Blog entries for "Opera"

Playful Wit with Serious Undertones in the Salzburg Festival’s Falstaff Production

The first rehearsals for Verdi’s Falstaff in Damiano Michieletto’s production took place already during the spring. The production has its premiere on July 29 at the Haus für Mozart. With his last work, the almost 80-year-old Verdi fulfilled his own urgent wish to compose one last comic opera. Under this comedy’s playful surface, serious topics like social exclusion, age and ageing are revealed. We offer you an insight into the director’s work – watch our rehearsal video and peek behind the scenes…

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Die Entführung aus dem Serail - from Salzburg’s Hangar-7 Salzburg

The Salzburg Festival and ServusTV present an extraordinary novelty in an unusual venue. The Festival’s Artistic Director, Alexander Pereira, has announced this production of Mozart’s Abduction from the Seraglio at Salzburg’s Hangar-7 as “an opera marching to a different drummer”. It takes place as part of a live broadcast on Monday, August 26, 2013 at 8:15 pm on ServusTV.

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Storms of Applause after Norma Premiere

Vincenzo Bellini’s Norma staged by Moshe Leiser and Patrice Caurier, conducted by Giovanni Antonini with Cecilia Bartoli in the title role: all this and more made the audience’s hearts beat quicker at yesterday’s Norma premiere! The guests thanked the artists and team with extensive applause between scenes and several minutes of curtain calls.

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The first rehearsals for Verdi's "Falstaff" in Salzburg

Anyone walking into the orchestra rehearsal space at Schüttkasten around Eastertide was greeted by a pre-taste of the summer’s Festival atmosphere: from March 20 to April 6, the first rehearsals for Verdi’s Falstaff took place here for the premiere on July 29 at the Haus für Mozart. Before rehearsals resume at the end of June, the Italian stage director Damiano Michieletto also makes his debut at La Scala Milan with Un ballo in maschera – making this a Verdi year for him too.

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Intriguing Insights into the Production of "Lucio Silla"

Lucio Silla relates the story of the dictatorship of Lucius Cornelius Sulla Felix, a consul of the late Roman Republic, and his historically verified resignation. Together with his librettist Giovanni de Gamerra, the 16-year-old Wolfgang A. Mozart portrayed one of the most controversial and presumably most widely hated personalities in history.
You now have the opportunity to look behind the scenes, getting a first-hand look at the rehearsal progress and hearing what music director Marc Minkowski and stage director Marshall Pynkoski have to say about their work on the new production of this opera.

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Mozart’s Lucio Silla as a Musical Herald of the 2013 Festival Summer

Lucio Silla marks the fascinating point at which the child prodigy Mozart transformed himself into a mature composer. After Mitridate and Ascanio in Alba, this opera was his third commission from Milan – at the age of only 16. The co-production with the Mozarteum Foundation Salzburg has its premiere today as part of the Mozart Week and will be presented at the Salzburg Festival starting on July 27, 2013.

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Die Entführung aus dem Serail at Hangar-7 • A Very Special Opera Experience

On August 26, Hangar-7 at the Salzburg Airport will be transformed into an event location resounding with culture, when Mozart’s Die Entführung aus dem Serail, produced especially for TV viewers in coproduction with ServusTV, is broadcast live from there.

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Salzburg’s Mozart Cycle

Due to the unforeseen situation, we have spent the past few days searching intensively not only for a new conductor for Così fan tutte, but also for the entire Mozart cycle. We are delighted to announce that the original concept – of working with one conductor, one stage director and an ensemble that is essentially the same throughout the cycle – can be maintained. Christoph Eschenbach has kindly agreed to collaborate on this cycle with Sven-Eric Bechtolf during the upcoming years.

Both artists have known each other for many years and are friends. Having heard outstandingly sensitive Mozart interpretations from Christoph Eschenbach throughout recent years, I am convinced that the cycle is in excellent hands. 

Alexander Pereira

The new 2013 Festival program

A thousand thanks for all the interest and enthusiasm with which you greeted our new start in 2012. And special thanks for your spontaneous support of the new elements we presented in our programme – from the Ouverture spirituelle to our contemporary music series and to the highly acclaimed production of Die Soldaten. With 278.500 guests we were able to receive the greatest number of visitors in the Festival’s history.

We are confident that many surprises are awaiting you in the programme of the 2013 Festival summer. A dominant theme is formed by the works of Wagner and Verdi: operas from their middle and later periods are being staged in new productions while select early operas are being performed in concert.

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Applications now accepted for the Young Singers Project!

Are you a soprano, tenor or bass and under 26 years of age? If you are at home in the repertoire of Mozart, in baroque, Italian and French opera, apply now to participate in the Young Singers Project in 2013!

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