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: 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!
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.
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 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)
Bregenz Festival 2015: Les Contes d’Hoffmann
“The opera visit of the year – Bregenz is showing a Tales of Hoffmann that makes you forget everything you saw before.” (FAZ) Sparkling with creativity, Stefan Herheim’s new staging of Jacques Offenbach’s opera Les contes d’Hoffmann at the Bregenz Festival, starring Kerstin Avemo, Mandy Fredrich, Rachel Frenkel, Daniel Johansson and Michael Volle, was received by an enthusiastic audience with standing ovation and frenetic applause. The international press agreed wholeheartedly: The New York Times praised the “thoughtfulness and creativity” of the new production, devised by the director as a search for one’s own self in a sparkling drag show.
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).
Geschichten aus dem Wiener Wald (Tales From The Vienna Wood)
Ödön von Horváth’s 1931 play “Tales from the Vienna Woods” takes a twisted view of Johann Strauss Jr’s 1868 waltz of the same title. During his lifetime, he considered
teaming up with Kurt Weil to make an opera of the work. Three-quarters of a century later, the Bregenz Festival has finally accomplished this job, by asking Viennese
composer Heinz Karl Gruber to write the opera – and “Gruber is a worthy substitute for Weil” states the Financial Times.
A Johann Strauss Celebration – The Wiener Symphoniker in Trieste
For decades, the Wiener Symphoniker has welcomed spring with a bouquet of lively melodies. This edition goes international as the orchestra and chief conductor Petr Popelka ring in the season in Trieste with works by Johann Strauss, the composer of the year, but also pieces by Franz Lehár, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and Erich Korngold.