Munich, 5th August 2005. The highlight of Salzburger Festspiele live on TV: the Premiere channel Classica broadcasts on this Sunday, August 7th, at 20.00 Anna Netrebko and Rolando Villazón in Verdi’s masterpiece „La Traviata“. The new dream couple of the opera world sings together with the world-class baritone Thomas Hampson and Wiener Philharmoniker led by Carlo Rizzi. The classics event will be produced by Unitel, ORF, Bayerischer Rundfunk and the Japanese Channel NHK. Brian Large, the double Emmy award-winner, takes charge of the camera direction. The new staging premiere will be broadcast on Premiere Start and time-delayed at 23.00 also on ARD.
Verdi’s Violetta belongs to the glamorous roles of the Russian soprano, who celebrated her international breakthrough as Donna Anna in Mozart’s “Don Giovanni? at Salzburger Festspiele two years ago. Nowadays Anna Netrebko ranks among the most sought-after opera singers, recently inspiring thousands of classical music fans at a live performance on the square Königsplatz in Munich. For the new star tenor Rolando Villazón in the part of Alfredo it is the first guest appearance in Salzburg. The US singer Thomas Hampson, a regular part of the prominent opera stagings all over the world, sings the part of Giorgio Germont.
Since 1960s Unitel has been producing operas, concerts, and ballets with the high-ranking artists, including Herbert von Karajan and Leonard Bernstein. Established in 1995, the Premiere channel Classica broadcasts classical music around-the-clock, including many Unitel productions. 2004 both companies were taken over by Jan Mojto.