Tag Archives: Bregenz Festival

Ernani, Madama Butterfly, Bregenz Festival, July 2023

Bregenz, at one end of Lake Konstanz in Austria, hosts an opera festival every summer. This year on the vast Lake Stage, which plays to an Amphitheatre seating 6,800, they performed Madama Butterfly, and inside the auditorium Verdi’s Ernani. This was an early Verdi opera, once very popular, but later eclipsed by his middle period, …

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Don Quichotte, Festival Theatre, Bregenz, July 2019

This production by Mariame Clément of Massenet’s final opera set all five acts differently, and the overall effect was tremendous. She deals with modern concerns about male role models and masculinity, and the overall effect at the end of a stage within a stage within a stage was hugely moving. Wonderful performances by Gábor Bretz …

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Rigoletto, Bregenz Festival Lake Stage, July 2019

This production by Philipp Stölzl boasted a superbly engineered set with a giant moving head, two hands, and a balloon that rose more than 30 metres into the air. Mechanically a great achievement, but the staging was too busy by half, with singers and acrobats appearing all over the place, including inside and on top …

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Mosè in Egitto, Bregenzer Festspiele, July 2017

This 1818 Rossini opera about the Hebrew Exodus involves a love affair between the Pharaoh’s son Osiride and a Hebrew girl called Elcia. Moses’ attempts to lead his people out of captivity are opposed by Osiride, who is unwilling to lose Elcia, and after numerous emotional conflicts the opera ends with the crossing of the …

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Carmen, Bregenz lake-stage, July 2017

The opening night of the Bregenz Festival saw a spectacular production of Carmen in the pouring rain. The performers got soaked, but no matter because Carmen escapes at the end of Act I by leaping into the lake, and in the final moments Don Jose drowns her — see my review in the Telegraph on …

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Turandot, Bregenz Festival, July 2016

Opening the Bregenz festival was Franco Faccio’s Hamlet in the 1,800 seat Festspielhaus — see my Telegraph review — followed by Turandot on the vast Seebühne (Lake Stage), visible to an open-air audience of nigh on 7,000, on the second night. The main part of the stage is relatively close to the water, but the …

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