"Aida" will be staged on the water

British conductor David Pountney will stage Giuseppe Verdi's popular opera "Aida" on the floating stage of Lake Constance, Lenta.ru reports. The irony, notes The Times, is that Aida is set in the Egyptian desert. But Pountney is not embarrassed by this circumstance; he is confident that he managed to find a suitable stage solution. The premiere of "Aida" will take place on July 22, 2009 at the music festival in Bregenz, Austria.

Performances on the floating stage in Bregenz first appeared in 1950. David Pountney, who has been working in Bregenz since the mid-1990s, staged Verdi's Nabucco and Il Trovatore there. An episode of one of the most successful Bregenz water productions of recent years - Giacomo Puccini's Tosca - can be seen in the film Quantum of Solace.

At the same time, about 7 thousand people can listen to the opera on the shores of Lake Constance in Bregenz. In 2008, “Tosca” was listened to by more than 140 thousand people.