Russian literature is unimaginable without Pushkin. It feeds on Pushkin, it breathes Pushkin. During his brief life – he died at the age of 38 – he produced a torrent of the most wonderful poems, plays and stories. Pushkin wrote the novella The Queen of Spades in 1833 in the course of a few days and “in a cold fury” – brief, sharply accentuated and focused on psychology. More than 50 years later, Tchaikovsky turned to this tale for an opera. Mariss Jansons conducts the Vienna Philharmonic, Hans Neuenfels directs Tchaikovsky’s The Queen of Spades at the Großes Festspielhaus. Hanna Schwarz appears as the Countess. Evgenia Muraveva sings Lisa, Brandon Jovanovich is Herman, Vladislav Sulimsky appears as Count Tomsky / Plutus, and Igor Golovatenko is Prince Yelezky. “A triumph for conductor Mariss Jansons at the helm of the Wiener Philharmoniker” (FAZ); “Mr. Neuenfels draws gripping performances from a strong cast.” (NY Times)
Bregenz Festival 2018: Beatrice Cenci
Church corruption, human violence & a daughter who plots revenge on her abusive father – Goldschmidt’s Beatrice Cenci has every ingredient for a gripping opera & the story of ist origins is equally fascinating albeit tragic: The Jewish composer, who fled Germany for London in 1935, was awarded a prize for his work, but the promised performance never took place. It was not until 1988 that it received ist premiere as a concert performance. At Bregenz, stage director Johannes Erath brought Beatrice Cenci on stage for the first time.
Salzburg Festival 2016: Faust
Gounod’s Faust was once one of the most famous and most performed of all operas and is still cherished today: surprisingly enough it has never been performed at the Salzburg Festival until 2016! This premiere featured a stunning production by Reinhard von der Thannen, award winning stage director and designer, and a supreme cast, where Ildar Abdrazakov embodies a seductive and demonic Mephistophélès and Italian soprano Maria Agresta stars as Marguerite, who struggles to resist temptation and gain salvatio. But “the crown deserves Piotr Beczala (Faust), a perfect cast” (Abendzeitung). The production was led by young Argentinian conductor Alejo Pérez.
Bregenz Festival 2016: Amleto (Hamlet)
It’s an impetuous, impassioned Hamlet that treads the boards in composer Franco Faccio and librettist Arrigo Boito’s opera Hamlet (Amleto), which was first staged in 1865 in Genua. Faccio and Boito skilfully and effectively challenge the conventions of Italian opera, which they wanted to revitalise by infusing it with the spirit of Shakespeare’s drama. Amleto was performed again at La Scala in 1871, after that the opera was not staged again – until 2014 when it was revived in the USA. The Bregenz Festival is now bringing Faccio’s Hamlet back to Europe. This production “offers all an Italian-opera-lover could possibly desire” (FAZ); “a triumphal rebirth” (Deutschlandradio Kultur)
Salzburg Easter Festival 2017: Die Walküre
In 1967 the first Salzburg Easter Festival presented a now legendary production of Richard Wagner’s “Ring des Nibelungen” tetralogy, led by Herbert von Karajan. The 50th anniversary of the festival in 2017 saw a new production of “Die Walküre” by famous Bulgarian director Vera Nemirova which is set in a unique “re-creation” of this very first Salzburg Easter Festival opera production in the set by Günther Schneider-Siemssen. Christian Thielemann conducts his Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden and an illustrous cast including Anja Harteros, Anja Kampe, Vitalij Kowaljow and Peter Seiffert. The critics are full of praise for this “musically ravishing Walküre” (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung) and ist “excellent ensemble of soloists”. As Sieglinde, Anja Harteros is “enchanting and elegant”, Peter Seiffert “amazingly presents a steady and expressive Siegmund”, Christa Mayer “shows off as irresistible, throroughbred Fricka” and Anja Kampe is celebrated as “outstanding Brünnhilde” (Süddeutsche Zeitung).
Bregenz Festival 2017: Carmen
Georges Bizet‘s captivating music with its Spanish sounds took the world by storm: Carmen‘s Habanera and Seguidilla, like Escamillo‘s Toreador‘s Song, are known to one and all. The French composer‘s most successful opera is staged on the world’s largest, spectacular floating stage of Lake Constance in Bregenz, with a set designed by British artist Es Devlin. She has designed sets for pop stars like Adele, U2, Take That, the Pet Shop Boys and Kanye West. In collaboration with the stage director Kasper Holten, Director of Opera at the Royal Opera House in London, she has also worked at opera houses in Helsinki and Copenhagen, at the Theater an der Wien and the Royal Opera House Covent Garden. For the Danish stage director, this “opera about destiny and obsession” centres on “two people who are treated as outsiders, whose paths cross and who cling to each other in a passionate but unhealthy relationship”.
Bregenz Festival 2017: Mosè in Egitto
This production from the Festspielhaus at Bregenz Festival centers on the Biblical Exodus. The universal story, with ist themes of migration and inability to deal with power, has lost none of ist urgency and topicality. By choosing an Old Testament subject, Rossini was able to get round the ban on staging operas during Lent. None the less, Mosè in Egitto contains all the ingredients of grand opera, mainly thanks to the concealed love story of the heir to the Egyptian throne. Today the moving prayer-aria of the Israelites in captivity remains the best known piece from the opera. For the staging of this rarely performed work by Rossini, Dutch director Lotte de Beer, one of the most sought-after stage directors of her generation (International Opera Newcomer Award 2015) teams up with the Dutch theatre collective Hotel Modern. While the soloists and choir relate the tale of the pharaoh and the conflicts in his family, Hotel Modern conjure up ist own reality by using live animations to portray the mass scenes and the parallel narrative of the people and the slaves. Miniature cameras, thousands of puppets, models of villages and cities and a spectacular aquarium installation present the biblical tale of plagues and the parting of the Red Sea on the Bregenz stage.
Salzburg Festival 2017: Aida
“Passionate and unconditionally dedicated” (Süddeutsche Zeitung), Anna Netrebko makes her role debut as Aida at the Salzburg Festival, joined by Francesco Meli as Radamès and Ekaterina Semenchuk as her rival Amneris. In the pit: no other than Verdi expert Riccardo Muti, “our finest Verdi conductor” who “creates effects you didn’t quite think possible” (NY Times). This Aida is the first opera staging by award-winning Iranian film-maker, photographer and video artist Shirin Neshat, known for her critical examinations of gender roles and religious fundamentalism. “Lyric sensitivity and searing power – Ms. Netrebko is ready for Aida!” (New York Times)
Salzburg Festival 2017: La Clemenza di Tito
Deemed today’s most exciting Mozart conductor and highly acclaimed for his revolutionary Da-Ponte Cycle, Teodor Currentzis takes on Mozart’s final opera for his long awaited debut at the Salzburg Festival: “La clemenza di Tito”. The current Artistic Director of the Perm State Opera and Ballet Theatre is accompanied by his MusicAeterna and MusicAeterna Chamber Choir and joins forces with award winning director Peter Sellars, with whom he has established a successful long-term collaboration. Known himself as Mozart rebel for his unique contemporary stagings of Mozart’s operas, Sellars directs the opera also for the screen. “Peter Sellars’ picture language and precise direction are masterful!” (Der Spiegel)
Bregenz Festival 2015: Turandot
Mention Giacomo Puccini’s name and opera-lovers all over the world will think of grand opera and passionate love stories. One of the world’s most famous arias comes from the composer’s final opera, Turandot: “Nessun dorma” – none shall sleep because by morning the Chinese princess is determined to have discovered the name of the unknown prince. The work is remarkable for its Chinese local colour, its opulent crowd scenes, its powerful choruses and its characters overwhelmed by their emotions. Enthusiastically acclaimed by its audiences, the present production combines spectacular and touching scenes on the Bregenz Festival’s vast lakeside stage. “Melodies for millions, impressively staged” bringing “a bit of Hollywood to Bregenz” (ZDF heute journal TV news programme).