As DG celebrates its 125th birthday this year, the label is bringing to light some great recordings from the past for the very first time, having unearthed some hidden treasures in the archives. The second release in the “Lost Tapes” series is a digital-only release of Wolf’s Mörike- and Goethe-Lieder with soloist Thomas Quasthoff and Christian Thielemann conducting the Münchner Philharmoniker. The album comes out on 24 November but you can pre-order it now and have a first listen to Der Rattenfänger.

All of Wagner’s operas require a sure hand in the pit: no run-of-the-mill répétiteur will do. But two works, in particular, depend on the conductor as much as anyone on stage for success in performance Tristan and Parsifal. By choosing these two for the first complete Wagner dramas he’s committed to disc, Thielemann is letting us know just how important Wagner’s music is to him and how seriously he wants to be taken as a Wagner interpreter. With this new Parsifal, the conductor demonstrates that he’s a Wagnerian with a point of view, and a master of the composer’s huge musicodramatic structures.

Artists and audiences alike felt a deep sense of loss when the pandemic put a sudden end to live performances last year. The ability to enjoy digital concerts online was some consolation, but as nothing can quite match the magic of direct contact between performer and audience, the few live concerts that were able to go ahead during this period were particularly meaningful. Set for release on 3 December, Live from Salzburg documents two such remarkable events, featuring mezzo-soprano Elīna Garanča’s appearances at the Salzburg Festival in the summers of 2020 and 2021 with the Wiener Philharmoniker and Christian Thielemann.

In cooperation with the Bayreuth Festival and BR-Klassik, we announce the release of Bayreuth 2020: Wagner at Wahnfried. This album features Siegfried Idyll, performed by the Festival’s Music Director Christian Thielemann and members of the Bayreuth Festival Orchestra, and the Wesendonck Lieder, with Finnish soprano Camilla Nylund as soloist.

Artists and audiences alike felt a deep sense of loss when the pandemic put a sudden end to live performances last year. The ability to enjoy digital concerts online was some consolation, but as nothing can quite match the magic of direct contact between performer and audience, the few live concerts that were able to go ahead during this period were particularly meaningful. Set for release on 3 December, Live from Salzburg documents two such remarkable events, featuring mezzo-soprano Elīna Garanča’s appearances at the Salzburg Festival in the summers of 2020 and 2021 with the Wiener Philharmoniker and Christian Thielemann.

This live recording of Ariadne auf Naxos in October 2014 took place not only at the site of the opera premiere of the version of the opera that we are best familiar with these days, but it also testifies Christian Thielemann’s first conducting engagement of a scenic performance of a Strauss opera at the opera house on the Ring. The cast includes Soile Isokoski as Ariadne, Johan Botha - in one of his latest performances before his untimely death - as Bachus, Daniela Fally as Zerbinetta, Sophie Koch as the composer, Jochen Schmeckenbecher as the music teacher and Peter Matic as the dancing master. Many attendees of the premiere of Strauss’ first version of Ariadne - which was intended to succeed Moliere’s Le Bourgeois gentilhomme and for this reason was six hours long - felt that they had just been part of a first-rate funeral.

This Blu-ray box contains the international acclaimed Bruckner cycle of Christian Thielemann, a “magician of the Bruckner sound”(Kurier on Symphony No. 5) and the Staatskapelle Dresden, whose own Bruckner tradition dates back more than a century. Outstanding reviews emphasize the exceptionally high artistic quality of the concerts: “Once again Thielemann proved to be the unrestricted ruler on his ancestral territory, German Romantic repertoire” (Hamburger Abendblatt on Symphony No. 2). Christian Thielemann “displays the full musical maelstrom of Bruckner’s Symphony No. 3” (Münchner Merkur). “Another Bruckner triumph for Dresden” (Sächsische Zeitung on Symphony No. 6). “… one would have to be hard-hearted not to be touched by this heartfelt music” (Der Tagesspiegel on Symphony No. 8).

Otto Schenk’s opulent production, conducted masterfully by Christian Thielemann, provides a perfect setting for Strauss’s bittersweet comedy of true love and mistaken identity. The great Kiri Te Kanawa is radiant as Arabella, the daughter of an impoverished aristocrat who must marry a wealthy man to save her family. Wolfgang Brendel sings Mandryka, the landowner from the provinces who wins her over with his honesty and genuine charm in the midst of Viennese society.

Four-time Grammy winner Renee Fleming presents her first full-length Lieder album in almost two decades, featuring a selection of favorite songs from Brahms, Schumann, and Mahler, including Brahm's "Lullaby" and a breathtaking performance of Mahler's Rückert Lieder with Christian Thielemann and the Munich Philharmonic.

An operatic dream came true in May 2016, when two singers made their role debuts as Lohengrin and Elsa at the Dresden State Opera.
Previously at home in French and Italian lyric tenor roles, Piotr Beczala was expanding his repertory in a direction that many opera fans had long wanted him to explore, while Anna Netrebko – previously hailed as the “queen of bel canto” – was undertaking her first Wagnerian role. It was also her first foray into the lyric-dramatic repertory.

On the occasion of its 50th anniversary, the Salzburg Easter Festival presents a 'Re-creation' of Die Walküre: of Herbert von Karajans musico-theatrical vision of the 19th century masterwork, with which the legendary Maestro opened the very first Easter Festival in 1967. The top-ranking ensemble of singers performs in the faithfully reconstructed scenery of the original production with impressive video backdrops inspired by the original glass paintings. Christian Thielemann, who has been assistant of Karajan in his beginnings, counts among the worlds foremost Wagner conductors, ' there is an absolute polish to this performance that is exceptional' writes the financial Times about the conductor and orchestra. The critics are full of praise for this 'musically ravishing Walküre' (Frankfurter Allgmeine) and its excellent ensemble of soloists'.

On the occasion of its 50th anniversary, the Salzburg Easter Festival presents a 'Re-creation' of Die Walküre: of Herbert von Karajans musico-theatrical vision of the 19th century masterwork, with which the legendary Maestro opened the very first Easter Festival in 1967. The top-ranking ensemble of singers performs in the faithfully reconstructed scenery of the original production with impressive video backdrops inspired by the original glass paintings. Christian Thielemann, who has been assistant of Karajan in his beginnings, counts among the worlds foremost Wagner conductors, ' there is an absolute polish to this performance that is exceptional' writes the financial Times about the conductor and orchestra. The critics are full of praise for this 'musically ravishing Walküre' (Frankfurter Allgmeine) and its excellent ensemble of soloists'.

DG presents the 2016 live recording of Lohengrin at the Dresden State Opera, conducted by Christian Thielemann and starring Piotr Beczala in the title role and Anna Netrebko as Elsa. Beczala’s Lohengrin was deemed “nothing short of spine tingling” by Opera News and ON hailed Netrebko’s performance in her first Wagnerian role as “utterly at home in Wagner’s Romantic universe.”