The Snow Queen — HDVDARTS

Hans Abrahamsen The Snow Queen opera to libretto by Hans Abrahamsen and Henrik Engelbrecht. Directed 2019 and 2020 by Andreas Kriegenburg at the Bayerische Staatsoper. Stars Barbara Hannigan (Gerda), Rachel Wilson (Kay), Katarina Dalayman (Grandmother/Old Lady/Finn Woman/Snow Queen), Peter Rose (Reindeer/Clock), Caroline Wettergreen (Princess), Dean Power (Prince), Kevin Conners (Forest Crow), and Owen Willetts (Castle Crow). Cornelius Meister conducts the Bayerisches Staatsorchester and Bayerischer Staatsopernchor (Chorus Master Stellario Fagone). Set design by Harald B. Thor; costume design by Andrea Schraad; lighting design by Michael Bauer. Directed for TV by Christoph Engel. Sung in English with subtitles in English, German, Danish, French, Japanese, and Korean. Released 2022, disc has 5.1 dts-HD Master Audio sound. Grade: NA

This is a new opera that premiered in Danish in 2019. An English version of the libretto was written by Amanda Holden so that the Bayerische Staatsoper could produce this in Munich in 2019-2020 with Barbara Hannigan singing Gerda.

First the bad news. Andrew Mellor, writing in the March 2022 Gramophone (page 74) warns that the work is cold and sparse. The original and rather complicated fairy tale by Hans Christian Anderson is transformed into a story of Gerda trying to save Kay (a male role sung by a woman) not from evil but from mental illness. Mellor further warns, “I remain unsure of the theatrical and characterful effectiveness of much of Abrahamsen’s vocal writing.” Joe Cadagin is even more harsh writing on page 56 of the June 2022 Opera News. He excoriates the music as lacking in drama, the libretto in English as “clunky and unidiomatic”, and the directing for “tying the plot down to a specific situation stripping Andersen’s tale of its powerful universality.”

Now the good news. Gramophone later named The Snow Queen it’s winner as the best contemporary music (not opera) recording of the year (2022 Awards issue, page 46). So if you are really keen on new music, you have to get this Snow Queen.

Here’s a trailer from the Bayerisches Staatsoper:

Buy on Amazon

What's New

Here's news about high-definition video disc ("HDVD") recordings of opera, ballet, classical music, plays, fine-art documentaries, and paintings. In the journal below are independent (and hard-to-find critical) reports on hundreds of HDVDs. Pick the best titles for your excelsisphere.

Feb 25. We have just completed one of our most ambitious reviews: Einstein on the Beach opera, the surreal 4 and 1/2 hour cult legend. Kudos, encomiums, and accolades to Opus Arte for giving us this authoritative and weirdly fascinating recording, which we grade A+. Absorbing and learning Einstein is uniquely challenging. We try to help out by providing aids not included in the keepcase materials: an accurate libretto and a list of segments in the opera with correct Opus Arte time stamps. Good luck!

We have some other good grades with an A for the recent Met The Pearl Fishers (Les pêcheurs de perles) and a B- for an earlier The Pearl Fishers from Naples. Also, we recently gave an A- for the new Don Quixote from the Vienna State Ballet.