Why did they program Carl Maria von Weber’s opera “Der Freischütz” (1821) on the lake stage at the Bregenz Festival, where water does not even begin to play a role? Wouldn’t ETA Hoffmann’s “Undine”, premiered in Berlin five years earlier, be much better? The question is unnecessary, because the planning of outdoor productions for this venue follows its own criteria. Almost seven thousand tickets for more than fifty performances in two summers can only be “sold out” if you attract people who have famous musicals.
Philipp Stölzl, who staged Verdi’s “Rigoletto” a few years ago and is now also responsible for direction, stage and lighting design for the new Bregenz “Freischütz”, bluntly admits commercial reasons for the choice of piece. In order to translate Weber’s “Romantic Opera” into these dimensions, he turned the piece into a non-stop tourist horror event. Jan Dvořák rewrote Friedrich Kind’s spoken dialogues, which seem rather old-fashioned today, in a contemporary way based on a concept from Stölzl. Weber’s score for the two-hour sea stage version was shortened and incorporated into a film-like soundtrack, including sound design and additional music by Ingo Ludwig Frenzel.
Philipp Stölzl relies on amazing effects
In the middle of summer you can see a gorgeous winter landscape on the stage of Lake Constance. As a background, Stölzl had built the village of “Freischütz”, half submerged in snow, with a leaning church tower, a witch’s house with a clapboard roof and bare trees. Hidden technology enables amazing effects. A large pool of water in the foreground covered with artificial ice floes serves as a wet, cold setting for many scenes. A huge moon disk hangs above the backstage, constantly changing its appearance. Sometimes it glows powder white, sometimes the shadows of eerie birds flutter by, sometimes it mutates into a dark cratered skull or turns blood red. And you can always hear a raven crying, a wolf howling, ice cracking or thunder rumbling. Even before the music starts, dark people dig a grave. A funeral procession comes with Gregorian chants. The church bell tolls brightly. A man calls out the name “Agathe”, he is dragged away, hung from the nearest tree, still shaking with his legs and then falls into the water. The priest cut the rope. Now he wears his habit, reveals himself as the red hunter Samiel and from then on he comments on the events with cynical, funny rhymes.
In the role of this Mephistopheles, which Stölzl has upgraded to become a permanent emcee, Moritz von Treuenfels moves smoothly across the scene, casually strumming arias or briefly pausing the “film” to announce a dream sequence with light for the spectators. show, glitter and mermaids stretching their legs, popcorn included. Gesine Völlm’s costumes set the story after the Thirty Years’ War. Mauro Peter as Max, a traumatized sophisticate with a jam, celebrates his arias with ease and precise intonation, even as he wades aimlessly through the mud. Nikola Hillebrand as the cheerful singer Agathe and Katharina Ruckgaber as the witty, emancipated village girl Ännchen are “best friends” here.
Sliced deer
Ännchen is secretly in love with Agathe, he wants to run away with her, she brushes off brutal bullies and, even when completely drunk, sings a perfect duet. Christof Fischesser, as the bass-thumping Kaspar, stands in a magic circle of fire burning on water while throwing loose balls and rises to diabolical ecstasy with apocalyptic trumpet calls and guttural screams. There is a slash of gun smoke, bullets ringing out, a cut deer hanging from branches. Samiel stands on top of the church tower, the hands of the clock running amok. Undead emerge from the lake everywhere and crawl across the shimmering poisonous green scene. A horse skeleton rises from the water, a huge snake with bright red eyes raises its head menacingly.
Stölzl lets the Wolfsschlucht ritual break out across the entire lake stage like a wacky death metal scene, but pulls out all the stops too soon. The number of zombie horse skeletons spread out quickly. After the comedy, the effect of Weber’s music, brilliantly contributed by Enrique Mazzola and the Vienna Symphony Orchestra via long-distance transmission, does not arrive anyway. Before the tragic conclusion shown at the beginning, Samiel pulls the emergency brake and promises a very cheesy happy ending. Andreas Wolf is allowed to play the role of the warm hermit as “God’s friend” himself. But God is leading it. Instead of divine grace, the victory of good here is due only to the whim of evil.
Secret Love: Anna Goryachova and Mélissa Petit in “Tancredi” by RossiniKarl ForsterJan Philipp Gloger made the love of women in a male-dominated society, which occurs only slightly in Stölzl’s work, the central theme in his performance of Gioachino Rossini’s first serial opera “Tancredi” (1813) in the Bregenz Festival Hall. Although this is not mentioned at all in the libretto, Gloger’s version stays closer to the original than Stölzl’s. Since the role of the title character in Rossini is sung by a woman, Gloger thought of interpreting this trouser role differently. In his case, Tancredi is a woman who disguises herself as a man to meet her secret lover Amenaìde in her father Argirio’s house.
Gloger has relocated the medieval plot to the South American gang environment of our time. Warlord Rossini’s troops, also threatened by Saracens, transform into mafia clans with the police hot on their heels. No matter what, the drug lords Argirio and Orbazzano have to get together now. An agreement also includes Orbazzano’s marriage to Amenaìde, who refuses and asks Tancredi for help. His letter is intercepted and misinterpreted as treason worthy of death. At the last moment, Tancredi shows up and saves Amenaìde, but the police chief kills him.
Ben Baur’s hyper-realistic revolving stage shows the interior of Arigio’s dilapidated villa. Justina Klimczyk’s costumes are perfect for this brutal macho world. Gloger’s subtle direction, which is film-like in every case, and Ran Arthur Braun’s unobtrusive fight choreography, together with twenty-year-old Rossini’s music, congenially conducted by Yi-Chen Lin, make the proceedings at times surreal for more than three. an hour.
The excellent vocal ensemble with Antonino Siragusa (Argirio), Laura Polverelli (his wife Isaura) and Andreas Wolf (Orbazzano) had a lot to do with this. Anna Goryachova and Mélissa Petit are the stars of the production, who, as Tancredi and Amenaìde, achieve their forbidden love with good voice and charming acting.