C Major Entertainment

UB40 play the Baloise Session in Basel, Switzerland

Ellie Goulding grew up on a council estate in sleepy Herefordshire before getting her enormous talent recognised while at university in the 2000s. Her folk-tinged electropop continues to charm along with her electric stage presence, on show here at Baloise Session 2023.

Any visit from Jessie J is a major event, and her appearance at Baloise Session 2023 is no exception. Renowned for her live performances, this British singer is a born show-woman, a star with an incomparable charisma radiating warmth, pride, love and passion.

Frankie Goes To Hollywood: Their music videos told bizarre stories - from the overtly sexual sado club to the biblical nativity play. At the centre: Holly Johnson. Always with a slightly ironic charm and in a tailor-made suit. Always style-conscious, even in the crises of his life. At Baloise 2022 he revives the emotions of yesteryear with his British humour and his immortal solo hit "Americanos".

Olga Neuwirth, for a long time one of the great composers of the present, succeeds with this opera in creating a captivating arc across many musical genres. It’s an exciting, socially critical production by Polly Graham who puts a fantastically singing and playing Kate Lindsey in the center of the action.

At the beginning of 1964, the music world experiences something completely unexpected. Maria Callas returns to the opera stage as the prima donna. Her "Tosca" at the Royal Opera House becomes a sensation. Maria Callas wants to show everyone once again that she deserves the title of "prima donna assoluta." On the condition that star director Franco Zeffirelli take over the direction, the exceptional singer agrees to sing the role of Tosca. The BBC recorded the 2nd act of the opera for television. It is one of the most dramatic acts in opera history: in order to free the painter Cavaradossi from the hands of torturers, Tosca ends up murdering the police chief Scarpia. The film footage is one of the rare opportunities to see Maria Callas in an opera performance and to experience her highly emotional performance art and vocal abilities.

This occasionally off-the-wall but finely sung and colourfully staged La Cenerentola was Rome Opera’s first foray into the media market, shown on television and in cinemas across Italy in 2016. It clearly had the funding. Emma Dante’s production will not have come cheap – Vanessa Sannino’s costumes are a particular feature – nor would the singers, given that this is as good a Cenerentola cast as any international house might currently muster.

In honor of Leonard Bernstein’s 100th birthday, Tanglewood—the famed summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra—dedicated its entire 2018 season to the iconic composer, conductor, performer, educator and humanitarian. The festivities culminated on Bernstein’s centennial birthday on August 25, 2018, in a special celebrity-studded gala concert. Directed for the stage by James Darrah, The Bernstein Centennial Celebration at Tanglewood illuminates the breadth of Bernstein’s incredible life and career, which inspired generations of music lovers around the globe – from his talent as a composer to his generosity in mentoring other composers and musicians, his inimitable role as a driving musical force at Tanglewood for over 50 years and more.

Il Giardino degli Amanti - Magic in Mozart's Garden. In the garden of a Baroque villa, a chamber orchestra is playing Mozart's wonderful quartets and quintets, and everywhere is pervaded with echoes and references to the composer's world.

The Three Tenors began their collaboration with a performance at the ancient Baths of Caracalla in Rome, the eve of the 1990 FIFA World Cup Final. Following the big success of the 1990/1994 concerts, The Three Tenors opened a world tour of 31 concerts, the last one in 2003. Seven of these 31 concerts had been recorded for TV but disappeared somewhere in London. All attempts to bring back these invaluable recordings to the audience failed. Now, after all these years, C Major in cooperation with Three Tenors Ltd. managed to assemble the most beautiful moments of six lost concerts in Munich, Tokyo, London, Vienna, New York and Pretoria.

Puccini's masterpiece La Bohème is by far the most represented opera in the world. At the famous Puccini Festival in Torre del Lago (2014), where Puccini composed his main operas, La Bohème is directed by one of Italy’s greatest film directors: Ettore Scola, the creator of a high number of award-winning seminal films. As he explains in the programme notes, as soon as he was approached to stage La Bohème he had to fight hard to resist the temptation to give life to his “revolutionary” ideas; in the end, he decided for a traditional looking, rich, grandiose and detailed Bohème. Together with the exceptional cast of Daniela Dessì, Fabio Armiliato, Alessandro Luongo, Marco Spotti and Alida Berti, this production makes for an incomparable great performance.

This Beethoven Symphony No. 9 from the outstanding Beethoven 9 Project of Christian Thielemann and the Wiener Philharmoniker, first time recorded in HD and 5.0 surround sound, is accompanied by a one hour-long documentary featuring Christian Thielemann and Germany´s most eminent music critic, Prof. Joachim Kaiser. From insights into Beethoven´s musical thinking to interpretational comparisons, including excerpts from performances by Karajan, Bernstein, Järvi, to historical perspectives – no aspect of Beethoven´s Symphony No. 9 will remain untreated!