Deutsche Grammophon has launched the next generation of its audio-visual offering, STAGE +, a classical music subscription service, offering livestreams, a huge video archive and new audio releases, all on one platform. ‘We are about to enter an exciting new era for streamed classical performances, said DG’s Vice President Consumer Business, Robert Zimmermann (formerly with the Berliner’s Philharmoniker’s Digital Concert Hall). ‘STAGE+ will explore the limitless creative and curatorial possibilities that digital technologies have to offer to bring the creative work of DG’s artists – and beyond – closer to their audience.’
 
The platform will be available as a TV, mobile and web app to STAGE+ subscribers, with many videos offered in 4K resolution and Dolby Atmos Music. Audio content will be in Hi-Res Lossless format, ‘virtually indistinguishable from the original studio recording’.
 
The service costs €14.99 per month or €149 per year, and there is a free trial on offer to mark the launch of STAGE+
 
Bayreuth will be one of the festivals initially featured, with an extensive selection of performances from several decades, ranging from the very latest (2022) Ring cycle to the legendary ‘Centenary Ring’. The first premiere stream on the platform sees Víkingur Ólafsson performing music from his latest album, ‘From Afar’, in full from Harpa in Reykjavík, Iceland, and further programmes in the first few weeks include Bach’s Christmas Oratorio, performed by Sir John Eliot Gardiner’s Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists, at St Martin in the Fields in London, Max Richter’s Voices from Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie on Human Rights Day (December 10) and a Mahler cycle from Vienna’s Musikverein, launching with the Seventh, conducted by Andris Nelsons on January 15. More livestreamed events and cycles will be announced in due course.
 
The live and video-on-demand streams will also include DG’s pioneering Yellow Lounge classical club nights across the globe, a Rising Stars series and performances at World Heritage Sites such as the Forbidden City, Sistine Chapel or the neolithic settlement of Carnac in France.
 
The first offerings on STAGE+ are:

November 25: Víkingur Ólafsson performs his album ‘From Afar’ in its entirety from Harpa

November 28 & 30, December 2 & 4: New Wagner Ring cycle from Bayreuth Festival 2022

December 10: Max Richter’s Voices from the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg

December 13 & 15, Live: Bach’s Christmas Oratorio performed by Sir John Eliot Gardiner, the Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists at St Martin in the Fields

December 23: 'Christmas in Berlin' with Albrecht Mayer and Hera Hyesang Park

December 31, Live: Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with Christiane Karg, Wiebke Lehmkuhl, Mauro Peter and Andrè Schuen with Andris Nelsons conducting the Gewandhausorchester, MDR-Rundfunkchor, GewandhausChor and GewandhausKinderchor in Leipzig

January 6: Yuja Wang presents works by Kapustin, Beethoven and Ligeti at the Vienna Konzerthaus

January 15, Live: Mahler’s Seventh Symphony with Andris Nelsons and the Wiener Philharmoniker at the Vienna Musikverein

January 21: Hélène Grimaud and baritone Konstantin Krimmel perform music by Brahms and Silvestrov at the Stienitzsee Turbine Hall

February 3: Seong-Jin Cho plays works by Handel at the Siemens Villa in Berlin

 

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