Wagner’s grand romantic opera Tannhäuser explores the tension between earthly desire and spiritual purity. Torn between Venus and Elisabeth, Tannhäuser represents the Romantic struggle between indulgence and guilt, with themes of love and redemption that still resonate. Lydia Steier’s production moves through Venus’ world as a variety show, the ordered society of Wartburg Castle, and a contemporary media-driven landscape. Staatsoper debutant Clay Hilley as Tannhäuser is the shining star of this new production: “Even in the most powerful forte, his voice shines so effortlessly that one thinks he still has reserves to draw on. In terms of character, Hilley shows his inner turmoil very clearly, and his stage presence is that of a professional spoken theatre actor” (Bachtrack). Günther Groissböck as Landgrave Hermann and Malin Byström as Elisabeth also deliver “vocal highlights” (Concerti). In the pit, Philippe Jordan allowed “this masterpiece to resound in all ist splendour and beauty” (Der Opernfreund).
Salzburg Festival 2022: Die Zauberflöte
Salzburg stands for Mozart and hardly any work stands for Mozart as much as his Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute), the most famous opera of all. Therefore, a staging of Die Zauberflöte at the Salzburg Festival is always something special. Director Lydia Steier in her revised version of her Salzburg production, now placed at the Haus für Mozart, introduces a grandfather as a narrator to read Die Zauberflöte as a bedtime story to his three grandchildren. In this way, the rich fantasy of the work breaks into the strict household of an upper middle-class family, in which reverie has little place, and takes the three boys right into the middle of the action. As the Three Boys, they plunge into a fairy-tale and dream world in whose surreal enlargements the boys’ everyday lives appear again and again. With a childlike gaze, they accompany and guide the protagonists through their destinies. “Regula Mühlemann is a beautiful-sounding Pamina, Michael Nagl a charming, creamy Papageno, and Tareq Nazmi as bass-strong Sarastro turns out to be a stroke of luck.” (Oberösterreichische Nachrichten)
Salzburg Festival 2018: Die Zauberflöte
Mozart’s timeless masterpiece at the Salzburg Festival – it doesn’t get much better than this! Especially when “The Magic Flute” receives such a “spectacular and virtuosic staging” (Le Figaro) by American director Lydia Steier. Her colourful, fairy-tale production conjures up magical scenes and revolves around Hollywood star Klaus Maria Brandauer as grandfather, who reads the fantastical story of Tamino’s quest to his three grandchildren. The Three Boys are sung “technically flawlessly and expressively by three members of the Wiener Sängerknaben, a pure joy” (Spiegel Online). Constantinos Carydis leads a young ensemble of world class singers and draws “precise phrasing and plenty of crisp articulation from the Wiener Philharmoniker” (Financial Times). A delight already enjoyed by over one million TV viewers in Germany alone!
Der Rosenkavalier
When Strauss and Hofmannsthal wrote «Der Rosenkavalier» – setting it in an imaginary Rococo Vienna and yet closely linked to the decadent fin de siècle – they created a profound social comedy. It is not without melancholy that the Marschallin lets her young lover Octavian go when he falls head over heels with Sophie, who hails from Faninal’s bourgeois household. As voluptuous as Strauss’ score is, it contains tender moments of dream and melancholy. Director Lydia Steier stages Strauss’ opera according to an aesthetic concept by Austrian artist Gottfried Helnwein. Diana Damrau sings the Marschallin. Joana Mallwitz conducts the Orchester der Oper Zürich.