PRESS
Press, selection
A WAGNERIAN CONDUCTOR REVEALED
Ring of the Nibelung
A Wagnerian Conductor Revealed
“Daniel Kawka's conducting is remarkable. Dramatic, tense to the extreme, but also poetic, tender, and lyrical at the right moments, the French conductor’s vision is of astonishing clarity and precision. He knows and intimately loves the score from wich he draws the quintessence, such is his mastery of time and space”
La Croix - BRUNO SERROU
“Kawka between Kraus and Boulez”
A Solar Impressionism
“This success would not have been possible without a musical interpretation that stands out from the ordinary and arouses enthusiasm. Conductor Daniel Kawka emerges triumphant. (...) He achieves an airy and luminous sound that would have enchanted Nietzsche, who after the opaque mists of Parsifal, wished to hear a ‘Mediterranised’ music”
Télérama - GILLES MACASSAR
Miraculous Pit - Daniel Kawka, a Master Craftsman of the Wagnerian Material
“What happens in the pit is a pure miracle, elevated by the sole talent of the guest conductor leading this musically legendary Ring (...) knowing how to merge time, space, and the passions that overwhelm the characters: the feat is nothing short of genius! It’s been a long time since such a Wagner seemed unattainable: chamber-like, psychological, emotional...”
Classiquenews - PHILIPPE-ALEXANDRE PHAM
https://www.classiquenews.com/compte-rendu-wagner-der-ring-daniel-kawka-direction-dijon-le-13-novembre-2013/
“Daniel Kawka impressively senses the structural and poetic evidence of this unparalleled music. The Soltis, Karajans, and other Furtwänglers are swept away by his delightful finesse and perfect rehabilitation”
Wagner sans masques - MICHEL HUVET
A Ring that Leaves Marks on the Soul
“We already owed a splendid Tristan to Daniel Kawka. It is now a confirmation: his confident and inspired conducting galvanises the orchestra, obtaining exceptional colors and nuances, from chamber music to cataclysm
Musicologie.org - EUSEBIUS
Tristan und Isolde
Of Magnificent Fluidity
“We haven’t heard such a sensual and electric Tristan in a long time, blending ecstasy, abandonment, tenderness, bitterness... with magnificent fluidity, transformed by seamless transitions that leave one breathless, and attention to timbres that culminates in one of the finest renditions of King Marke's monologue ever heard. In Daniel Kawka’s vision, Tristan is more like a continuous and electric discharge of energy and ecstatic hymns. Both Tristan and Isolde appear determined, drawn towards death as the only path to deliverance and transcendence (...)”
Classiquenews.com - PHILIPPE-ALEXANDRE PHAM
Lohengrin
Lohengrin: Incandescence and Enchantment
“Daniel Kawka’s conducting, flexible and masterfully handling transitions, brings a breath, colors, and a dramatic sense to the orchestra that can be compared to the best of Bayreuth. The miracle, if one may say so, lies elsewhere: Daniel Kawka inhabits this score, turning it into a sonic fresco of breathtaking poetry and incandescence”
Concertclassic.com - MICHEL LE NAOUR
https://www.concertclassic.com/article/lohengrin-lopera-de-saint-etienne-incandescence-et-enchantement-compte-rendu
A Lohengrin of the Highest Order
“Let’s state it outright, because it’s evident from the first note (and throughout the entire evening): Daniel Kawka's superb conducting is the leitmotif of this Lohengrin. The listener dares to dream of the wonders Daniel Kawka could achieve at the helm of the Bayreuth Orchestra”
Olyrix.com - CHARLES ARDEN
https://www.olyrix.com/articles/production/1108/lohengrin-wagner-kawka-desire-schukoff-perrin-hunold-alvaro-cavallier-martin-critique-chronique-compte-rendu-article-11-juin-2017-orchestre-symphonique-saint-etienne-loire-choeur-lyrique-ateliers-opera-casariego-meeus-touche
Dueling at the Summit
“His grandiose Lohengrin, inhabited from start to finish without any loss of tension (one of the most beautiful Act II conclusions ever heard, including the organ's intervention!), feels like a Wagnerian consecration. (...) We had no idea that Saint-Étienne was about to give us the illusion, just before summer, that the Bayreuth Festival had begun”
Resmusica – JEAN-LUC CLAIRET
https://www.resmusica.com/2017/06/20/lohengrin-a-saint-etienne-duels-aux-sommets/
A Dream Lohengrin
“The final joy of the evening was the musical direction of French conductor Daniel Kawka. To the splendor of the strings, he added the precision of the brass, raising the Stéphanois orchestra to the level of the finest ensembles in France (and even beyond…). He also brilliantly highlighted the conflicted tensions between the protagonists, the obsessive despair of Elsa, her neurosis, her existential rage. With a nervousness, an acuity, and even a unique violence. Who would dare say that France lacks great conductors?”
opera-online.com - EMMANUEL ANDRIEU
https://www.opera-online.com/fr/columns/manu34000/un-lohengrin-de-reve-a-lopera-de-saint-etienne
Tannhäuser
Dazzling Metamorphosis
“Also praised is the great merit of Daniel Kawka, who was able to shape the legato phrasing of an Italian orchestra into the Wagnerian style”
Corriere della sera - ENRICO GIRARDI
“The conductor Daniel Kawka is as attentive to nuances of timbre and expression as he is to contrasts. Under his direction, the work acquired a melancholy and gentle sonority”
La Reppublica - DINO VILLATICO
“Daniel Kawka delivered such a beautiful interpretation of the work, with a moving act filled with a poetic atmosphere of melancholy anticipation, desolation, and infinite solitude”
Giornaledellamusica - MAURO MARIANI
“But it was the music that triumphed in the show, thanks to Daniel Kawka’s commitment, who from the splendid overture to the mystical finale, ensured an interpretation with grand amplitude and intense color gradations”
Avvenire - VIRGILIO CELLETTI
INTOXICATING, ENCHANTING MUSICAL DIRECTION
G.Verdi - Requiem
“Daniel Kawka left audiences breathless with his conducting of Lohengrin; he once again leaves the audience awestruck for his colossal figure”
Milan Symphony Orchestra Giuseppe Verdi
Olyrix - CHARLES ARDEN
B. Bartók - Bluebeard's Castle
“The conductor does a miraculous job with the musicians: his direction weaves an organic architecture where accents, motifs, rhythmic cells... all this magical and enchanting soil that nourishes the captivating score emerge and interpenetrate”
ANO (Angers-Nantes Opera)
Classiquenews - PHILIPPE-ALEXANDRE PHAM
C. Debussy - Pelléas et Mélisande
“One must at least listen to the miraculous scene in the cave (II,3)... The balances, the breaths, everything commands admiration.... One of the great interpretations of Pelléas, I would struggle to name a conductor who has satisfied me more despite the many recordings from the most renowned names and orchestras, and some very fine successes”
ANO (Angers-Nantes Opéra)
Carnets de sol, autour de Pelléas et Mélisande - DAVID LE MARREC
S. Rachmaninov - Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini
A miracle happened one evening...
“Kawka, is mad about Beethoven, Berlioz, Wagner, Schubert, Strauss, Boulez. Mad is the word. Like Nicholas Angelich, he is wholehearted, passionate, crazy, let’s just call him: enormous”Fou est le mot. Comme Nicholas Angelich il est entier, passionné, foldingue, lâchons-nous : hénaurme »
Ose! Symphony Orchestra
La Provence - FRANZ OLIVIER GIESBERT
R. Strauss - Don Juan
“A deeply moving interpretation of alternating tenderness and brilliance. It was of unprecedented beauty and grace, striking moments that we are not likely to forget. Last night we had one of the most talented current orchestras, whose perfection elevates it to the level of the greatest. Under the direction of their one-night conductor, Daniel Kawka, it was a marvel”
Raï National Symphony Orchestra, Festival Berlioz
Concertonet - HERVÉ GALLIEN
G. Mahler - Symphony No. 5
“You may come away dazed from this sonic battle in which the very famous adagietto offers an oasis of serenity, but you must still admire this cyclopean construction and the way the Orchestra and Daniel Kawka put it together. Ovations. Enthusiasm”
Montpellier National Orchestra
Le Monde - J.V.
G. Mahler - Das Lied von der Erde
“An atypical, utterly fascinating version. Bruno Walter / Daniel Kawka: the same vision?”
Contemporary Orchestral Ensemble (EOC)
Forum Opéra - BRUNO PEETERS
S. Barber - 3 Essays, Piano Concerto
“Superb interpretation, intoxicating and enchanted conducting”
Raï National Symphony Orchestra
Samuel Barber: A Nostalgic Between Two Worlds - PIERRE BREVIGNON
F. Mendelssohn - The Night of the Walpurgis
“Daniel Kawka conducts admirably; the La Monnaie orchestra has been glorified, and the concert ended in apotheosis”
La Monnaie Symphony Orchestra
Crescendo magazine - ANDRE PEETERS
F. Mendelssohn - The Night of the Walpurgis
“How can one resist the unleashing of passions provoked by this baton? The floor trembles under the spectators' feet, and many hearts have swayed...”
La Monnaie Symphony Orchestra
Forum Opéra - DOMINIQUE JOUCKEN
P. I. Tchaikovsky - Eugene Onegin
A poetic and refined Eugene Onegin
“Finally, French conductor Daniel Kawka leads with as much beauty as sensitivity, at the head of a magnificent Nice Philharmonic Orchestra that is magnificent in its fluidity, transparency and colour”
Nice Opera House
Opera-online - EMMANUEL ANDRIEU
R. Strauss - Salomé
“In this extraordinary score, Daniel Kawka imbues his Ose! Orchestra with tension and an orchestral crescendo that is absolutely thrilling. Both lyrical and refined, his interpretation highlights the unparalleled luxuriance of Strauss's orchestration and concludes with a masterful finale of dramatic intensity”
Ose! Symphony Orchestra – Léman Lyriques Festival
Opera-online - EMMANUEL ANDRIEU
BLUEBEARD’S CASTLE AN ORCHESTRA IN A STATE OF GRACE
“Daniel Kawka always weaves this subtle, eloquent orchestra, a poet even in its terror. We come away crushed, nailed, mute, and no matter how successful Lucinda Childs' choreography for The Miraculous Mandarin was in opening the evening, this Implacable and Perfect Castle made us forget it. Essential”
ANO (Angers-Nantes Opera)
Concertclassic.com - JEAN-CHARLES HOFFELE
A miraculous job with the musicians
“The two singers are magnificent, and in the pit, Daniel Kawka once again demonstrates his immense talent in serving delicate, troubled works; his Tristan was legendary; this Bartók sparkles with its daring; it shakes us with its radical and irreversible emotional trance. The conductor does a miraculous job with the musicians: his direction weaves an organic architecture where accents, motifs, rhythmic cells, and all the magical and enchanting soil that nourishes the mesmerizing score emerge and interpenetrate. From an 'enchanting' performance (according to the spoken introduction), the maestro nuances the fiery colours, chisels out the dark contours: he shows just how much the tension gradually arises from an action where everything is vision, revelation, horror”
Classiquenews - PHILIPPE ALEXANDRE PHAM
An orchestra of astonishing finish
“To start with, all the music has to do is carry the stage, which it achieves wonderfully thanks to the orchestral accompaniment of Bartók and the twilight lighting of Debussy’s The Fall of the House of Usher, far from any Hungarian-sounding excess. As insidious as the spirit of Bluebeard, Kawka’s conducting is a waking nightmare, a psychologically exhausting tension with impalpable pianissimos, gaping silences from which the outbursts emerge with more grinning violence from the dreadful dissonances of the choral at Door 5. The same qualities of trimming, avoiding any complacency, were already evident before the intermission in a Mandarin of rare motorism, with solos worked down to the infinitesimal, at the head of an Orchestre des Pays de la Loire of astonishing finish”
Altamusica - YANNICK MILLON
Masterful baton
“Choreographed by the American Lucinda Childs, and danced by members of the Ballet of the Opéra National du Rhin, the choreography charms with its fluidity, minimalism, and mixed abstraction. A striking contrast with the orchestral outpouring of the score, magnified by Daniel Kawka’s masterful baton and an Orchestre National des Pays de la Loire admirable in its precision. Bluebeard’s Castle was another joy of the evening, with an orchestra in a state of grace and a conductor showing sovereignty in the constantly incisive interpretation of Bartók’s complex orchestral texture, rendering both its shimmering qualities and its roughness and asperities with the same approach”
Concertonet - EMMANUEL ANDRIEU
Sex, lies, and opera
“In the pit, his baton is lively, dynamic, and charismatically suited, and the attention he brings to the orchestral palette is simply admirable: the timbres are magnificent, both sensual and dramatic. From a strictly musical point of view, the evening was a complete and total success. In Bluebeard's Castle, the orchestra again demonstrates its narrative efficiency and musical sensitivity in perfect harmony with the drama. At times expressionistic and impressionistic, but always indubitably Bartókian, its colors and atmospheres are a perfect setting for (Judith) and for Gidon Saks (an extraordinary Bluebeard, with a presence that is both dark and dignified, and a voice both sinister and tender)”
Mediapart – JEREMIE SZPIRGLAS
“Gidon Saks and Jeanne-Michèle Charbonnet are the sacred monsters needed for this brief hour of maximum violence; the Orchestre National des Pays de la Loire does mastery justice to the evocative power of Bartók’s music, under the clear and expressive baton of Daniel Kawka”
Le Figaro - CHRISTIAN MERLIN
“A striking contrast with the orchestral outpouring of the score, magnified by Daniel Kawka’s masterful baton and an Orchestre National des Pays de la Loire admirable for its precision. Another delight of the evening was an orchestra in a state of grace and a conductor who showed sovereignty in the constantly incisive interpretation of the complex Bartókian orchestral texture, rendering with the same approach its shimmering qualities as well as its roughness and asperities”
Concertonet.com - EMMANUEL ANDRIEU
“The Orchestre National des Pays de Loire is literally galvanized by Daniel Kawka, absolute master of this complex score. A performance with strong emotional content”
ResMusica - MAXIME KAPRIELIAN
© 2024 Daniel Kawka