Göteborgs Konserthus Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra and Nina Stemme

Andrea Tarrodi (f 1981) Liguria On the northwest coast of Italy by the Ligurian Sea are five small fishing villages clinging to the steep cliffs. These are called Riomaggiore, Manarola, Corniglia, Vernazza and Monterosso, and between the villages are paths connecting them through the mountains. In August, 2011, I visited this area and as soon as we arrived I knew that I wanted to write music about it. The result is a work that can be described as a “walking tour” among the small villages: Riomaggiore with its high waves; Manarola with its clock tower; Monterosso, where sunbathers stressedly hurried to secure a place on the beach and open up their colorful beach umbrellas, as if in a scene in a Fellini film; Vernazza, with its watchtower and cliffs; and lastly, Corniglia, where the night sky was filled with stars. Andrea Tarrodi 2012

The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra was founded in 1902 and the Stockholm Concert Hall has been the orchestra's home since 1926. Among the guest conductors are greats such as Riccardo Muti, Andris Nelsons, Herbert Blomstedt, Nathalie Stutzmann, Gianandrea Noseda and honorary conductors Sakari Oramo and Alan Gilbert. The orchestra has also started a close collaboration with the prominent Austrian conductor Franz Welser-Möst. The Royal Philharmonic's new chief conductor is the award-winning American Ryan Bancroft, who will formally take up his post starting with the 2023-2024 season. Finnish Sakari Oramo was the orchestra's chief conductor in the years 2008-2021. Together, over the years, they gained a lot of attention for both recordings and international tours. The German daily Die Welt described the Royal Philharmonic as "one of the world's best orchestras". The Royal Philharmonic has received a lot of attention for its recordings. Among these can be mentioned Carl Nielsen's six symphonies on three cd's (BIS), which were praised by critics worldwide and the CD with symphonies no. 1 and 3 was awarded the BBC Music Magazine Award for best classical orchestral production. Two cd's with recordings of Anders Hillborg's music have both been awarded the Swedish Grammis-award, and they have also released a cd with the American star soprano Renée Fleming.

Soprano Nina Stemme has been singing lead roles in operas by Wagner, Strauss, Puccini and Verdi for a long time in the biggest opera houses, such as the Wiener Staatsoper, Covent Garden, La Scala, Metropolitan and Bayreuth. Her repertoire includes Isolde in Tristan and Isolde, Senta in The Flying Dutchman, Marshallin in Der Rosenkavalier, Sieglinde in Die Walküre, Margareta in Faust as well as Jenufa and Salome. The London staging of Tristan and Isolde, directed by Christoph Loy, earned two Lawrence Olivier statuettes, both for Best Production and Best Performance by a Cast. Recent successes include Brünnhilde at La Scala, Fidelio with Claudio Abbado at the Lucerne Festival (opposite Jonas Kaufmann in a highly praised recording), Leonora in Fidelio at Covent Garden, Elisabeth in Tannhäuser in Paris and not least Brünnhilde in San Francisco. On disc, she can be heard in Wagner's Tristan und Isolde (opposite Placido Domingo, EMI), Wesendonck songs (BIS) and The Flying Dutchman (Chandos), as well as Beethoven's Fidelio (Decca) and Richard Strauss's Vier letzte Lieder (EMI). On DVD: Der Rosenkavalier, Aida, Jenufa and Tristan and Isolde. Nina Stemme, who was named the best singer of the year by the German magazine Operwelt, has been a court singer since 2006 and received the Litteris et Artibus in 2008. She has been awarded both the honorary prize among the government's export prize and the Birgit Nilsson prize (2018). In the spring of 2022, she has sung both Siegfried and Valkyrian at the Wiener Staatsoper. In addition she played the leading role of Elektra in Strauss's opera at The Metropolitan Opera in New York. "Sometimes she was forced to brace herself for the role's most punishing outbursts. Yet she delivered them as if with a dragon's breath," wrote the New York Times of Stemme's performance. In the fall of 2024, she will sing in Jenufa at the Royal Opera in Stockholm and The nurse in Die Frau ohne Schatten at the Metropolitan, before she joins the Roya Philharmonic on their european tour in spring 2025.