Palestrina

Requiring 38 soloists, chorus and large orchestra, "Palestrina", Hans Pfitzner's (1869-1949) "most important work" (Süddeutsche Zeitung), is a challenging opera to stage. In Munich, the city in which it was given its world premiere in 1917, the Bavarian State Opera succeeded - director Christian Stückl, best known for his staging of the Oberammergau Passion Play and the Salzburg Festival's "Jedermann", transformed the monumental work into an optical pop art event. Stückl's production infuses such color and life into the serious work that even the German tabloid "Abendzeitung" delightedly wrote: "Who would have thought that Pfitzner could be such fun?"