Acting
Production from Antwerp. The knight Titurel has built a fortress for two sacred objects he has miraculously obtained: thechalice from the Last Supper in which Christ's blood was later collected, and the spear thatwounded Christ on the cross. The chalice is believed to be the Holy Grail that gives life and has apurifying effect on the human race. The Grail has become the focus for a community of knightswho, strengthened by the holy chalice, are willing to fight for the faith. All the knights have takena vow of chastity. However, the Grail King Amfortas, their leader and Titurel’s son, fails to resistseduction by Kundry, a woman with a double life: she is both a Grail messenger and temptressin the service of Klingsor.
Queen Clytemnestra assassinates King Agamemnon. Their daughter, Elektra, lives for the day when her father's death will be avenged. Like a curse, the vendetta must be fulfilled, but is Elektra capable of committing the irreparable? At Grand Théâtre de Genève, the cogs of revenge are set in motion by director Ulrich Rasche, who imprisons the characters of Elektra in a spectacular scenic device: a steel tower weighing almost twelve tons in perpetual rotation. In the pit, conductor Jonathan Nott and his Orchestre de la Suisse Romande confront the musical challenges of Strauss' intoxicating one-act score. The female characters at the centre of the drama are sung by three artists of the highest calibre: Ingela Brimberg as Elektra, Sara Jakubiak as Chrysothemis and Tanja Ariane Baumgartner as Clytemnestra.
Wagner’s sixth opera, “Lohengrin,” tells the medieval legend of the Knight of the Swan: the knight Lohengrin is sent to protect Duchess Elsa of Brabant, who has been unjustly accused of murder. Johannes Erath directs the production, and Joana Mallwitz conducts the orchestra. Piotr Beczała plays the title role. Rachel Willis-Sørensen plays Elsa of Brabant.
Vera Nemirova’s challenging production of Berg’s operatic masterpiece Lulu won critical acclaim when first seen at the Salzburg Festival in 2010. It was successfully repeated in 2011, when the production was filmed for DVD. Supporting Nemirova’s powerful vision of corruption, decadence and death are the highly praised set designs by the young artist Daniel Richter. Musically, the production is led with style and assurance by the brilliant German conductor Marc Albrecht, currently director of the Netherlands Opera. Singing Lulu with allure and passion is the lauded French soprano Patricia Petibon, whose charms grip an outstanding cast of top European singers. Berg’s score is performed in the completed version by the Austrian composer Friedrich Cerha.
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The opera, inspired by Euripides’ tragedy The Bacchae, is as seductive as it is topical: When Dionysus – is he a charlatan? is he a demigod? – bursts into the intact world of ancient Thebes, he plunges a city into chaos. In stark contrast to his cousin, King Pentheus, who leads a life marked by purity and asceticism, Dionysus preaches intoxicating excess and sensuality. Aware of the story’s political dimension that resonates in present day politics, Krzysztof Warlikowski brings one of his famed psychological stagings to the Felsenreitschule in Salzburg. In the gigantic three-part set of Malgorzata Szczesniak the captivating tale unfolds like a film using split-screen techniques .
Celebrate the triumphant return of the famed Salzburg Festival with this extraordinary production of Richard Strauss’s Elektra, live from the spectacular Felsenreitschule! Lithuanian soprano Aušrinė Stundytė makes her grand debut on the mythical festival stage in the title role, accompanied by the marvelous Ariane Baumgartner and Asmik Grigorian in the roles of Klytaemnestra and Chrysothemis, respectively.
Through the power of a love potion, Tristan and Isolde have fatefully fallen for each other, but Princess Isolde is promised to Marke, the king and Tristan's liege lord. The lovers live their connection in secret, which inevitably has to be discovered and leads to catastrophe. The visually stunning production by Marco Arturo Marelli prepares the ground for the secret of this love in space and color, captured in Richard Wagner's opera, which premiered in 1865, in which the music becomes almost the sole carrier of the plot.
Xerxes is one of Handel’s latest and most frequently performed operas, famous for its marvelous opening aria ‘Ombra mai fu’. At the centre of the confusing tragicomedy, very loosely based upon the life of Xerxes I of Persia, is a powerful and lovesick royal eccentric, King Xerxes. Rising opera star Gaëlle Arquez in the title role of Xerxes ‘scintillates with her nimble, luminous mezzo-soprano’, singing ‘irresistibly beautiful, impassioned, furious – but never mean’ (Frankfurter Rundschau). Frankfurt’s excellent Opera and Museum Orchester contributes ‘all sorts of refinements’ to this ‘musical smash hit’ (Deutschlandfunk) and ‘In Frankfurt Tilman Köhler ensures a three-hour short abundant and furious banquett … a great evening of opera’ (Deutschlandfunk).
Conductors Andris Nelsons, Klaus Mäkelä, Riccardo Chailly, and Petr Popelka will take turns conducting the four movements of Beethoven's Symphony No. 9. This concert event celebrates the bicentennial of the premiere of Beethoven's masterpiece.
