Soprano Rachel Harnisch

MEILENSTEIN: JOHANNES BRAHMS - LIEDER & DUETTE
Rachel Harnisch - Martina Viotti - Yannick Debus - Jan Schultsz

The Dutch pianist and conductor Jan Schultsz is a professor of chamber music and song composition at the Basel University of Music. But he is also an excellent accompanist, on whose skills Cecilia Bartoli, Werner Güra and Ian Bostridge have counted. On his new double CD, Schultsz undertakes a journey through all phases in the life of Johannes Brahms as a composer based on the songs and duets. With exciting results, because the recording with three outstanding singers (Rachel Harnisch, Marina Viotti, Yannick Debus) comes closer to Brahms than almost any other song CD so far.

Jan Schultsz maintains the historical approach down to the last detail with meticulousness and expertise. One side of it is the instrument itself: Brahms privately owned a fortepiano made by the piano maker J. B. Streicher, whom he held in high esteem and of which he himself said that he had the technique and sound of the piano very clearly in mind (or ears) when composing it. Schultsz was able to use an identical model of that instrument for this recording. We also know a lot about the personal piano playing of Johannes Brahms, on the one hand through testimonies from contemporaries, but also through a recording on a so-called Edison cylinder, a forerunner of the gramophone. This shows that Brahms apparently cultivated a very free, almost improvising way of playing the piano. This applies not only to the tempo relations in a small space, but above all to the arpeggiation of the chords and the not exactly in meter guidance of accompanying parts. Bindings were played with the fingers as much as possible, but the pedal was used very sparingly.

Jan Schultsz has decidedly made these findings his own and internalized the specific playing styles of Brahms in such a way that we can get an idea of how Brahms himself would have accompanied his songs. This is often slightly irritating when you first listen to it, and the meter often appears blurred. On the other hand, it gives the three singers an enormous amount of space to trace the nuances of meaning of these melodies and poems. So these interpretations sound incredibly lively, like the way a good actor would recite these texts, and not as the note values of a four-four time dictate. And when it comes to singing, the three artists can show their best side in every respect.
Reinmar Wagner
http://www.musikundtheater.ch/...

JOHANNES BRAHMS: LIEDER & DUETTE – JUNGE KEHLEN, ERNSTER GENUSS

On the album cover of their double CD Johannes Brahms Lieder & Duette, the four protagonists Jan Schultsz (pianist), Rachel Harnisch (soprano), Marina Viotti (mezzo-soprano) and Yannik Debus (baritone) show us their half-profile. Are you looking out of the picture, perhaps at what the future may bring you? This, as well as the pictures inside the cover and in the accompanying text booklet, convey a completely unaffected impression of three young singers and their accompanist at the piano, who clearly enjoy their collaboration. A collaboration, the result of which is an album that gives us more than two hours of music of high artistic quality. The authenticity of the images is also reflected in the individual lectures, which are just as free from any fake attitude. In return, they show love and understanding for Brahms and his music.

As a native of Hamburg, the first thing that comes to mind is the name Johannes Brahms, the Brahms Museum in Peterstrasse, the special atmosphere in the air there, the gentle smell of old wood and ivory that is steeped in history emanating from Brahms' keyboard . Then, when my thoughts become more professional, his great compositions immediately come to me in the music-loving sense: A German Requiem, the Hungarian Dances, the Violin Concerto in D major op79, all the symphonies, impressive piano concertos. If I was asked about Brahms ‘songs so far, I could immediately say good evening, good night (lullaby), then rain song, blind cow, May night and - well and then it would be time to think. But it's not just the recognition moments when one of these songs is heard on this CD that make this production so worth listening to. It gives us the pleasure of quiet works by a composer whose "sonorous" works get under our skin and inspire us again and again in concerts. We listeners only need the willingness to really get mentally and emotionally involved in the multitude of pieces that await us here. Because they are often no longer than some cabalettas or ariettas in an opera, with mostly less memorable melodies and the intention to achieve an intense statement in the shortest possible time.

Like any kind of music or art for which more than one person is responsible, song singing lives from togetherness. Here it is the respective singer and Jan Schultsz accompanying on the piano. The Amsterdam native works as a chamber musician, conductor and accompanist for well-known singers such as Ceclia Bartoli, Vesselina Kasarova and Daniel Behle. His playing proves experience, which however does not become routine, but rather contributes to the fact that text, tempo, singing and accompanying melody make a whole that is convincing.

It is the two women who own the lion's share of this production, as they also sing duets together. Der Herr im Bunde plays 9 songs and chants op 32 on the first CD. Yannik Debus, baritone, was born in Hamburg in 1991 and is currently a member of the International Opera Studio at Zurich Opera House. He leads his voice confidently in all situations. In the depths she sounds full and more mature than you would expect from such a young man and she understands that on some pages he is advertised not as a baritone but as a bass. His timbre in the higher registers and in the piano is soft, ingratiating and otherwise powerful and filled with just the right amount of Weltschmerz sound. All the pieces on this double CD are beautiful proof that the term (German) Romanticism, as the epoch to which Brahms' works are counted, has little to do with sweet, dreamy rhymes and melodies, but rather with playing with darker feelings and Emotions that drive us humans. Doubt, fear of loss and the mysticism of death are the focus and not the bliss of being in love. Debus ‘cycle is for me, regardless of the lyrics, the most mystical. Perhaps the impression is supported by the fact that these are 9 songs sung exclusively by a male performer. I was particularly taken with Debus ‘interpretation of How are you my queen (op.32 no.9). Here Debus tells a story of tender devotion to the longing for death. His ideally used voice is the icing on the cake with which this song gets under your skin.The soprano Rachel Harnisch was born in Freiburg im Breisgau. She is the artist among the three with the greatest stage experience, be it in roles like Pamina (Die Zauberflöte, Mozart) or Jenufa (Jenufa, Janáček) or as a song and concert singer. Already the opening song Heimkehr (op.7 no.6) suggests what vocal passion she is capable of. Lullaby (op.49 no.4) then she sings with a tenderness with which everyone would like to be sung to sleep. Let me also mention the blind cow (op.58 no.1), rain song (op.59 no.3), serenade (op.106 no.1) and salamander (op.107 no.2), songs with quite different A statement that is also reflected in the character of music, not just in the words. Rachel Harnisch puts an unmistakable stamp on everything, with her beautiful soprano and the clear, always secure highs, which captivates and arouses curiosity to experience the artist live. Corona wants the young Swiss mezzo-soprano Marina Viotti to be on stage on December 3rd at the Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian in Lisbon as Elle in Francis Poulenc's La Voix Humaine and at the end of January 2021, she will appear as Niclause / Muse in Jacques Offenbach's Le contes de Hoffmann planned for the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona. Her mezzo has a youthful freshness but already has the warmth and changeability that enables or will enable a multitude of different parts for this pitch. Your performance of the Eight Gypsy Songs op. 103 may serve to give an example of your skills. The tones flow effortlessly, fiery in Hey, Gypsies, inviting them to play a song that moves you to tears. Beginning teasingly and tenderly, it increases in Know You When My Girl to passion in just one verse. Her voice appears relaxed and free in all of her performances. The duets of the two women show how harmoniously two expressive voices can sound together. Also, or especially when the natural tension between male and female is missing. I would like to highlight Walpurgis Night op.75 no.4, a dialogue between mother and daughter, as well as ways of love op.20 no.1 & 2 and sounds op.66 no.1 & 2.
Birgit Kleinfeld
http://operngestalten.de/2020/11/25/johannes-brahms-lieder-duette-junge-kehlen-ernster-genuss/

La confidence et le secret
Johannes Brahms : Lieder & Duette

The lied is the most secret part of Brahms’s work. Admittedly the Quatre chants graves, the two lieder with obligatory viola, the Liebesliederwalzer and a few rare others appear in the repertoire, but these are few things compared to Schubert, Schumann or even Wolf, constantly sung and recorded.

Out of the 300 or so lieder by Brahms, for solo voice or small ensemble, here are about sixty listed in chronological order. Around the pianist Jan Schultz, the soprano Rachel Harnisch, the mezzoMarina Viotti and the baritone Yannick Debus offer an anthology, solo melodies, but also soprano-mezzo duets.

We will go from the juvenile Liebestreu op. 3/1 (1853, Brahms was twenty) to the very disenchanted Song of the Spinner (Mädchenlied) op. 107/5, composed in the summer of 1886, on the shores of Lake Thun, this place he said you had to be very careful about when walking in nature, because the melodies came out everywhere and you risked to walk on it… And indeed, that summer, the composition of fifteen lieder was interwoven with that of the second cello sonata, the second violin and the third trio.

It was his way of composing. Very early in the morning, this great walker would go out into the countryside, an inexhaustible source of inspiration, and let melodies ripen for a long time in his mind, which he then touched up at his table for a long time, to their point of perfection. Nature will be constantly present in his songs, as in Schubert, a misty nature, in unison with a melancholy soul, rehashing its (amorous) disappointments, or its failures. Lied, for Brahms, is the place of confidence, if not of confession.

Nature in unison with the soul
The famous Wiegenlied, a great classic of music boxes, which has spun over countless cradles, follows ballads in the most lyrical of German traditions, such as Von ewiger Liebe op. 43/1, which features three characters, in a dramatic progression admired by Hugo Wolf: a narrator who evokes the night falling over fields and forests, a young man who doubts love that will go with the rain, which will go with the wind ”and a young girl who has no doubts:“ We can melt iron and steel, our love will last forever ”. Rachel Harnisch sings it with almost excessive intensity, and it is the mark that she will give to most of the pieces that will be devoted to her. The colors of her voice carry their tragic weight, and sometimes go to certain harshness. Hers is no suave Brahms, she follows another slope, that of fiery drama.

Be wise, oh my pain
The young German baritone Yannick Debus sings the lieder cycle op. 32, composed in 1864, based on poems * by August von Platen and Georg Friedrich Daumer, texts where night, haggard wandering, loneliness and death meet ("I would like to no longer live, / I would like disappear instantly, / And I would also like to live / For you, with you, and never, never die "), the duplication (" And this man that I was, and that for a long time / I exchanged for another, where is he now? ”), despair (“ How could I / Be darker? ”). We do not really know what, in the life of Brahms, a secret man, made him choose these texts which only speak of failure, of separation, of neglect, but they inspired him with melodies of greatness and power. , with heart-rending pain. And this is how Yannick Debus sings them, without failing, without sentimentalism, with nobility, breadth, height, a very beautiful baritone voice and impeccable diction. This is one of the highlights of this double album and we can be sure that we will talk about this singer again.

The colors of Brahms' piano
We will also hear, and perhaps we will discover over the course of the two discs, some thirteen duets for female voices. Small charming pieces, where musical lines intertwine (Brahmsian melodic inspiration seems inexhaustible), but curiously the texts retain, even here, their weight of dreamy sadness. We should speak here of a trio rather than a duo, as Jan Schultz’s piano is a third voice, golden and light, a Streicher piano from 1871, identical to the one Brahms liked to play at his home in Vienna. This instrument is largely in the charm of these beaches, in their intimacy, in their nostalgic and soft color.

Among the most beautiful lieder, Es traümte mir, op. 57/3, (not I dream, but that dreams in me…), on a poem by Daumer, is reduced to a series of arpeggios punctuated by silences, on which a voice hovers, in an atmosphere which prefigures the impalpable feeling of the ultimate Klavierstücke, or Schwermut, op. 58/5 (also 1871), of which Rachel Harnisch recreates with an interior emotion the desolate, almost funereal character. Immediately after, we will hear the famous Regenlied, op. 59/3 (1873), the song of the rain, which provided the initial theme of the first violin sonata, nostalgic lied if ever there is one since it celebrates the summer storms of yesteryear, the pleasure of child to wade in the river and receive the cool drops on his warm cheeks. Brahms, they say, particularly liked this tender song, sad and joyful at the same time, in which Rachel Harnisch is radiant.

Secrets in a whisper
We can see that the choice of texts is not trivial. Brahms, as we know, besides being interested in everything, encyclopedic and greedy mind, was a great reader, a lover of books. He sets his sights on poems that awaken resonances in him, that echo his intimate life, his loves, real or dreamed, his regrets, his deep romanticism. Thus Agnès (1873), on a poem by Mörike, evokes the loneliness of an abandoned young woman, to whom a boy had nevertheless sworn loyalty, and her sad song. Here as throughout the album, Marina Viotti is doing wonderfully well. She chooses to retain her great voice, in favor of intimacy, simplicity, softness (the very beautiful Feldeinsamkeit, bucolic but everything of even gloomy: "I feel as if I had been dead for a long time / And drawn blessed through eternal space"). Unexpectedly, this repertoire so deeply Germanic is perfectly suited to this brilliant Rossinian, and to the voluptuous colors of her timbre. She reserves her brilliance for the eight Zigeunerlieder, op. 103, reflections of the Hungarian tropism of Brahms, which she sings with the necessary flame and playfulness.

And to return for a moment to the summer of 1886, Marina Viotti sings, wonderfully says Immer leiser wird mein Schlummer, op. 105/2 ("Yes, I will have to die, you will kiss another") or Klage op. 105/3 ("It's yesterday, / My heart is broken with heartbreak"). There is the beauty of the tone, the handling of the line, but there is also the half-heartedness, the confidence: it is the words that give music its breath. All the art of the song is there.
Charles Sigel
https://www.forumopera.com/cd/johannes-brahms-lieder-duette-la-confidence-et-le-secret

CHRONIQUE D'ALBUM: JOHANNES BRAHMS, LIEDER & DUETTE
Rachel Harnisch, Marina Viotti et Yannick Debus

Last month the Johannes Brahms, Lieder & Duette album was released by Panclassics which, as its name suggests, includes many of the composer's lieder as well as various duets. Jan Schultsz accompanies Rachel Harnisch, Marina Viotti and Yannick Debus on the piano, forming a very beautiful trio of voices which sometimes intermingle to the delight of the ear.

One of the attractions of this double CD is to offer a large panel of works by Brahms, thus allowing to appreciate at the same time works of youth, "lively and humorous compositions", as well as "the another face of Brahms, full of melancholy emotions and feelings of sadness ”. Not insignificant detail, the instrument traversed by the expert fingers of Jan Schultsz is an original piano from Brahms's time, and more precisely the model that the composer himself had at home. Enough to fully immerse yourself in the universe of Brahms, tinged with a living room atmosphere, a cozy musical cocoon. The soprano Rachel Harnisch opens the ball (and will close it too) with a beautiful demonstration of projection, without losing nuances and bringing relief to the song. A series of duets with Marina Viotti follows quickly, to our great pleasure, the two voices responding here distinctly without any dichotomy before joining. As for baritone Yannick Debus, he offers Lieder und Gesänge, Op.32 with a tone that is both dark and solar which unfolds in nine tunes, plunging us into the history and the emotions of the text. So we curl up with pleasure in this first disc which, let's face it all the same, ends up rocking and making people fear listening to the second opus, anticipating a certain length due to the selected program - although the latter is not lacking of interest and is despite everything rich in the evolution of Brahms writing.

However, the second disc is generally more rhythmic, and breaks with what could appear to a certain rhythmic monotony. The Fünf Duette Op.66 opens the ball, bringing together the voices of Rachel Harnisch and Marina Viotti which blend wonderfully together, the clarity of the soprano echoing the depth of the mezzo-soprano, much like the shadow is inseparable from the person or object to which it is attached. The last duo brings a new energy, a certain mischievous flight that reminds us of the ear to the record. The lieder then return with calm, still allowing the vocal surges of the artists to be appreciated. Marina Viotti thus lends herself in particular to the exercise, and takes us in the first of Zigeunerlieder, op.103, "He, Zigeuner", in a touching and bewitching depth of soul, before the second lets hear even more the bass assured of the singer, launched straight into the heart of their target. Rachel Harnisch takes over in a series of Lieder to close this second entirely feminine album, with an unfailing commitment and nuances which bring a nice balance to the whole, sometimes catchy as in "Ständchen", the first lied of the album. 'opus 106. Let us quote the accompaniment of Jan Schultsz, perfectly correct and balanced in an extension and a support of the voice or the voices without fault. Panclassics therefore offers a double disc bringing together no less than 28 tracks on one side and 30 on the other around this particular register of Lieder and Brahm. A program especially intended for lovers of the composer, or the genre but whose listening in one go, for others, can be tedious. We will take any pleasure, especially in this second case, to peck these arias, even if we then lose listening to the evolution of the composition, but not that of the sometimes different intentions that emerge from these pages. of Brahms served with talent.
Elodie Martinez
https://www.opera-online.com/f...

Un superbe programme brahmsien, servi par quatre interprètes d’exception…
Johannes Brahms, Lieder & Duette (Harnisch, Viotti, Debus, Schultsz)

Is it because they may not possess the seductive spontaneity of the first, or the irresistible impulse of the second? The fact remains that Brahms' lieder do not really enjoy, with the general public, the same notoriety as those of Schubert or Schumann. However, their great beauty has long been recognized, and many are the recordings that have helped to reveal it: among others many artists, Hans Hotter, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau in the past, or, closer to us, Margaret Price, Jessye Norman, Anne Sofie von Otter, Bernarda Fink, Mathias Goerne and Marie-Nicole Lemieux have proposed engravings that are all attractive in various respects.

Yet this double CD is capturing interest and establishing itself in the discography for at least three reasons.

The choice of program, first of all. The artists have chosen to respect the order of the opuses, and the pieces offered range from opus 3 n ° 1 (Liebestreu) to opus 107 n ° 5 (“Mädchenlied”), thus offering a very complete panorama the art of the musician in the vocal domain, making it possible to measure the evolution and the variety of his musical language (the Kunstlieder, cultured and refined lieder, in durchkomponierte form - without hyphenation or repetitions - alongside other simpler pages , of popular inspiration - the Volkslieder - built according to a strophic progression), by mixing certain essentials (the Wiegenlied, the Zigeunerlieder, "Der Tod das ist die kühle Nacht", "Immer leise wird meine Schlummer", ...) with d ' other pieces more rarely engraved or less often heard at the concert. Thus, if the Brahms with its density and often quite dark melancholy, which is familiar to us, is present, we also happily (re) discover a lighter, happy, juvenile, sometimes even humorous vein of the musician who, like Jan Schultsz says jokingly in the presentation leaflet, was not always "the serious old man with the full beard" that his latest portraits show us.

Second reason for satisfaction: the choice of the piano. At the end of his life (1870-1897), Brahms played on a superb grand piano built by Johann Baptist Streicher in 1868. The instrument (serial number 6713) was destroyed during World War II. Recently, however, a replica of this instrument was made by American restorer and piano maker Paul McNulty, who owns two original Streicher's.

Second reason for satisfaction: the choice of the piano. At the end of his life (1870-1897), Brahms played on a superb grand piano built by Johann Baptist Streicher in 1868. The instrument (serial number 6713) was destroyed during World War II. Recently, however, a replica of this instrument was made by American restorer and piano maker Paul McNulty, who owns two original Streicher's.

It is not on this replica that Jan Schultsz plays, but on a period instrument, designed by Streicher in 1871 and comparable to the one Brahms owned. Brahms was extremely attached to this instrument. This is evidenced by what he wrote in a letter to Clara Schumann: "It is quite another thing to write for instruments whose characteristics and sound we have vaguely in mind, which we can only imagine mentally. , and to write for an instrument that we know inside out as I know this piano. So I know exactly what I'm writing and why I'm writing it this way or that. According to Jan Schultsz, the special sound of this piano but also the very particular interpretive technique of the musician (as we can hear it, despite a very ghostly sound, in a recording from 1899 - on an Edison cylinder - where Brahms plays himself at the piano the first of the Hungarian Dances) made it possible to ensure the singer a perfect intelligibility.

In fact, the third reason that makes this CD valuable is precisely the extreme talent of the performers, singers and pianist. The soprano Rachel Harnisch (who just recently had the opportunity to have her Emilia Marty from L'Affaire Makropoulos applauded in Geneva before the Grand Théâtre was forced to close its doors), the mezzo Marina Viotti (who is coming to grant us an interview) and the baritone Yannick Debus show a particularly remarkable attention to the text: their very clear and idiomatic articulation, their natural diction and without afféterie make that one does not lose a syllable of the poems, and that the fusion and the The complementarity of poetry and music, which constitute the very heart of this artistic genre, are constantly at work.

Yannick Debus (who performs the Lieder und Gesänge op. 32) is a very nice discovery: this young baritone of German origin has a perfectly healthy voice and easy to project. Its very clear timbre does not prevent it from giving the interpreted pages all the depth required, by subtle variations in colors and constant attention to words. When we met last October, Marina Viotti confided in us her love of melody and lieder: she shows herself here quite simply excellent, emphasizing a tone that is sometimes luminous, sometimes deep, capable of doing justice to the climates specific to each of the lieder. entrusted to him, from the black savagery of the first gypsy song to the lightness of the second, from the serenity of "Feldeinsamkeit" to the ardor of "Rote Abendwolken", from the delicately chiseled poetry of "Sapphischen Oden" to the humor of “Die Schwestern”, which she sings in duet with the soprano. Note also that the voice and the art of singing the mezzo blend admirably with those of Rachel Harnisch with a rich timbre (whose pulp sometimes recalls the voice of a Karita Mattila), with a range of nuances including she plays at will, with a taste that is always very sure, devoid of any mannerisms. It goes without saying that the master builder Jan Schutsz dialogues with these three artists with a musicality and a sense of poetry at all times.
Stéphane Lelièvre
https://www.premiereloge-opera...

JOHANNES BRAHMS: LIEDER & DUETTE
Rachel Harnisch, Sopran - Marina Viotti, Sopran - Jan Schultsz, Klavier - Yannick Debus, Tenor

Johannes Brahms composed more than 300 songs, including adaptations of German folk songs and choral songs. Pan Classics offers on 2 CDs, a beautiful anthology of songs, and duets with piano accompaniment, sung by a soprano, a mezzo and a baritone, with voices of the highest level. Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) composed all his life Liederen, of the “Sechs Gesänge für eine Tenor- oder Sopranstimme und Klavier”. 3 from 1853, dedicated to Bettina von Arnim, to the “Vier ernste Gesänge für eine Baßstimme und Klavier” op. 121 from 1896, dedicated to the German Symbolist painter, sculptor and graphic artist, Max Klinger (1857-1920).

These 2 CDs present a selection from Brahms' extensive song repertoire, which not only gives an impression of his importance for the history of the Lied and what a perfect song composer he was, but who, despite his reputation, also shows, what a cheerful, young and humorous person he was at times. The selection of songs and duets is arranged chronologically (1853-1896) and covers all phases of his life, from “Heimkehr” from 1851-1853 and “Liebestreu” from 1853, to Fünf Lieder op. 107 from 1886-1888. The lyrics, to be followed in the accompanying booklet, include von Platen, Uhland, Herder, Georg Friedrich Daumer, August Kopisch, Klaus Groth, Möricke and Hans Schmidt. The singers are Rachel Harnisch (soprano), Marina Viotti (mezzo-soprano) and Yannick Debus (baritone), all young, very talented singers, who have since celebrated successes with their concerts and their roles in major opera houses. They are accompanied by Jan Schultsz on an original piano from 1871 by Johann Baptist Streicher, a model on which Brahms preferred to play.

Johann Baptist Streicher was the son of Nanette Stein (the daughter of the keyboard builder, Johann Andreas Stein (1728-1792), the builder of "Mozart's Klavier"), and of the keyboard builder, Johann Andreas Streicher (1761-1833). Nanette and Johann Andreas Streicher were Beethoven's confidants during his last years in Vienna.The chosen songs, sung alternately by Rachel Harnisch, Marina Viotti, or together, come from Balladen und Romanzen, among others. 75 (1877-1878), Duets op. 20 (1858-1860), op. 61 (1852-1874) and op. 66 (1873-1875), 8 Lieder und Gesänge, op. 57 (1871) and on. 59 (1870-1873), and the Zigeunerlieder, op. 103 (1887-1888), originally for 4 voices with piano.

The Swiss soprano, Rachel Harnisch, was born in Brig in 1973 and studied with Beata Heuer-Christen at the Hochschule für Musik in Freiburg. In 2000 she made her debut as Pamina in the City Theater of Bern, conducted by Miguel Gomez-Martinez and in the Zurich Opera House, conducted by Franz Welser-Möst. Further assignments took her to the Grand Théâtre de Geneva, Zurich and Santiago de Chile. In 2004 she sang Fiordiligi in “Così fan tutte” in Ferrara conducted by Claudio Abbado, and in Modena and Reggio nell’Emilia, Bern and Avenches, she sang Micaela in “Carmen”. She debuted in Paris at the Opéra Bastille as Pamina, directed by Robert Wilson, under the musical direction of Jiří Kout. In 2006 she sang her first Contessa in “Le nozze di Figaro” in Verona and in 2007 she made her debut with the Deutsche Oper Berlin as Pamina, followed in 2008 by her first Amor in “Orfeo ed Euridice” conducted by Leopold Hager, and Clémence in Kaija Saariaho's “L'amour de loin”, on a libretto by Amin Maalouf, in Antwerp and Ghent in 2009. In 2011-2012 she sang Blanche in “Dialogues des Carmélites” at the Deutsche Oper Berlin and Hélène d'Egmont in the world premiere of Gaetano Donizetti's “Le duc d'Albe” at the Flemish Opera in Antwerp and Ghent. The work not yet completed by Donizetti was completed by Giorgio Battistelli (° 1953), an ex-pupil of Stockhausen and Kagel. As a concert singer Harnisch, Luigi Nono's “Prometeo-Suite”, Tippett's “A Child of Our Time”, Schumann's “Szenen aus Goethes Faust”, Mendelssohn's “Elijah” and “Musik zu Ein Sommernachtstraum”, Debussy's “Le Martyre de Saint Sébastien” , Haydn's “Die Schöpfung” and Caecilien-Messe, Handel's “Messiah”, Bach's John Passion, Mahler's Symphony No. 2 and Symphony No. 4, Pergolesi's Stabat Mater, Haydn's “L'isola disabitata”, Mozart's Requiem and Grosse Messe in c , K. 427, Beethoven's Symphony No. 9, Brahms' Ein deutsches Requiem and Poulencs Gloria, conducted by Claudio Abbado, Kent Nagano and Nikolaus Harnoncourt. She sang song recitals, accompanied by Irwin Gage, Maurizio Pollini, Cedric Pescia and Jan Philip Schulze, in Zurich, Geneva, Bochum, Berlin, Bern, Florence, Perugia, Rome and at the Lucerne Festival.

Marina Viotti was born in Switzerland, but grew up in France. She not only studied classical music (flute), but also jazz, and focused on metal and chanson. After a master's in philosophy and literature, she went to Vienna, where she started her vocal training in 2010 with Heidi Brunner. In 2013 she was accepted at the HEMU (Haute école de musique) in Lausanne, in the singing class of Brigitte Balleys, and obtained a soloist Master degree. She perfected her bel canto technique with Raul Gimenez in Spain. Marina won the third prize at the Concours de Genève, after winning the first prize at the international competition of Mâcon in 2015 and the international Belcanto prize at the Rossini Festival of Bad Wildbad. The young mezzo is laureate of the Bourse Mosetti, the Weltner Stiftung, the Bourse Migros and the Bourse Leenards. She sang her first roles in the Opéra de Lausanne, Dritte Dame (“Zauberflöte”), “L'enfant et les sortilèges” and Martha in “Faust”, and in the summer of 2015, got her first title role as Isabella “in L “italiana in Algeri” by Rossini at the Rossini Festival of Bad Wildbad, a role she sang again in 2017 at the Lucerne Theater, where she also sang Maddalena in “Rigoletto”. She wants to build bridges between “musical and mental boundaries” and discover new colors and she creates shows and recitals that connect opera, operetta, cabaret, chanson and jazz. With her recitals, "Love has no borders" and "De Bach à Piaf, chansons d 'amour", she is regularly invited to European stages and festivals (Lavaux Classics, Solothurn Classics, Label Suisse, Barcelona, Périgord Noir and Aachen). Yannick Debus was born in Hamburg in 1991. From the age of nine he took trumpet lessons and later singing, piano and music theory. He studied singing with Michael Gehrke and music theory / ear training with Prof. Dr. Oliver Korte. In January 2013 he sang the role of Figaro in Mozart's “Le Nozze di Figaro” in the opera production of Hamburg University.

https://www.stretto.be/2020/10...