unitel.de www.unitelclassica.com

Produced by ORF Video Director Henning Kasten

Length: approx. 95'Shot in HDTV 1080/50i

Cat. no. A04050013

Conductor Antonio Pappano Orchestra Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia Chorus Coro dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia Chorus Master Ciro Visco

Soprano Anna Netrebko Tenor Ian Bostridge Baritone Thomas Hampson

A co-production of ORF and UNITEL in cooperation with

Salzburg Festival and CLASSICA

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“Intensive, touching… a deeply moving plea for peace” (News) – Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem marks the composer’s 100th birthday with a stellar Salzburg Festival cast: Anna Netrebko, Ian Bostridge and Thomas Hampson in the solo parts, accompanied by the Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia under the baton of Antonio Pappano. A “truly moving” performance, according to La Stampa newspaper.

Composed in memory of victims of World War II and premiered in Coventry Cathedral in 1962, the War Requiem occupies a special place in Britten’s musical oeuvre. Despite orchestral forces that are larger than what Britten usually called for, the composer succeeds in achieving an intimacy in this work capable of expressing the suffering and misery of the war in all its graphic horror – “a delicate yet monumental memorial to war” (Wiener Zeitung).

This is the first time that Anna Netrebko has sung 20th-century music at the Salzburg Festival and she wins us over right from the outset: “Anna Netrebko’s Rex tremendae is profoundly ominous, her Sanctus full of passion, her Lacrimosa overflows with tortuous transcendence – a complex tour de force” (Süddeutsche Zeitung). Ian Bostridge “provided the poignant moments” and “gave a profound impression of the creative impact of the War Requiem” (Die Presse). The Kurier newspaper recognises in Thomas Hampson a “profoundly touching baritone, unparalleled in this fach”, and continues: “Each soloist is ideally cast – that’s the way we want a music festival.”

Antonio Pappano conducts the Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia “with utmost transparency and maximum dynamics, awesome and enchantingly tender” (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung) and never allows the tension to flag. The Coro dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia never sounds too heavy, accurately adheres to the score and is supported by the “excellently rehearsed children’s chorus of the Salzburg Festival” (Kronen Zeitung). All this, then, adds up to a musical interpretation “inspired by such incredible dignity that it must go down in the Festival’s history” (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung).