The Vienna State Opera in September
News |
There is the dark and magical realm of the Queen of the Night to discover in Die Zauberflöte, an artfully arranged world surrounding a blind princess in Iolanta, a "1924 version of Berghain" in Tannhäuser and a hopeless, oppressive situation in Fin de Partie.
Die Zauberflöte
It is probably Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's most popular work and one that is known far beyond the boundaries of opera. It is characterized by contrasts and diversity, transports us into a fairytale world and combines a claim to knowledge and wisdom with joie de vivre, cheerfulness and comedy: The Magic Flute. The production is characterized by Barbora Horáková's detailed, almost cinematic directorial style - the plot begins in a haunted house, which is discovered by the three boys and through which they are drawn into the dark, but also magical world of the Queen of the Night... Under the musical direction of Patrick Lange, the cast includes michael Nagl (Papageno), Serena Sáenz (Queen of the Night), Julian Prégardien (Tamino), Kathrin Zukowski (Pamina) and Tareq Nazmi (Sarastro).
Iolanta
The opera about the blind princess Iolanta, whose father tries to save her from the knowledge of her blindness and who ultimately finds true love after all, returned to the repertoire of the Vienna State Opera in March after almost 125 years in a new production by director Evgeny Titov. Star soprano Sonya Yoncheva sings the title role again: "For me, Iolanta is not a fairy tale. What we talk about can be quite real. Because sometimes we are blind without actually being blind." Other roles include Ivo Stanchev as King René, Boris Pinkhasovich as Robert and Dmytro Popov as Count Vaudémont; conducted by Timur Zangiev.
Tannhäuser
Director Lydia Steier compares Tannhäuser to a "rock star on tour" who "has experienced too many excesses, but can't stand it at home with his wife and children. It is simply the case that he is emotionally completely homeless, and that is painful. Axel Kober conducts the September performance series of the opulently decorated production, in which, in addition to the premiere Tannhäuser Clay Hilley and Ekaterina Gubanova as Venus, Camilla Nylund as Elisabeth, Georg Zeppenfeld as Landgrave Hermann and Martin Gantner as Wolfram von Eschenbach can also be heard.
Fin de partie
Samuel Beckett's play Fin de Partie(Endgame), which premiered in Paris in 1957, brings to the stage four characters, some of whom are severely restricted in their movements, who vegetate in a hostile, unreal and almost uninhabitable world and wait for "the end", who hate and torment each other but ultimately need each other. It is considered a prime example of "absurd theater", the opera of the same name by György Kurtág premiered in 2018 and was first shown at the Vienna State Opera in 2024 in a production by cult director Herbert Fritsch. In September, premiere conductor Simone Young will once again be at the podium: "Black humor is an essential part of absurd theater, and Kurtág always exaggerated slightly in the vocal lines where the wicked humor comes into play." Philippe Sly (Hamm), Georg Nigl (Clov), Charles Workman (Nagg) and Hilary Summers (Nell) sing.