At first glance, Hofmannsthal's libretto ARABELLA is a comedy of mistaken identity which, had it been composed by Rossini, could have been a snappy buffo opera. But the music of Richard Strauss, who pulls out all the stops of his orchestral art, from the late romantic intoxication to the most modern discord, creates a subtle, colorful panorama of a society in transition, whose late-bourgeois values are crumbling. One's own identity and interpersonal relationships have to be tested from scratch. Central is – even more than the title character, who oscillates between romance and rebellion – Arabella's younger sister Zdenka, who, disguised as a man by her parents for lack of money for girls' clothes befitting their status, has to struggle all the more desperately with her/his role as an outsider.
Queen Clytemnestra assassinates King Agamemnon. Their daughter, Elektra, lives for the day when her father's death will be avenged. Like a curse, the vendetta must be fulfilled, but is Elektra capable of committing the irreparable? At Grand Théâtre de Genève, the cogs of revenge are set in motion by director Ulrich Rasche, who imprisons the characters of Elektra in a spectacular scenic device: a steel tower weighing almost twelve tons in perpetual rotation. In the pit, conductor Jonathan Nott and his Orchestre de la Suisse Romande confront the musical challenges of Strauss' intoxicating one-act score. The female characters at the centre of the drama are sung by three artists of the highest calibre: Ingela Brimberg as Elektra, Sara Jakubiak as Chrysothemis and Tanja Ariane Baumgartner as Clytemnestra.
This 2021 Deutsche Oper Berlin performance is directed by Christof Loy and stars soprano Sara Jakubiak in the title role. Riccardo Zandonai’s Francesca da Rimini is a four-act opera set during the Renaissance period. The plot concerns an arranged marriage between Francesca and Giovanni, also known as Gianciotto, who is impersonated by his handsome brother Paolo, and with whom Francesca falls passionately in love.
The first-ever audio-visual recording of this opera – directed by Christof Loy, conducted by Marc Albrecht and with Sara Jakubiak, Brian Jagde and Josef Wagner in the leading roles
Die tote Stadt (German for The Dead City) is an opera in three acts by Erich Wolfgang Korngold to a libretto by Paul Schott, a collective pseudonym for the composer and his father, Julius Korngold; it is based on the 1892 novel Bruges-la-Morte by Georges Rodenbach.
Sara Jakubiak is of Polish and German decent and originally hails from Bay City, Michigan. She was a star fast-pitch softball player, competing in tournaments throughout the United States and won two State Championships. Sara holds master degrees from Yale University and the Cleveland Institute of Music.
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