Conductor(s):
Mikko Franck

Orchestra(s):
Finnish National Opera Chorus, Children’s Chorus and Orchestra

Artist(s):
Klaus Florian Vogt; Camilla Nylund; Markus Eiche; Sari Nordqvist; Kaisa Ranta; Melis Jaatinen; Per-Håkan Precht; Juha Riihimäki; Finnish National Opera Chorus, Children’s Chorus and Orchestra; Mikko Franck

"... Kasper Holten’s splendid production ... " (Opera)

"Korngold’s music is marvellous throughout. Vogt ... has, besides the required stamina, also the beauty of tone and the ringing top notes to allow him to ride over the orchestra. His youthful timbre and intelligent phrasing made him the most consummate Paul I have heard, whether live or on a recording. I hope some record company has grabbed the opportunity to record this production, since Vogt was not alone in vocal brilliance. Marietta’s role is also enormously taxing, but Camilla Nylund sang it with the same assurance as Vogt, actually on a par with Katarina Dalayman’s reading in Stockholm.

Mikko Franck, Artistic Director and General Music Director of the Finnish National Opera, is a charismatic conductor and there was an extraordinary glow to the orchestra. With analytic clarity, he laid bare every strand of Korngold’s masterly orchestral colours. I regard Die tote Stadt as one of the greatest operas of the first quarter of the 20th century and the Finnish National Opera’s production makes it stand out as a true masterpiece, scenically and musically." (Seen and Heard International)

"Holten's surreal evocation of Bruges, the dead city of the title, is wonderfully creepy ... Klaus Florian Vogt excels as the wild-eyed, obsessive Paul, desperately trying to make over Camilla Nylund's slutty Marietta in saintly Marie's image. Mikko Franck's conducting is to die for." (The Guardian ★★★★★)

"sheer orchestral seductiveness... undoubtedly a musical triumph" (Gramophone)

"The musical quality of the present Finnish production is outstanding. One knows Mikko Franck’s sensitivity: here he can let it play out to the full, and so he offers us then a tonal, nuanced, emotionally-expressive, detailed performance of the ingenious score of the 23-year-old Korngold. He is superbly supported by the Finnish orchestra and choirs, and in places one even discovers new beauties in the unique music.

The cast is first-rate in every respect. Camilla Nylund is radiant as Marietta, giving intensity to every expressive nuance, and in addition singng with a naturalness that makes one understand why Paul, the widower, believes he has found in her his deceased wife again, only more full of life, more sensual, since Marie was a ‘saint,’ which surely means that the love of the two was platonic rather than sky-high.

Klaus Florian Vogt holds the murderously difficult role of Paul vocally excellent during the three acts (Korngold speaks of ‘pictures’) and can triumph again at the end of the opera with the leitmotivic ‘Glück, das mir verblieb’." (Pizzicato ★★★★★)

"The USP here is Finnish soprano Camilla Nylund apparently in the form of her life, radiant and effortless as she consistently powers and floats above Korngold's thrillingly noisy orchestra, embodying both skittish love interest and noble departed heroine. [CD]" (Gramophone)

"[Nylund] is belting out Korngold's killing lines with abandon and a rich tone. The demanding Paul here is Klaus Florian Vogt...he takes every option in a role with an already impossible tessitura and does not falter once." (Opera Now Magazine ★★★★)

"A glorious operatic triumph that should grace any collector's musical shelf." (Classical Music Daily)