Organization

Bregenzer Festspiele

Singer

Bass-baritone

Christoph Pohl

Count Francesco Cenci

Mezzo-soprano

Dshamilja Kaiser

Lucrezia

Soprano

Gal James

Beatrice

Christina Bock

Bernardo

Corinna Scheurle

Bass

Per Bach Nissen

Cardinal Camillo

Tenor

Michael Laurenz

Orsino

Baritone

Wolfgang Stefan Schwaiger

Marzio

Sébastien Soules

Olimpio

Peter Marsh

Ein Richter

Conductor

Johannes Debus

Stage director

Johannes Erath

Set designer

Katrin Connan

Costume designer

Katharina Tasch

Lighting designer

Bernd Purkrabek

Others

Philharmonischer Chor Prag

Orchestra

Vienna Symphony Orchestra

German

Beatrice Cenci

Bregenz

Austria

Bregenzer Festspielhaus

Werkstattbühne

Francesco Cenci owns several palaces in and around Rome, enjoys his extravagant life with opulent festivals and does not shy away from acts of violence to get rid of unwanted people. For his transgressions, he buys himself free from the church, to which he has to leave several of his possessions. He happily announces the death of his two sons and frightens the guests present. He responds to his daughter Beatrice's desperation with even greater abuse. Together with her stepmother Lucrezia, Beatrice plans to murder her father.

The German composer Berthold Goldschmidt set the true story of the daughter of the Roman nobleman Francesco Cenci, who was born in 1577, to music. Goldschmidt had already become acquainted with the subject matter of the women Beatrice and Lucrezia, who were executed in 1599, through Stendhal's novella in 1923. But it was not until 1949 that his participation in a British opera competition enabled him to set the text to music based on Percy Bysshe Shelley's drama The Cenci. The Jewish composer had lived in London since 1935, where he died in 1996. Although the competition jury awarded Goldschmidt's design, the promised performance did not take place. The work was first performed in concert in London in 1988. Goldschmidt said of his work that it had become a »real bel canto opera«, which ends with a moving requiem for the two executed women.

Johannes Erath will direct this suspenseful opera about church corruption and human violence. In 2016, the director's interpretation of Miroslav Srnka's Make No Noise on the workshop stage received a lot of attention from the public and the press. In recent years he has staged productions at the Frankfurt Opera, the Semper Opera in Dresden, the Bavarian State Opera and the Graz Opera. Together with the stage designer Katrin Connan and the costume designer Katharina Tasch, he will now bring Beatrice Cenci to the Festspielhaus stage as the Austrian premiere. Johannes Debus, who is remembered by the audience at the Bregenz Festival for his interpretation of Jacques Offenbach's The Tales of Hoffmann, can be heard at the conductor's podium.

Beatrice Cenci Goldschmidt,B

Public

Approved

Photos