Bregenz Festival
André Chénier, from Umberto Giordano
20. July - 21. August 2011
Starting at the 2011 Bregenz Festival, there will be a decisive evolution in the programming of the Festival Opera House production. Until now, operatic rarities have been staged at this venue, but from 2011 it will present world premieres of newly commissioned works. The first of these will be the opera Miss Fortune / Achterbahn by British composer Judith Weir in 2011, followed in 2012 by Solaris by German composer Detlev Glanert, and Tales from the Vienna Woods by the Austrian composer HK Gruber in 2013.
"Step towards commissioned works is a logical development"
A development which has already been prefigured in recent years – The Fall of the House of Usher in 2006 and The Passenger in 2010 are works which had not been seen on stage anywhere in that form before – will now be pursued as a consistent strategy by David Pountney in his seventh year as artistic director: "The Festival Opera House production has always been chosen in the spirit of discovery. Up to now, this has been the discovery of unknown or forgotten operas: in the past few years we have succeeded in bringing back onto the stage such brilliant operas as Martinu's Greek Passion, Nielsen's Masquerade and Szymanowski's King Roger," Pountney explains. "My second term as artistic director at Bregenz has made it possible for me to push the programme of the festival more consistently in this direction, and to present our audience with works and composers it did not know before. The step in the direction of commissioned works is therefore, for me, an entirely logical development."
Choice of composers reflects clear strategy
The choice of the three composers Judith Weir, Detlev Glanert and HK Gruber reflects a clear strategy of David Pountney's: "I selected the composers for these three new works in a very conscious way. A central stipulation of the brief which all three have received from me was that we will be presenting these new works to an ordinary opera audience as part of a 'democratic festival'. What was most important to me was that each of them should tell the audience a story, and do so in a musically very direct way."
"New operas that belong to us and our audience!"
The shift towards world premieres has an added positive effect, says Pountney: "Of course, I am also happy that these new operas belong to us, the Bregenz Festival, and our audience. We bring them into the world, so to speak, and the Bregenz audience assists in the process. If one of these operas makes it into the repertoire, it will be something fabulous that we have achieved together."