Summer Night Concert 2024 BLU RAY

Release Date July 12, 2024

BLU RAY Edition

Sony Classical is pleased to announce the Summer Night Concert 2024 with the Vienna Philharmonic, conducted by Andris Nelsons and featuring soprano Lise Davidsen. This unique concert will be available on CD, DVD, Blu-ray, and digital format on July 12.
The Summer Night Concert took place on June 7. It is an annual open-air event, held since 2004 in the magical setting of Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna, Austria. Illustrious conductors who have previously led the orchestra at this event include Georges Prêtre, Daniel Barenboim, Franz Welser-Möst, Lorin Maazel, Christoph Eschenbach, Zubin Mehta, Semyon Bychkov, Gustavo Dudamel, Daniel Harding, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, and Andris Nelsons.

Thanks to its setting, a UNESCO World Heritage site, in the baroque park of Schönbrunn with the palace as a backdrop, the Summer Night Concert adds a great visual charm to its magnificent musical quality. The idea of making classical music at its best accessible to everyone and thus giving a gift to all music lovers still characterizes the event today. Millions of viewers and listeners from more than 80 countries can follow the concert online, on television, and on radio.

This year's program focused on popular works from the 19th and 20th centuries from Europe's rich musical heritage. Bedřich Smetana, one of the most important Czech composers, was honored with three works on the occasion of the 200th anniversary of his birth. Andris Nelsons conducted the concert for the second time, while Norwegian opera and lieder singer Lise Davidsen made her debut with the orchestra. She sang two arias: from Richard Wagner's Tannhäuser and Giuseppe Verdi's La forza del destino.

Norwegian soprano Lise Davidsen burst onto the international scene in 2015 by winning multiple awards at the Operalia, Queen Sonja, and Hans Gabor Belvedere competitions. These were quickly followed by triumphant debuts at the Metropolitan Opera, the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Teatro alla Scala in Milan, the Bayerische Staatsoper, the Wiener Staatsoper, and the Aix-en-Provence and Glyndebourne Festivals. In the summer of 2021, she appeared in two Bayreuth Festival productions (Elisabeth in Tannhäuser and Sieglinde in Die Walküre). That same year, she was awarded Female Singer of the Year by the International Opera Awards. A regular recitalist and concert performer, Davidsen has toured with many of the world's leading orchestras and conductors. In March of this year, Lise Davidsen made her acclaimed Metropolitan Opera debut as Leonora in La forza del destino.