Vineyards of the Wachau & River Danube

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Vineyards of the Wachau & River Danube

Vienna

State Opera House at night by Willfried Gredler-Oxenbauer

Vienna Wine & Opera

11 - 14 May 2009

The tour has a superb line up of Operas with exceptional casts. We have chosen these dates as The Staatsoper (the Austrian State Opera House) is showing La Traviata, with Anna Netrebko; Tosca with Jonas Kaufman and Catherine Naglestad; and Madama Butterfly with the Chinese soprano Hui He.

We have been visiting Vienna and the vineyards of Austria on wine tours for many years and have picked out a couple of the high-lights to feature on this trip. We have a day in the Danube vineyards of the Wachau and Kamptal with lunch at Schloss Gobelsberg. The dry Riesling of the Wachau, Kremstal and Kamptal are rated by many as the best in the world. Our day out to Neusiedlersee features a tasting-lunch with the exuberant Willi Opitz, one of the world's greatest sweet winemakers. There will also be an optional visit and lunch at one of the top Vienna wine estate such as Weingut Christ or Weingut Wieninger. Austria produces some of the highest quality wines in Europe, superb dry whites, surprisingly good reds and "off the planet" sweeties. The renaissance of Austrian wine is in full swing. The dark age is a long time behind it and we are now in the era of masterpieces and inspiration. On this tour we'll meet a couple of the great winemakers who are driving Austria forwards, taste awesome wines and receive wonderful hospitality.

The Vienna Staatsoper opened in 1869 as a key part of the development ordered by Emperor Franz-Joseph I involving the demolition of Vienna's medieval walls and replacing these with a wide boulevard, the 'Opern ring'. The Staatsoper is on the site of the old Opera house dating back to the early 1700s and was built in a grand neo-Renaissance style with an arched loggia, great stairways and many reception rooms. It was virtually completely rebuilt after World War2 having been severely damaged. The directors have included Gustav Mahler, Richard Strauss and Herbert von Karajan, and for many years Ioan Holender. It is notoriously difficult to get tickets to the Staatsoper and at each performance we have only a very small allocation of second and third category tickets.

The amazing hospitality of the people, the sophistication of the cuisine, the variety and high quality of the wines, as well as the intense dedication of the wine makers we have chosen to visit PLUS superb operas, makes this tour, which only has 14 places, a must. No wonder Tim Clarke has chosen to escort it personally!

Cast Lists

La Traviata by Giuseppe Verdi

Director: Marco Armiliato
Violetta Valéry:Anna Netrebko
Alfredo Germont:Joseph Calleja
Giorgio Germont: Alberto Gazale

Anna Netrebko.
The Cindarella of the Opera world... the floor cleaner at the St. Petersburg Mariinsky Theatre who rose to become an international superstar... the girl from Krasnodar. Anna has been compared to Callas, a suggestion she rejects utterly. In one interview blowing a raspberry at the idea, but like Callas she had a difficult start to her career and she attracts attention, both envy and adulation. Her stage presence is enormous, her vitality and beauty making her sort of 'visual magnet'. Her voice, quite unlike Callas, is a 'natural' rich, sumptuous style; both pure and resonant. Obviously she carries off the great moments superbly but another part of the secret of her success is how well her voice melds with that of a great tenor. Duets she is in can touch perfection.

She has been triumphant in many roles: Gilda in Rigoletto (at Covent Garden), Manon (now on DVD), Elvira in Puritani, Lucia (Lucia di Lammamoor) and most of all, Violetta in Traviata. It was really her Violetta at the Salzberg Festival in 2005 that catapulted her to international superstardom. Her recent appearance at Covent Garden in Traviata, though marred by a chest infection, was trilling. Although she has delivered the greatest Traviata of her generation (in several different productions), it is very possible that we have not seen the best yet.

Tosca by Giacomo Puccini

Director: Pier Giorgio Morandi
Floria Tosca: Catherine Naglestad
Mario Cavaradossi: Jonas Kaufmann
Baron Scarpia: Ruggero Raimondi

Jonas Kaufmann is one of the most exciting young tenors to have emerged in the last few years. His range is wide and he seems to relish the chalenge of new roles ranging from Wagner to Carmen, but it is as a romantic lead that he has been most awesomely cast. His husky and passionate voice is ideal for the role of the doomed lover - Don Jose in Carmen, Alfredo in La Traviata, Rodolfo in La Boheme and Mario in Tosca. To quote the Daily Telegraph: 'Kaufmann looks every inch the romantic hero, and you could listen to his warm characterful singing all day'.

Catherine Naglestad. The statuesque American soprano regularly brings her clear, bright and powerful voice to demanding roles such Salome, Leonora (Verdi's Trovatore), Norma (Bellini) and of course Tosca. She combines technical virtuosity with emotional force to sometimes devastating effect. Catherine deserves to be much better known by the discerning opera loving public.

Madama Butterfly by Giacomo Puccini

Director: Stefan Soltesz
Cio-cio-san: Hui He
Pinkerton: Marian Talaba
Sharpless: Eijiro Kai

Hui He.

This rising star chinese soprano specialises in Italian Opera. She is a winner of the prestigious "Voci verdiane" (voices of Verdi) competition. Hui He makes something of a speciality of Butterfly

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