I am not going to Salzburg this year for at least three reasons and my only regret is that I won't see one of my dearest operas,
The Makropulos Affair, with our favorite
Angela Denoke who --together with
Johan Reuter and
Aleš Briscein-- will certainly make this new
Christoph Marthaler production extra special. To that add
Esa-Pekka Salonen conducting and you get more than a trip worthy material!
My problem is that this is about the only thing I am truly interested in in Salzburg this summer.
Macbeth by
Peter Stein, and with his bitterness Maestro
Muti in the pit, is not exactly what would make me run to the
Felsenreitschule even if I were in Salzburg right now.
As for
Die Frau ohne Schatten (FroSch) it is an opera I like very much music-wise but again that alone would not make me make a trip to Salzburg in spite of its smashing cast [sadly the runs of FroSch and Makrop do not overlap, since they are both given at the big
Festspielhaus]. Another thing about FroSch is that its premiere was live broadcast on German and Austrian TVs and since the video will be around soon...
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| Alek Shrader in Salzburg |
Finally a revival of the
Claus Guth production of Da Ponte Trilogy is of course a nice treat, but since I already saw all three operas both at the
Haus für Mozart in Salzburg and on DVD, I guess it's fine to let my place to other folks to discover and enjoy the wonderful festival atmosphere in Salzburg (when the weather is good, that is).
