Bregenzer Festspiele

Tancredi at Bregenzer Festspiele

IMG_7511* Notes *
Rossini's Tancredi (ovation pictured, photograph by author) premiered at Bregenzer Festspiele last night in the Großer Saal of the Festspielhaus. Based on Voltaire's play, the opera has lots of brilliant music that is a joy to hear.

Set in Syracuse, the production from Jan Philipp Gloger is updated to be set in a Cosa Nostra household. It was a bit on the nose, but the revolving set itself is very attractive. The role of Tancredi is written for a mezzo or contralto en travesti, but for this version the character is a woman with she/her pronouns, but this is only known to her beloved, Amenaide.

The singing was adequate. Mezzo-soprano Laura Polverelli was throaty and emotive as Isaura, who was Amenaide's mom rather than her friend in this production. Bass-baritone Andreas Wolf was perfectly fine as Tancredi's rival Orbazzano. Tenor Antonino Siragusa shouted quite a bit as Amenaide's father Argirio. His voice is bright but not overly plaintive or pretty.

Soprano Mélissa Petit is a lovely Amenaide, her sound is bird-like and she sang very beautifully with mezzo-soprano Anna Goryachova as Tancredi. Goryachova has some wooliness to her lower register, but her high notes have a nice clarity and she definitely is convincing as an androgynous person in both her body-type but more importantly, in her carriage. Her last piece was very sad, not only because of her singing, but because she has been completely abandoned on the stage and is singing for no one.

The orchestra could have been more precise and driven under the baton of Maestra Yi-Chen Lin, though the beauty of the music was evident.

* Tattling *
Again, the Bregenz audience was quite terrible. The two women who moved in from the aisle behind me in Row 23 spoke loudly and said very self-evident things like "Es ist eine Frau...Chinesin" about the conductor when the orchestra was playing. A woman next to us in Row 22 loudly unwrapped a cough drop for several seconds during a choral part of Act I.

Naturally, there were people taking pictures of the opera during the performance. A person in Row 20 Seat 6 was stoped by an usher in the first half, but both talked to her companion (for which she was roundly hushed by my seat mate) and took at least one photo during the second half.


Der Freischütz at Bregenzer Festspiele

IMG_7483* Notes *
A spectacular new production of Der Freischütz (ovation pictured, photograph by author) opened at the Seebühne of the Bregenzer Festspiele yesterday night. The opera featured an icy town under a huge moon with reimagined spoken dialogue.

Philipp Stölzl's staging created a whole world complete with synchronized swimming, ice skating, and lots of fire. There were some silly bird sound effects and kitschy projections on the moon, but for the most part, there was always something to look at as objects would rise from the partially submerged set. The singers and dancers did an impressive job moving about the stage, it seems like they could easily slipped.

As this took place on Lake Constance, the singers were all amplified and the orchestra, the Wiener Symphoniker, was not even visible expect by simulcast. The music is quite jaunty and fun. It was a little weird that the camera focused often on the finger boards of string instruments, instead of the conductor, Enrique Mazzola.

There was some charismatic performances, Moritz von Treuenfel had an outsized role as Samiel, the Black Huntsman, and brought an intense physicality to this spoken part. He was also darkly funny. Bass Christof Fischesser was suitably sinister as Kaspar, and tenor Thomas Blondelle had a pleasing warmth and baritonal quality as Max.

Strongest of all were the two sopranos,  Hanna Herfurtner was an incisive Ännchen without being shrill and Mandy Fredrich had a beautifully clear but emotionally-charged performance as Agathe.

* Tattling *
This audience was badly-behaved. There was a family of four in Row 32 Seats 302 to 305 who came with another couple that pretty much spoke for the entire two hours. The two males in the group repeated took photographs of the performance even though we had been explicitly told not to at the beginning.

For the most part the talking was fairly quiet at least. It is simply unnerving to be around audience members who don't seem that engaged with such an over-the-top display in such a unique setting. It makes you wonder what would make them stop talking and put their phones down.