Rigoletto

Giuseppe Verdi’s masterpiece Rigoletto – compelling, blood-curdling and beautiful – is being performed for the first time on the Bregenz lake stage. The stage director and designer Philipp Stölzl, known for his successful productions at Salzburg Festival as well as music videos for the German band Rammstein, highlights the striking contrasts between spectacle and intimate chamber drama in his production of Verdi’s opera. “Breathtaking, tight and thrilling arrangement, extremely beautiful. Philipp Stölzl delivers a

superlative Rigoletto to Bregenz lake stage.” (Frankfurter Rundschau Online) “The performance of the three main characters has been outstanding.” (Der Standard Online) “Rigoletto becomes a Hollywood spectacle on Lake Constance.” (Handelsblatt) “Nothing but a sensation.” (SWR 2)

Bregenz Festival – Lake Stage Opera Box

“Stage director Graham Vick and set designer Paul Brown conjure up an “open-air spectacle of superlatives” (Die Zeit about Aida) “A gigantic set with iconic qulities – a masterly achievment“ (Die Welt about Andrea Chénier) “David Pountney finds stunning answers to the everlasting questions surrounding ‘The Magic Flute’.” (Der Tagesspiegel about Die Zauberflöte) „A bit of Hollywood in Bregenz: Melodies for the millions, impressively staged grand opera.“(ZDF heute journal about Turandot) „… Kasper Holten’s production of Carmen on Es Devlin’s extraordinary set was a knockout. …“ (The Telegraph)

Die Zauberflöte

What begins like a fairy-tale turns into a whimsical fantasy halfway between magic farce and Masonic mysticism: The Magic Flute links a love story with the great questions of the Enlightenment, juxtaposes bird-catcher charm with queenly vengeance, and bewitches the listener with music that mixes cheerful melodies, lovers’ arias, show-stopping coloraturas and mysterious chorales. W. A. Mozart’s opera premiered in 1791 and is one of the most often performed operas in the world. The production on the Bregenz Festival lake stage impresses the audience with a fantastic setting framed by three dog-dragons, each of them more than twenty meters in height. “David Pounty finds stunning answers to the everlasting questions surrounding ‘The Magic Flute’. (Tagesspiegel); “The ‘play on the lake’ in Bregenz takes the audience into a fantasy world.” Salzburger Nachrichten

Bregenz Festival 2019: Don Quichotte

French director Mariame Clément takes a clever and exhilarating look at modern heroism in Jules Massenet’s operatic rarity Don Quichotte: “a striking interpretation” (Neue Musikzeitung). But this opera is also a musical discovery, not least because of the outstanding cast starring Gábor Bretz as Don Quichotte, David Stout as Sancho and Anna Goryachova as Dulcinée. In the pit, Daniel Cohen leads the Wiener Symphoniker to a dynamic- differentiated performance. A musically as visually absolutely rewarding evening!

Nerone

The focus on rarities has been a trademark of the Bregenz Festival since the opening of the Festspielhaus in the 1980s. It is therefore not surprising that Roman emperor Nero, the colourful character in Arrigo Boito’s lavish opera, makes his appearance in the latest edition of the Festival: The spectacular self-staging of his power contrasts with pangs of remorse he feels after murdering his mother. Begun in 1862, Boito strived to complete the piece for several decades. Only after his death did Arturo Toscanini create a performable version, whose world premiere took place at La Scala in 1924. Olivier Tambosi’s interpretation of this rarely performed opera with love confusions and sectarian characters is radical and opulent. The Wiener Symphoniker perform under the baton of Dirk Kaftan and “the ensemble of singers leaves nothing to be desired and plunges boldly into the sound waves” as the Deutschlandfunk wrote.

Bregenz Festival 2019: Rigoletto

Bregenz Festival staged for the first time Giuseppe Verdi’s masterpiece Rigoletto – compelling, blood-curdling and beautiful. The stage and film director Philipp Stölzl (Medicus & Goethe), known for his successful productions in Salzburg as well as for his music videos for Madonna or for the German band Rammstein, created a spectacular setting on the world’s largest stage on a lake, praised by critics as a unique technological masterpiece. The staggering show has attracted not only 200,000 visitors to 20 sold out performances but also close to 2 million TV-viewers in Germany, Austria and Swiss alone. “This Rigoletto on Lake Constance becomes a Hollywood spectacle.” (Handelsblatt); “The performance of the three main characters has been outstanding.” (Der Standard)

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.