Organization

Sänger

Mezzosopran

Kate Aldrich

Ascanio

Tenor

Xavier Mas

Franceso

Sung-Keun Park

Ein Wirt

Kostümbild

Kathi Maurer

Dirigat

Valery Gergiev

Regie

Philipp Stölzl

Bühnenbild

Lichtgestaltung

Duane Schuler

Choreographie

Mara Kurotschka

Dramaturgie

Ronny Dietrich

Chordirektion

Andreas Schüller

Burkhard Fritz

Benvenuto Cellini

Bariton

Laurent Naouri

Fieramosca

Bass

Brindley Sherratt

Balducci

Mikhail Petrenko

Papst Clemens VII

Sopran

Maija Kovalevska

Teresa

Cellini’s apprentice

Roberto Tagliavini

Bernardino

Adam Plachetka

Pompeo

Innkeeper

Salzburger Festspiele

Wiener Staatsoper

Orchestra

Wiener Philharmoniker

Französisch

Deutsch

Salzburg

Österreich

Großes Festspielhaus

"A mixture of futurism à la Metropolis, fantasy à la Batman" and quotes from Piranesi's Carceri", presented in the form of photomontages enriched with .... robots, a helicopter, a shark and the winged vehicle of a pop star Pope" as the critic Marianne Zelger-Vogt (Neue Zürcher Zeitung) emphasized. The object of their enthusiasm is not a Broadway musical but a French opera from the 1830s, Hector Berlioz's "Benvenuto Cellini". The absence of the work in the operatic repertoire is certainly also due to its musical excesses: the work is so complex, rich in detail and imaginative that Berlioz's contemporaries considered it unplayable and unsingable.

In the production of the Salzburg Festival 2007 by director Philipp Stölzl, conductor Valery Gergiev ("the wild man of music") and a top-class cast with the Vienna Philharmonic and their choir, this proves to be wrong. Above all, Stölzl brought his experience as a director of music videos (eg for Madonna, Mick Jagger), commercials and films to this project, which was described as "science fiction for the grand opera" (Süddeutsche Zeitung), "breathtaking" (Der Standard) and "extremely successful" (FAZ).

Berlioz spurs the action forward by having his hero, the celebrated goldsmith and sculptor Benvenuto Cellini (1500-1571), disguised as a monk and having him elope with Teresa, the papal treasurer's daughter, on the night of carnival. A man is killed in the turmoil. Cellini is accused of murder and can only be saved if he finishes a statue for the Pope within a few hours. In a tremendous effort, he melts all of his other works into enough metal and completes the statue - saving his life and winning the hand of Teresa.

With its many vocal ensembles and mixed choirs, the music is sometimes reminiscent of Gounod and Offenbach. But the orchestration is typically Berliozian: sonic excesses, razor-sharp contours, jagged breaks. Conductor Valery Gergiev "pulled out all the stops. He drives the Vienna Philharmonic into a delirium similar to what may have gripped the composer. The result was an incessantly elevated atmosphere..." (Hans-Klaus Jungheinrich, Der Standard). Of crucial importance to this concept are the bravura performances of Burkhard Fritz as the lithe, spirited Cellini and the 26-year-old Latvian soprano Maja Kovalevska as Teresa, a "vocal pleasure" and "Salzburg discovery". However, Kovalevska is just one of countless discoveries

Benvenuto Cellini Berlioz

Public

Englisch

Genehmigt

Fotos