Neuwirth, Orlando "First performance of the year“

Recording of the much-noticed world premiere at the Wiener Staatsoper.

It was an extraordinary evening in every aspect: Olga Neuwirth’s “Orlando” received its world premiere at Wiener Staatsoper, becoming the first opera composed by a woman in 150 years to have been commissioned and staged at the illustrious Austrian house. The magazine Opernwelt declared it the First Performance of the Year.
The libretto, a collaboration between the composer and French playwright Catherine Filloux, takes the audience beyond Virginia Woolf’s famous novel, allowing them to follow the main character in different periods and places, from Elizabethan England to present-day America.
Together with Orlando and Orlando’s child, played by glorious singers Kate Lindsey and Justin Vivian Bond, the audience was invited to witness the confounding paradox of human history: how much has happened, and yet how little has changed. Guided by narrator Anna Clementi and the Orchestra conducted by Matthias Pintscher, the Vienna spectators travelled through time, space and, of course, musical styles.
“Hybrid Grand Opera“ (Süddeutsche Zeitung).
The publisher’s rights for this 21st-Century masterpiece are cleared.

English title NEUWIRTH, ORLANDO
Original title NEUWIRTH, ORLANDO
Genre Opera
Recording location Wiener Staatsoper, Vienna
Recording date December 2019
Production year 2020
Duration 174 min.
Video format HD
Production Company ORF/Wiener Staatsoper
Director Jasmina Eleta
Distribution TV Unitel & C Major for Unitel
Conductor Matthias Pintscher
Stage Director Polly Graham
Soloist Kate Lindsey (Orlando), Anna Clementi (Narrator), Eric Jurenas (Guardian Angel), Justin Vivian Bon (Orlando’s Child) any many others
Orchestra / Band Orchester der Wiener Staatsoper & Soloists
Composer Olga Neuwirth
Libretto Catherine Filloux and Olga Neuwirth, based on Virginia Woolf’s novel “Orlando”