Seit über 35 Jahren fotografiert Simon Annand Schauspieler kurz bevor sich der Vorhang hebt. Er ist dabei aktiver, aber stiller Beobachter, immer da und trotzdem unaufdringlich. Simon Annand kennt die Abläufe hinter den Theaterkulissen, die Nervosität der Schauspieler, die ungeschriebenen Gesetze der Londoner Top-Theater. Für ihn zählt allein das, was die Porträtierten in diesem Moment ausstrahlen, ehe sie die Bühne betreten: Eine positive Zerissenheit zwischen sich selbst und der Rolle, in die sie noch nicht hundertprozentig geschlüpft sind. 807280218794LangtextIn 2012, the Hamburg State Opera presented a new production of Giacomo Puccini's masterpiece "Madama Butterfly". The internationally renowned director Vincent Boussard stages the opera, collaborating with star fashion designer Christian Lacroix and set designer Vincent Lemaire. Together they succeed in bringing to life the moving tragedy of the young Japanese geisha Cio-Cio San in a stylish and sophisticated production that focuses on the title role, impressively portrayed by Greek soprano Alexia Voulgaridou. Subtly conducted by Alexander Joel, the dynamic cast includes Romanian Tenor Teodor Ilincai as Cio-Cio San's love interest, B.F. Pinkerton and Estonian baritone Lauri Vasar as Consul Sharpless. "Madama Butterfly" contains an enormous wealth of psychological poetry. Through his music, Giacomo Puccini lends his characters extremely rich and complex profiles and created an extraordinary explosive force. 807280218596LangtextBoris Blacher was one of the most important and most widely performed composers in post-war Germany. In his 1969 opera "200 000 Taler" (200 000 Thalers) he adapted a comedy by famed and popular Jewish author Scholom Aleichem and created a sophisticated milieu study around tailor Schimele Soroker and his family who come to great fortune by winning the lottery. This 1970 recording of the world premiere production stars a stunning Martha Mödl as Soroker's wife and Günter Reich in the role of the shrewd tailor. Director Gustav Rudolf Sellner leads his fine cast meticulously through the comic and self-ironic material and supports the cliché-less score that Blacher conceived for Aleichem's characters. Heinrich Hollreiser conducts the Orchestra of the Deutsche Oper Berlin with insight and musical mastery. As the Neue Zürcher Zeitung wrote after the premiere, "Blacher discovers forces and notions that move our century within the naive, unpretentious literary material at hand. Without ever using Jewish melodies this score creates a kind of folklore of a setting that is fully Blacher's own. Here lives a new style."