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Conductor Marek Janowski has forged a solid, mostly European-based career by largely disengaging himself from the fast-track musical life. Disturbed by the dominance of regietheater in Europe, he vacated the opera pit in the early 1990s to concentrate on his symphonic repertory. In the new millennium, he assumed directorships of several orchestras and returned to the operatic repertoire.

Janowski was born in Warsaw on February 18, 1939. After completing his studies, he applied himself to the 19th century regimen that had produced the best-prepared conductors. Serving as a répétiteur in Aachen, Germany, for a year, Janowski moved to a similar position in Cologne for two seasons. In two years at Düsseldorf, beginning in 1964, he was afforded the opportunity to conduct some performances. After returning to Cologne as first Kapellmeister, he was engaged by Rolf Liebermann in Hamburg. Later, during directorships in Freiburg and Dortmund, Janowski appeared as a guest conductor in Berlin, Hamburg, and Munich. In the late '70s, Janowski began to appear in American theaters, notably the Metropolitan Opera, and in Chicago and San Francisco. In 1984, he accepted the directorship of the Nouvel Orchestre Philharmonique in Paris (later known as the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France). During his 16 years with the Paris orchestra, Janowski raised performance standards and broadened his repertoire, acquiring considerable fluency in a variety of French works. Aside from four years when he also served as music director for Cologne's Gürzenich-Orchester, Janowski devoted himself to Paris, all the while paring down his opera activities.

Appreciation for certain French composers, such as Messiaen, Roussel, d'Indy, and Dutilleux, informed his programming choices for Monte Carlo. With the Dresden Philharmonic, Janowski's other 2001 appointment, a long-term relationship hinged upon the promised construction of a new concert hall. In 2008, the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin offered him the position of artistic director for life, after serving six years in that position; Janowski remained in this position until 2016. He joined the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande as music director in 2005, having filled similar positions with Orchestre Philharmonie de Monte-Carlo (2000-2005) and the Dresden Philharmonic (2001-2003). In 2018, the Dresden Philharmonic announced Janowski's return as chief conductor beginning in 2019.

Janowski's discography holds estimable recordings of Strauss' Die schweigsame Frau, Penderecki's The Devils of Loudon, Wagner's Ring, Euryanthe, Oberon, and Hindemith's Die Harmonie der Welt. In addition to the symphonies of Roussel, his orchestral recordings include Lutoslawski's Concerto for orchestra and Saint-Saëns' Symphony No. 3. Following his break from conducting opera in the 1990s, Janowski returned to the genre in the 2010s with several recordings of Wagner on the PentaTone Classics label, including a new recording of the composer's Ring Cycle in 2016. ~ Erik Eriksson

Nina Stemme is a Swedish soprano who made her operatic debut in Cortona, Italy, in 1989, and has since performed most of the major roles in her vocal range. In 1994 she graduated from the National College of Opera in Stockholm, but had by that time already won the Operalia World Opera Competition, and performed with Plácido Domingo at concerts at La Bastille in 1993 and 1994. Early in her career, Stemme sang the roles of Cherubino in Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro, Mimi in Puccini's La bohème, Euridice in Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice, and Rosalinde in Johann Strauss' Die Fledermaus. She has performed around the world at such opera houses as the Royal Swedish Opera, the Semperoper Dresden, the Vienna State Opera, the San Francisco Opera, the Metropolitan Opera, and the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden. Among the important roles she has made her own are Puccini's Tosca and Manon Lescaut, Richard Strauss' Salome, Shostakovich's Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, and Wagner's heroines, including Elisabeth in Tannhäuser, and most notably Isolde in Tristan und Isolde, which she has performed at Glyndebourne, the Royal Opera at Covent Garden, and at Bayreuth. She has recorded the part of Isolde twice, once for EMI, singing with Domingo and conducted by Antonio Pappano, and on PentaTone, singing with Stephen Gould and conducted by Marek Janowski. Other Wagnerian heroines she has performed are Eva in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Sieglinde in Die Walküre, Elsa in Lohengrin, and Brünnhilde in Der Ring des Nibelungen in San Francisco. She has also sung the part of Leonore in Beethoven's Fidelio, Marie in Berg's Wozzeck, and Maria in Sandström's Ordet.

Baritone Christian Gerhaher had a meteoric rise after his 1998 victory in the New York/Paris-shared Prix International Pro Musicis. Gerhaher subsequently developed a major career on both the operatic and recital stages. His repertory takes in J.S. Bach cantatas and oratorios; operas by Mozart, von Weber, and Wagner; lieder by Schubert, Brahms, and Mahler; and concert works by Haydn, Mendelssohn, and Mahler. He has hardly restricted himself to the German sphere, though, having performed Orff's Carmina Burana, Britten's War Requiem, Monteverdi's Orfeo, and much else. Gerhaher possesses a very distinct, attractive voice, a bit higher in the baritone range than is usual. He has performed at many of the major recital halls and operatic venues and with an extensive list of conductors that includes Harnoncourt, Rattle, and Muti. Gerhaher's résumé, apart from his considerable musical activity, is impressive: he holds a doctorate degree in medicine and has extensively studied philosophy.

Christian Gerhaher was born in the Bavarian city of Straubing on July 24, 1969. His major educational activity was in Munich: he studied voice with Paul Kuen and Raimund Grumbach and enrolled at the Musikhochschule Opera School there, simultaneously studying medicine and philosophy. Gerhaher later took master classes with Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and Elisabeth Schwarzkopf. For Gerhaher, 1998 was a pivotal year: he obtained his medical degree, won the Prix International Pro Musicis, and joined the Stadttheater Würzburg, remaining a member until 2000. Meanwhile, he began making critically acclaimed appearances in lieder repertory with pianist Gerold Huber, including at Carnegie Hall, the Schubertiade in Feldkirch, and Wigmore Hall in London. Gerhaher quickly built a reputation in opera as well: his 2005 performance at the Frankfurt Opera in the title role of Orfeo drew rave notices. In the following season, Gerhaher appeared in Schubert's opera Alphonso und Estrella in Berlin and Schumann's oratorio Das Paradies und die Peri in Munich. Gerhaher's 2007-2008 schedule included a highly acclaimed North American tour with pianist Gerold Huber.

As Gerhaher entered middle age and his voice deepened somewhat, he took on operatic roles such as Wolfram in Wagner's Tannhäuser, which he performed at London's Covent Garden in 2010 and reprised at the Bavarian State Opera in 2017. Nevertheless, the bulk of Gerhaher's recording energies in the 2010s continued to focus on the lieder repertory. His 2012 album, Ferne Geliebte, featuring not only the Beethoven cycle An die ferne Geliebte, Op. 98, but also songs by Haydn, Schoenberg, and Berg, inaugurated a multi-year relationship with the Sony Classical label that has also produced Nachtviolen (a Schubert song recital) and an album of Mozart arias. His performances of Mahler's Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen and Kindertotenlieder deepened his relationship with Huber, which was displayed to fine effect in their 2017 recording of the unusual Brahms song set Die schöne Magelone, Op. 33. A long-held goal of Gerhaher's was accomplished in 2021 when he issued a much-heralded recording of the complete songs of Schumann. In 2022, Gerhaher and Heinz Holliger teamed up on a pair of recordings: Othmar Schoeck's Elegie with the Kammerorchester Basel and Holliger's opera Lunea, which was written for and dedicated to Gerhaher. ~ Robert Cummings & James Manheim