Rienzi in April/May 2009 and at the Deutsche Oper Berlin and Oper Leipzig in April/May 2010. In July 2013, the bicentennial year of Wagner's birth, performances of all three of Wagner's early operas, including "Rienzi", took place for the first time at Bayreuth, at the Oberfrankenhalle. This performance trimmed some parts, including the second-act ballet. The Australian premiere was a concert performance by Melbourne Opera in December 2013, as part of the bicentennial celebrations. The opera opens with a substantial overture which begins with a trumpet call (which in act 3 we learn is the war call of the Colonna family)
Festival Overture on the Danish National Anthem Festival Overture on the Danish National Anthem During his time at the Moscow Conservatoire, around September 1866 the school's principal, Nikolay Rubinstein commissioned Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky to compose a Festival Overture on the Danish National Anthem to be played for the visit of the Tsarevich (heir to the throne) to Moscow, accompanied by his new Danish bride, Princess Dagmar of Denmark. The Tsarrevich would eventually be crowned Tsar Alexander III of Russia and remain a devoted follower of Tchaikovsky's music, awarding the composer both the Order of St. Vladimir (Fourth Class) in 1884 and a state pension in 1885. Tchaikovsky