Exotic Dances from the Opera Minnesota Orchestra & Eiji Oue

• Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1884-1908)
• 1Snegurochka (The Snow Maiden) - Dance of the Tumblers03:49
• Richard Strauss (1864-1949)
• 2Salome, Op. 54, TrV 215 - Dance of the Seven Veils09:44
• Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893)
• 3Hopak from Mazeppa04:13
• Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky (1839-1881)
• 4Dance of the Persian Slaves - Khovanschina, Act IV06:54
• Henri Rabaud (1873-1949)
• 5Dances from Marouf, Cobbler of Cairo15:01
• Anton Grigorevich Rubinstein (1829-1894)
• 6The Demon - Ballet Music09:14
• Antonin Leopold Dvorak (1841-1904)
• 7Rusalka, Op. 114, B. 203, Act II - Polonaise04:35
• Charles-Camille Saint-Saens (1835-1921)
• 8Samson et Dalila, Op. 47, Act III - Bacchanale07:31
• Total Runtime01:01:01

Info for Exotic Dances from the Opera

Because opera unites the arts, it has always been the most ravishing and extravagant entertainment. And from the very beginning of operatic theater,which is rooted in the choral dances of the Greeks, the spectacle of dance has commanded a significant place in the opera house, whether integrated into the drama or offered as a casual diversion.

Ballet, the older art of the two, has played its role in opera ever since nymphs and shepherds cavorted on the Baroque stage. Conditioned by Jean Baptiste Lully,the guiding spirit of the dance at the Court of Louis XIV, and later by Rameau, operagoers in France expected dance as a matter of course. In the following century, the Paris Opéra observed an unwritten law that the second act of an opera must feature a ballet episode. Even Wagner was forced to obey this stricture. The fusion of opera and dance peaked in the nineteenth century, whose repertoire has generated this collection of exotic pieces—both familiar and obscure—but each capable of standing alone as an orchestral experience.

Favorites and rarities, including Saint-Saëns: Bacchanale, Strauss: Dance of the Seven Veils, and Rabaud: Dances from Marouf. 'Both discs represent triumphs of artistry -- musical and technical.' (InTune)

Minnesota Orchestra
Eiji Oue, conductor

Recorded January 18-20, 1996 at Orchestra Hall, Minneapolis MN
Produced by J. Tamblyn Henderson, Jr.
Engineered by Keith O. Johnson
Produced by Rik Malone
Executive Producers: Marcia Gordon Martin, JTH
Mastering at Paul Stubblebine, JTH at Rocket Lab, San Francisco

Eiji Oue
Born in Japan, Eiji Oue began his musical studies with piano lessons at the age of 4. Then, at 15, Oue entered the Toho Gakuen School of Music as a performance major, beginning his conducting studies that same year with Hideo Saito, the teacher of Seiji Ozawa. In 1978 he was invited by Ozawa to spend the summer studying at the Tanglewood Music Centre, where he met Leonard Bernstein, who became his mentor and colleague, sharing the podium during three international tours with concerts in La Scala, Vienna State Opera, Opera de Paris-Bastille and in Moscow, St Petersburg, Berlin, Rome and other musical capitals. In 1990 he assisted Bernstein in the creation of the Pacific Music Festival in Sapporo, Japan, serving as resident conductor for the Festival Orchestra.

Eiji Oue is Conductor Laureate of the Osaka Philharmonic Orchestra, having served as Music Director from 2003-2011, and Conductor Laureate of the NDR Radio Philharmonic Orchestra Hannover, following eleven years as their Music Director (1998-2009). He has also held the positions of Music Director of Pennsylvania’s Erie Philharmonic Orchestra (1991-1995), Music Director of the Minnesota Orchestra (1995-2002), and Music Director of the Orquesta Simfònica de Barcelona i Nacional de Catalunya (Barcelona Symphony Orchestra) (2006-2010). Alongside these posts, he served as Music Director of the Grand Teton Music Festival in Wyoming from 1997 to 2003, and was the driving force behind founding one of the Festival’s most loved events, the annual outdoor Fourth of July community concert. In addition to his directorship of this festival, his summer engagements in the US have included appearances at the Ravinia, Tanglewood, Grand Park, Wolf Trap, Round Top and Midland music festivals.

Eiji Oue has guest conducted throughout the United States, working with the most prestigious orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic and the symphony orchestras of Detroit, Saint Louis, Montreal and Toronto. In Europe he has conducted the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, the symphony orchestra of the Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon, the Oslo Philharmonic, Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, National Orchestra of Spain, Swedish Radio Symphony, Munich Philharmonic, and the orchestras of the Deutsche Oper Berlin and WDR Cologne. In 2005 he made his debut at the Bayreuth Festival conducting Tristan und Isolde.

Highlights of recent seasons have included tours of Japan and South America with the NDR Philharmonic, his debuts at the Orquesta Sinfonia Brasileira, Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires and the Shanghai and Guangzhou Symphony Orchestras, performances with the Konzerthausorchester Berlin, the Tonkuenstler Orchestra of Vienna, the MDR Sinfonieorchester Leipzig, the Orquesta Sinfonica de Castilla y Leon and the Junge Deutsche Philharmonie, and a production of Die Fledermaus at Tokyo’s Nikikai Opera. In the 2013/14 season and beyond, he undertakes a tour of major European cities with the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra, and returns to the Bern Symphony, Warsaw Philharmonic, Barcelona Symphony, and Guangzhou Symphony Orchestras.

Eiji Oue has recorded extensively with the Minnesota Orchestra in repertoire including Bernstein, Stravinsky, Mahler, Strauss, Copland and Rachmaninov. With the NDR Hannover he has recorded the music of Antheil, Martinu, Schnittke, and Strauss’s orchestral songs with soprano Michaela Kaune, and for DG he recorded the violin concertos of Paganini and Spohr with Hilary Hahn. He has a particular passion for working with young musicians and since 2000 has been Professor of Conducting at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hannover. Among his numerous honours and awards are the 1980 Koussevitzky Prize at Tanglewood and both first prize and the Hans Haring Gold Medal at the 1981 Salzburg Mozarteum conducting competition. In November 2005 he received the Praetorius Music Prize from the state of Lower Saxony.

This album contains no booklet.