London Symphony Orchestra
Sir Simon Rattle conductor
Barbara Hannigan soprano
WEBERN Six Pieces
BERG Three Fragments from Wozzeck
LIGETI Mysteries of the Macabre
STRAVINSKY The Rite of Spring
Label: LSO Live – LSO3028
BluRay + DVD
Filmed live in HD on 15 January 2015
Intl. release: 24 November 2017
Buy & Stream
REVIEWS
BBC Music Magazine – February 2018 Orchestral Choice
“Rattle and the LSO are joined, usurped even, by the extraordinary Barbara Hannigan for extracts from two contrasting operatic landmarks…Make no mistake, the laugh-out-loud high spirits are underpinned by virtuosic, serious music-making of the highest order.”
– BBC Music Magazine, February 2018
“[Hannigan] delivers a performance of split-second accuracy.”
– Classical Music, December 2017
“Beastly modern music at its best.”
– The Daily Telegraph, December 2017
“Barbara Hannigan émouvante dans Berg, explosive dans Ligeti”
“Barbara Hannigan s’y montre aussi à l’aise dans la déclamation que dans le chant. Une interprétation chargée d’émotion qui ne souffre aucun reproche, dans la diction, dans le phrasé, comme dans l’étendue du registre, depuis des graves soutenus jusqu’aux aigus filés ou violemment projetés.
Les Mystères du Macabre de Ligeti, partition fétiche de la soprano canadienne, poussent l’engagement scénique et vocal à son comble. Déguisée en écolière mâchant du chewing gum, elle entame avec une facilité déconcertante des vocalises et onomatopées explosives et vertigineuses, parfaitement en place, soutenue par un orchestre et un chef extrêmement complices.”
– ResMusica, December 2017
“After that the centre-stage was seized by tall blonde Canadian soprano Barbara Hannigan. Before the interval, she embodied the tragic, despairing, put-upon soldier’s wife of Berg’s opera Wozzeck, singing a lullaby to her child. After the interval, she was the crazed Chief of Police, Gepopo, from Ligeti’s absurdist opera Le Grand Macabre, dressed in the schoolgirl pigtails and micro-skirt beloved of certain top-shelf magazines.
Going to extremes suits the brilliant, somewhat brittle Hannigan to a tee. She carried off this transformation with perfect aplomb, while managing the insanely difficult pyrotechnics of Ligeti’s score.”
– The Telegraph, January 2015
“Hannigan brought the house down with her vocal and histrionic daring in Ligeti’s Mysteries of the Macabre, a brief potpourri of music and nonsense text from his only opera.”
– The Guardian, January 2015