Audio Samples
Biography
Among highlights in Dorothee’s operatic career are her appearances at four Bayreuth Festivals as a Blumenmädchen in Parsifal, and Woglinde in the millennium production of Der Ring der Nibelungen; appearances in Ariadne of Naxos (Naiade) and Die Zauberflöte (1st Lady) at Teatro alla Scala in Milan; Ascanio in Alba (Silvia) at Teatro comunale in Bologna; Pamina and 1st Lady at The Bavarian State Opera in Munich; Woglinde at the Grand Theatre de Geneve; Ann Truelove (The Rake’s Progress) in productions in Lausanne and Paris; Dorisbe in Antonio Cesti’s “L’Argia”, in Innsbruck, Lausanne and Paris. Recently she has added to her repertoire the roles of La contessa Almaviva (Le nozze di Figaro, in Bonn), Silva Varescu (Czardasfürstin, in Bremen), and Donna Anna (Don Giovanni, in Bonn).
Among highlights in Dorothee’s concert career are her appearances with the Munich Philharmonic, the Cologne Gürzenich, the RSO of MDR-Leipzig, the RSO of SWF-Baden-Baden, the Radio Orchestra of WDR-Cologne, the Bonn Beethovenhalle Orchester, the Orchestra “Giuseppe Verdi” di Milano, the Orchestra of RAI Turino, the RSO of ORF-Vienna, the Orchestre Philharmonique of Radio France in Paris, the Iceland Symphony, the Queensland Symphony and the Christchurch Symphony.
Among highlights in Dorothee’s lieder-recital career with pianist Francis Grier (The Jansen Grier Duo) are her appearances at distinguished festivals such as the Maggio musicale di fiorentino or the Festival Radio France de Montpellier; in marvellous venues such as the Wigmore Hall London, the Margrave Opera House in Bayreuth, the Beethovenhaus in Bonn or the Sala Paganini in Parma. The Jansen Grier Duo are best known for their all-Schubert recitals. As part of a series of programmes entitled “Franz Schubert: New Perspectives”, The Jansen Grier Duo has given many performances of “The Therese Grob Songbook”, “Die Modenzeitunglieder” (The Fashion Journal Songs) and “An die Frau” (Songs dedicated to Women). “The Grob Songbook” has been recorded for Somm Records.
Dorothee’s complementary love for chamber music’s directness, the elegance of recital performance, and the extrovert thrill of operatic personation have found their synthesis in the creation of an innovative, presentational format, narropera. Invented around her, a violinist, and a narrative/continuo player, Dorothee has rapidly shaped the expressive clarity of the format, narropera, with her natural theatrical skills and limpid musicality. The creation of narropera and its immediate success as a new genre have led her to co-founding Lansdown Summer, an annual festival in Christchurch, New Zealand, where narropera is show-cased alongside recitals and performances of melodrama.
Zu den Höhepunkten als Oratorien- und Konzertsängerin zählen Vorstellungen mit den Müncher Philharmonikern, dem Kölner Gürzenich-Orchester, den Radio-Sinfonie-Orchestern des MDR-Leipzig, SWF-Freiburg, ORF-Wien und RAI-Torino, dem Rundfunkorchester des WDR, dem Orchester Giuseppe Verdi in Mailand, dem Philharmonischen Orchester Radio France, der Iceland Symphony, der Queensland Symphony und der Christchurch Symphony. Als Liedsängerin ist Dorothee Jansen mit ihrem Pianisten Francis Grier (“Jansen-Grier-Duo”) in vielen etablierten Festivals innerhalb Europa aufgetreten – so zum Beispiel beim “Maggio Musicale” in Florenz, dem Festival “Radio France” in Montpellier, und in wichtigen Sälen wie der Londoner Wigmore Hall, dem Marktgräflichen Opernhaus Bayreuth, dem Beethovenhaus in Bonn oder dem Sala Paganini in Parma. Das Jansen-Grier-Duo ist bekannt für seine “Schubert-Abende”. Innerhalb der Konzertserie “Franz Schubert – Neue Perspektiven” hat das Duo zahlreiche Abende mit den eigens kreierten Zyklen “Das Therese Grob Liederalbum”, “Die Modenzeitung” und “An die Frau” gegeben. Das Therese Grob Liederalbum ist bereits auf CD eingespielt und unter dem Titel “The Therese Grob Songbook” bei dem englischen Label Somm-Records zu finden.
Proprio, dall’inizio della sua carriera, ha cantato diverse volte come ospite: nel Teatro alla Scala (con i maestri Muti e Sinopoli); a festival di Bayreuth (con Sinopli e Thielemann); ai teatri lirici di Monaco di Baviera, di Ginevra, di Parigi, di Bologna, e in altretanti concerti e luoghi con orchestre di ogni parte di Europa.
La sua buona stima come interprete delle canzoni schubertiane la vuole ospite delle più importanti sale cameristiche europee come a esempio le Wigmore Hall londinese e la sala Paganini parmigiana e anche ai festivali più significativi come ‘maggio musicale fiorentino’ e quello della radio France a Montpellier.
Press Photos
The NarrOpera Trio
Narropera is an exciting new presentation format for the 21st century audience, intimate and direct. One singer, one violinist, and a keyboard player/narrator form a chamber music trio, which aims to make truly accessible one of the least accessible of art forms, opera. Beautiful singing and playing, clear story telling, insight into the historical and social backgrounds to each story, translations of each aria text – all these combine to transport the listener into the world of the composer and his librettist, and their joint poetry. Each narropera performance threads entertaining and enlightening narrative between eight to ten arias from a single work, in most cases an opera, though sometimes a dramatic oratorio or, in one particular case, a fascinating chamber-cyclical collection of arias. Most narropera presentations involve the interpretation of multiple characters by the one singer, especially if the chosen work is an 18th century opera.
The narropera format highlights two significant performing traditions: the antique tradition of combining music and story-telling to entertain and edify and the centuries old tradition of creating arrangements of complex works for chamber music forces for wider dissemination of the works themselves. Each narropera presentation lasts around 70-75 minutes and is presented without interval, so as to maximise the inherent power of the music/story-telling format.
The narropera format was invented as a response to the sudden lack of theatres and traditional performing venues in Christchurch, New Zealand, as a result of the catastrophic earthquake that destroyed most of the city’s centre, in 2011. However, the immediate success of the new format, initially only planned as a stop-gap for a specific disaster, led to a fuller development of narropera, each new title becoming an exciting ‘work in progress’, with an on-going refinement of form and content and pursuit of the optimal relationship between each.
The Narropera Trio consists of soprano Dorothee Jansen; violinist Hanns Heinz Odenthal (Europe) or Jan van den Berg (Australasia); and Haydn Rawstron, who plays keyboard continuo and provides the narrative thread through each narropera performance. For more information, visit www.narropera.com.
The Jansen Grier Duo
Dorothee Jansen’s work with Francis Grier involves more than Schubert songs; she has also performed Grier’s own compositions, including performances of his dramatic cantata Around The Curve of the World in Canterbury Cathedral, Westminster Abbey, in Nottingham England and in Christchurch New Zealand.
Francis Grier, a leading English chamber music pianist and composer (especially of vocal and choral-orchestral music) was Cambridge-trained and began his career in one of Britain’s most prestigious choral positions, as organist, tutor and head of music at Christ Church, Oxford. He gave the first ever BBC Prom solo concert, in 1985. He splits his work between composing, playing chamber music and performing as a psychonanalyst in his own practice. Among Francis’ compositions from the last four years are two Mass settings for St Paul’s Cathedral, London, Missa Aedes Christi for Christ Church, Oxford, ‘….lit by holy fire’ for King’s College Cambridge, ‘Cantemus’ for Gonville and Caius College Cambridge, and ‘Prayer’ commissioned for the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee and performed before Her Majesty in Glasgow Cathedral in 2013. Francis is also part of a piano trio, The Grier Trio, along with his two brilliant daughters (violinist Savitri Grier and cellist Indira Grier).
Lansdown Summer Festival
The next festival will take place in February 2015 with narropera performances of Mozart’s ‘Le nozze di Figaro’, ‘Don Giovanni’ and ‘La clemenza di Tito’, all three given by The Narropera Trio, recitals of violin sonatas by Mozart and Beethoven, and performances of the Tennyson/Richard Strauss melodrama ‘Enoch Arden’ presented by New Zealand’s most distinguished theatre company, The Court Theatre.
