At the start - Schubert and Dostoevsky

The Salzburg festival opens on July 26, the Salzburg festival starts - the largest music and theatal forum of Europe, which was founded in 1919, the director Max Reinhardt, composer Richard Strauss and playwright Hugo von Hoffmannstal. The current quartermaster (artistic director) Jurgen Flim has been heading the festival for the second year. The opera program of last summer looked unconvincing, especially against the background of the concert, much more thoughtful. Now, perhaps, in the opera, things will go in a way.

Last year, the blurry motto of the Festival "The Dark Side of the Reason" combined a variety of operas, performances and musical evenings. This time the topic is more concrete: “Love is strong like death,” and all the operas of this summer are directly related to her. However, on the first day only concert and theatrical programs will start. Andrea Bret, who put Eugene Onegin here, is working on the production of “crime and punishment” last summer. On the same evening, the Schubert Scene cycle opens, the seven concerts of which combine Schubert's music with the classics of the twentieth century. In particular, in the first program, Schubert will be Olivier Messian, his music will sound the last evening performed by the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra.

On the second day, the play “Namerek” will be shown on the Cathedral Square, and in the evening - the first opera premiere of summer, the new “Don Juan” in the production of Claus Guta. The summer before last, to the anniversary of Mozart, Gut put here the "wedding of Figaro", a year ago, its repetition was the only decoration of the opera program. This time, another performance of the Mozart Summer is renewed - the low -current “Magic Flute”. Behind the remote control is Riccardo Muti, who also responsible for the new production of Othello Verdi.

Two East European operas deserve special attention: "The Castle of the Duke of the Blue Beard" Bartok, combined with his other works, and the "mermaid" of the jar. Barthoca’s opera will sound under the control of the gurus of modern music, composer and conductor Peter Etvash, which in itself is an event. And the Mermaid will become a rare Salzburg opera with the participation of the orchestra from behind the ocean - Cleveland. He will not only play this opera five times, but also give three concerts. Another invited team is the Venezuelan Orchestra named after Simon Bolivar, who has four concerts and two master classes.

Bartok and Schubert are the main, but not the only leitmotifs of concert programs. In the “Kontinent Sciarrino” cycle, dedicated to our contemporary Salvatore Sharrino, nine evenings, where the works of Sharrino will sound along with the music of composers of different eras - from Bach and Mozart to Porter and Luigi Nono. Beat Furrer is properiating with its composition "Fama", which was presented in November in Moscow at the Stanislavsky season festival, as well as opera Sharrino "Luci Mie Traditrici". Her plot is dedicated to the fate of Carlo Jezualdo, out of jealousy of his wife, which is quite consistent with the topic of the festival.

As for the Russian participants in the forum, it will be possible to hear the pianists of Grigory Sokolov and Boris Berezovsky, the cellist Alexander Knyazev, the singer Albina Shagimuratova, Ekaterina Gubanova, Catherine Surina and many others. Many eminent conductors will come to the festival: Pierre Bulez, Maris Jansons, Simon Rattl, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Mark Minkovski, Zordi Saval. Another maestro here will rest from conducting. Ingo Metzmakher will act as an accompanist, sitting behind the piano at the evening of the singer Christina Shefer. Among the concerts of the festival not a single random. Is it possible to say the same about the opera program, will soon become known.

07.24.2008 / Ilya Ovchinnikov, the material was published in the newspaper No. 138 of 07.25.2008.