Prokofiev’s Fiery Angel is one of the outstanding operas of the 20th century. Director Andrea Breth transfers the story of Renata, who is plagued by visions, to a clinic. The atmosphere is characterised by agonising hopelessness, but at the same time heightened by the emotional excesses of the inmates. This monochrome approach, which dispenses with any historical embellishment, is legitimised by the careful elaboration of the characters. Aušrine Stundyte, one of the outstanding singing actors of our time, and the congenial Bo Skovhus play out the consequences of traumatisation with merciless precision in Breth’s interpretation. “Musically gripping, scenically intense.” (Wiener Zeitung) / “A scenic sensation.” (Kurier) / “Aušrine Stundyte succeeds in her singing balancing act between eruptive power and vulnerability.” (Die Presse)
The Idiot
Weinberg’s final opera, based on Dostoevsky’s novel, condenses the plot without losing its psychological depth. Prince Myshkin, mentally ill yet believing in goodness, meets merchant Rogózhin on a train, sparking a tale of dependence, madness, and murder. The opera, rediscovered in the last decade, presents the composer Weinberg as Shostakovich’s equal. The Idiot, composed in 1986-1989, now staged in Salzburg, directed by Krzysztof Warlikowski and conducted by Mirga Gražinyte-Tyla, brings the world of literature to the opera stage. The excellent cast of singers contributes to make the production a great success. Bogdan Volkov “expressive lyrical tenor touches intimately in the piano and yet remains able to cope with all orchestral storms” (BR Klassik) “(…) absolutely deserves a place in the repertoire” (New York Times) An absolute masterpiece” Gidon Kremer; “So good it hurts” (Financial Times) “This Idiot has the whole of Salzburg on the edge of its seat.” (Die Presse)
The Fiery Angel
Renata is obsessed with the love for the “fiery angel”. Ruprecht, in love with Renata, wants to free her from the madness, but all his efforts are in vain. She goes to the monastery, but here too she is being haunted by the image of the fiery angel. The Inquisition accuses Renata of witchcraft and sentences her to death. Prokofiev’s Fiery Angel is one of the outstanding operas of the 20th century. With her production, director Andrea Breth moves the action from 16th century Germany to the sterile environment of a modern psychiatric ward. The atmosphere of this prison-like place is sombre. “Musically gripping, scenically intense.” (Wiener Zeitung) / “A scenic sensation.” (Kurier) / “Aušrine Stundyte succeeds in her singing balancing act between eruptive power and vulnerability.” (Die Presse)
Elektra
Strauss and Hugo von Hofmannsthal. The Lithuanian soprano Ausrine Stundyte as vengeful and traumatized Elektra turns the opening of the Festival into a real knockout performance! Her sister Chrysotemis is sung by her compatriot Asmik Grigorian, who made her international breakthrough as acclaimed Salome at the 2018 Salzburg Festival, and whose performance once again draws the audience into spell. Tanja Ariane Baumgartner as Klytämnestra, Derek Welton as Orest and Michael Laurenz as Ägisth complete an ensemble of top-notch singers. The staging by Krzysztof Warlikowski of this work about matricide, obsession, revenge and physical degradation is a deep psychological study of a broken family. Franz Welser-Möst brings his trademark flair to the pit where the brilliantly effervescent and then again heartrendingly gentle playing Wiener Philharmoniker create gloriously exultant Strauss moments. “To have chosen Elektra of all pieces, was audacious – and to have brought it off so well, triumphant”
Salzburg Festival 2022: Bluebeard’s Castle & De Temporum Fine Comedia
The Salzburg Festival presented Bluebeard’s Castle in a double bill evening together with Carl Orff’s De temporum fine comoedia. In his staging of the two works, Romeo Castellucci, reveals the profound connections in their juxtapositio between interiority and explosion of violent power.
Salzburg Festival 2024: The Idiot
Weinberg’s final opera, based on Dostoevsky’s novel, condenses the plot without losing its psychological depth. Prince Myshkin, mentally ill yet believing in goodness, meets merchant Rogózhin on a train, sparking a tale of dependence, madness, and murder. The opera, rediscovered in the last decade, presents the composer Weinberg as Shostakovich’s equal. The Idiot, composed in 1986-1989, now staged in Salzburg, directed by Krzysztof Warlikowski and conducted by Mirga Gražinyte-Tyla, brings the world of literature to the opera stage. The excellent cast of singers contributes to make the production a great success. Bogdan Volkov “expressive lyrical tenor touches intimately in the piano and yet remains able to cope with all orchestral storms” (BR Klassik).
Salzburg Festival 2022: Bluebeard’s Castle
A pinnacle of early 20th-century musical theatre, Bluebeard’s Castle was composed to a text by Béla Balázs in 1911. The story of Bluebeard has its literary archetype in Charles Perrault’s fairy tales and tells of a wife-murderer who forbids his latest wife, who is driven by curiosity, to open a door behind which he has hidden his previous victims. Bartók’s opera develops entirely out of the dialogue between the two protagonists, Bluebeard and Judith, revealing an approach to the drama as a kind of spiritual and emotional force field. ‘Where is the stage: outside or within?’, as the prologue puts it, an invitation to the audience to ask themselves questions about the enigmatic nature of theatre as an allusive reverberation of the real. “Truly fascinating […] Outstanding: Mika Kares and Ausrine Stundyte.” (La Stampa)
Salzburg Festival 2022: De Temporum Fine Comedia
De temporum fine comoedia (A Play on the End of Time) is the Last Judgement, in a reinterpretation rooted in Carl Orff’s personal religious beliefs. The writing of the text in Ancient Greek, Latin and German took the composer a whole decade, from 1960 to 1970, with the essence of the work being increasingly determined by the apocalyptic vision of the Alexandrian theologian Origen, in which at the end of time even demons will be granted forgiveness and salvation. Brought to the Festival stage by Romeo Castellucci and Teodor Currentzis for the first time since ist premiere in Salzburg in 1973, Orff’s opera-oratorio overwhelms the listener with its primeval energy. The latter results not least from persistently iterated rhythmic patterns that involve a host of figures animated by a mechanical principle of motion that is translated into bodily movement scores by the choreographer Cindy Van Acker. “Castellucci and Currentzis celebrate music theatre of monumental sparseness in its images and an exuberant opulence in its means.” (TAZ)
Salzburg Festival 2020: Elektra
In its 100th anniversary edition, the Salzburg Festival celebrates a real triumph with a mind-blowing new production of Elektra, one of the most famous masterpieces of opera history by the two festival founders Richard Strauss and Hugo von Hofmannsthal. The Lithuanian soprano Ausrine Stundyte as vengeful and traumatized Elektra turns the opening of the Festival into a real knockout performance! Her sister Chrysotemis is sung by her compatriot Asmik Grigorian, who made her international breakthrough as acclaimed Salome at the 2018 Salzburg Festival, and whose performance once again draws the audience into spell. Tanja Ariane Baumgartner as Klytämnestra, Derek Welton as Orest and
Michael Laurenz as Ägisth complete an ensemble of top-notch singers. The staging by Krzysztof Warlikowski of this work about matricide, obsession, revenge and physical degradation is a deep psychological study of a broken family. Franz Welser-Möst, who just recently celebrated an overwhelming success with Strauss’ Salome in Salzburg brings his trademark flair to the pit where the brilliantly effervescent and then again heartrendingly gentle playing Wiener Philharmoniker create gloriously exultant Strauss moments. “To have chosen Elektra of all pieces, was audacious – and to have brought it off so well, triumphant” The Times
The Fiery Angel
The young Renata hears voices. Since childhood, she has been visited by a fiery angel exuding a sublime radiance. Besotted with him, she goes looking for him when he leaves her and meets Ruprecht, a knight who, out of love for her, will try to tear her away from this carnal possession. Moving from tavern to convent, against a backdrop of spiritualism and exorcism, collective hysteria and burlesque humour, The Fiery Angel is a powerful piece that has it all, bordering the very limits of expressionism. Inspired by the symbolist novel of the same name by Valery Bryusov, this opera is Prokofiev’s most striking operatic masterpiece. Its premiere at the Festival d’Aix see it transported into the tumultuous world of director Mariusz Trelinski, while Prokofiev’s score resounds to the baton of Kazushi Ono conducting the Orchestre de Paris. “Masterful and very inspired direction by Kazushi Ono, who transmutes an Orchestre de Paris of stunning sonic beauty” (Le Monde); “The Fiery Angel at Aix-en-Provence Festival – a benchmark performance!” (Financial Times)