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Schedule - Deutsche Oper Berlin

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Orchestra and Big band at the Musikfest Berlin / Berlin Philharmonie

A Celebration for the „Duke“

A tribute to Duke Ellington to mark his 125th birthday

Information on the piece

2 hrs / 1 interval

With surtitles

There will be a concert introduction (in German) at 7.15 pm in the South Foyer of the Philharmonie Berlin.

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Cast
Dates & Tickets
Our thanks to our partners

A concert in cooperation with Berliner Festspiele / Musikfest Berlin. This concert will be broadcast live on rbb's ‘radio3’ on 16 September 2024. In co-operation with the label ‘EuroArt’ and rbb, a digital release and a CD of the concert will be produced.

Cast
About the performance

Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington [1899 - 1974]
Black and Tan Fantasy (1927)
The Jeep Is Jumpin (1938)
In a Mellow Tone (1939)
Mood Indigo (1931)
Take the A Train (1941)
I Almost Cried (1959)
Caravan (1937, together with Juan Tizol)
Sophisticated Lady (1932)
Cotton Tail (1949)

*** Intermission ***

Duke Ellington
A Tone Parallel to Harlem (1950) for big band and orchestra

Duke Ellington
Night Creature (1963) for big band and orchestra

Duke Ellington / Manfred Honetschläger [*1959]
The Famous Duke (2024) for big band and orchestra - world premiere

Duke Ellington’s name is almost synonymous with the sound of the big band era. The Deutsche Oper Berlin’s Big Band pays him homage to mark his 125th anniversary: as well as his greatest hits, they will also play the world premiere of the Manfred Honetschläger’s suite “The Famous Duke”.

Along with his band he had a formative influence on the sound of jazz from the 1920s onwards and is now clearly established among the greats of 20th century American music: in 2024 the band leader, composer and pianist Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington would have celebrated his 125th birthday. To mark this occasion, Musikfest Berlin together with the Deutsche Oper Berlin Big Band dedicates an evening to him that will recall his music and his time, while also demonstrating the influences that Duke Ellington continues to leave behind on jazz today. Some of his greatest hists of the big band era feature on the programme along with compositions from his later creative period such as “Night Creature” and “A Tone Parallel to Harlem”: works that made him one of the founders of the “third stream”, that typically American combination of jazz with elements of European symphony music and classical modernism. These will be played by the Big Band together with the Orchestra of the Deutsche Oper Berlin conducted by Titus Engel. In addition, the big band and orchestra will also perform the world premiere of Manfred Honetschläger’s suite for a large cast “The Famous Duke”. In this work by the jazz trumpeter and composer, who is also musical director for the evening, there will be another chance to hear both the soloists featured in the first part of the evening. Tony Lakatos is one of Europe’s leading jazz saxophonists – and is regarded among them as the artist whose playing is most deeply steeped in American jazz traditions. The vocalist is Fola Dada, winner of the German Jazz Prize 2022 and a teacher at the Academies of Music in Mannheim, Stuttgart and Nuremberg.

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23
DEC

Advents-Verlosung: Das 23. Fensterchen

This CD of Massenet's HÉRODIADE has only been on sale since 22 November 2024, making it our very latest, brand-new release, which we are delighted to be giving away in our Advent calendar today. If you would like to be among the winners of one of the two CD boxes, please send an e-mail with the subject ‘The 23rd window’ to advent@deutscheoperberlin.de.

Few female figures have inspired the art of the late 19th century as enduringly as the Judean princess Salome, who according to legend was responsible for the beheading of John the Baptist. In France in particular, writers, painters and composers were fascinated by this subject matter and its blend of Orientalism and decadence, of eroticism and opulence. Jules Massenet also took up the subject: however, at the centre of his HÉRODIADE, first performed in Brussels in 1881, is not, as it was a quarter of a century later in Richard Strauss's work, the royal child-woman Salome, but her mother Hérodias, the wife of King Herod. And while Strauss's opera was to become the first major success of the 20th century, Massenet's is a celebration of the grand opera of the 19th century, with pathos, posturing and a Hollywood-style script. With a queen who, out of jealousy, causes the death of her own daughter, a mysterious star diviner, a prophet who is not immune to the feelings of love, a weak-willed ruler and a heroically loving princess, Massenet offers a multitude of striking operatic figures and gives the plot a dazzling ‘colour locale’ by incorporating Hebrew and oriental motifs.

For the concert performance by the Deutsche Oper Berlin, the great French mezzo-soprano Clémentine Margaine returned to the house where she celebrated successes as Carmen, Marguerite in LA DAMNATION DE FAUST and, most recently, as Fidès in LE PROPHÈTE. The performances of HÉRODIADE on 15 and 18 June 2023 were recorded.

On this CD, conducted by our First Permanent Guest Conductor Enrique Mazzola, you can hear Etienne Dupuis (Hérode), Clémentine Margaine (Hérodiade), Nicole Car (Salomé), Matthew Polenzani (Jean), Marko Mimica (Ph anuel), Dean Murphy (Vitellius), Kyle Miller (High Priest), Sua Jo (A Young Babylonian), Thomas Cilluffo (Voice from the Temple), the orchestra of the Deutsche Oper Berlin and our chorus under the direction of Jeremy Bines.


Closing date: 23 December 2024. The winners will be informed by email on 27 December 2024. The CDs will then be sent by post. There is no right of appeal.