Organization

Choreographer

Jan Lauwers

Paul Blackman

Chorus master

Huw Rhys James

Sound designer

Paul Jeukendrup

Singer

Tenor

Sean Panikkar

A Migrant

Soprano

Sarah Maria Sun

His Companion

Contralto

Anna Maria Chiuri

A Woman

Baritone

Antonio Yang

An Algerian

Bass

Makudupanyane Senaona

A Torture Victim

Stage director

Conductor

Ingo Metzmacher

Lighting designer

Ken Hioco

Costume designer

Lot Lemm

Set designer

Video designer

Dramaturge

Elke Janssens

Kasia Tórz

Salzburger Festspiele

Others

Konzertvereinigung Wiener Staatsopernchor

Orchestra

Wiener Philharmoniker

Leah Manning

Ballet

Bodhi Project

SEAD Salzburg

italia

Intolleranza 1960 -  (Intolerance 1960)

Salzburg

Austria

Felsenreitschule

Azione scenica in two parts (1961)
based on an idea by Angelo Maria Ripellino
Libretto by Luigi Nono using texts by Henri Alleg, Bertolt Brecht, Paul Éluard, Julius Fučík, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Angelo Maria Ripellino and Jean-Paul Sartre

Intolleranza 1960 is an opera that raises more questions than answers. Can this work even be called an opera? Or does she have something far more important to tell us? Does her political statement change if she is performed today as Intolleranza 2021? The Italian composer Luigi Nono was striving for a new form of musical theater that experiments with the human voice, with simultaneous processes and with spatial sound effects and brings them to bear in a unique way. Nono rejected the traditional opera conventions and was initially close to the Second Viennese School around Arnold Schönberg, Alban Berg and Anton Webern. He explored new compositional techniques, using electronic music and tape recordings in his plays, calling them "situations" or "azione scenica" (scene plot). This dramaturgical approach made Nono an innovator, with his musical worldview heavily influenced by his political views. As a young partisan fighter, he had joined the Italian CP in the last days of Mussolini's dictatorship, when membership of that party was a criminal offense. Nono was concerned with the social relevance of his music, with "committed music" that is not limited to aesthetic forms, but should have a direct effect on its listeners. He wanted to appeal to all social classes. when membership of that party was a criminal offense. Nono was concerned with the social relevance of his music, with "committed music" that is not limited to aesthetic forms, but should have a direct effect on its listeners. He wanted to appeal to all social classes. when membership of that party was a criminal offense. Nono was concerned with the social relevance of his music, with "committed music" that is not limited to aesthetic forms, but should have a direct effect on its listeners. He wanted to appeal to all social classes.
Intolleranza 1960 was Nono's first musical theater work and was commissioned by the 24th Venice Biennale International Festival of Contemporary Music, during which it premiered 60 years ago at the Teatro La Fenice. It was acknowledged as an important contribution to the post-war avant-garde and a key work in Nono's early creative phase. Nono wrote the libretto himself, based on an idea by Angelo Maria Ripellino. In it, he used essays and poems by Julius Fučík, Henri Alleg, Jean-Paul Sartre, Paul Éluard, Vladimir Mayakovsky and Bertolt Brecht. It is about a nameless emigrant who returns to his homeland. On his journey he gets caught in a demonstration and — although he is innocent — is arrested, tortured and taken to a concentration camp. His homesickness turns into a longing for freedom. He manages to escape, but fate hits him in the form of a tidal wave that triggers a humanitarian catastrophe.
Intolleranza 1960 had to overcome various obstacles that became apparent even before the premiere: on the one hand, the collaboration between Nono and Ripellino did not go as planned, whereupon Nono created a new version of the text, which the Biennale chairman tried to censor. On the other hand, neo-fascists caused disturbances at the premiere and showered the piece with malice. The "azione scenica" reflects Nono's dissatisfaction with the prevailing balance of power; it consists of allegorical episodes denouncing the absurdities of everyday life. The work is a passionate protest against racism, intolerance, oppression and violations of human dignity, with the environmental catastrophe at the end of the story linking the work to contemporary discourses. Nono wrote: "Intolleranza 1960 is the awakening of the human consciousness of a man who rises against the compulsion of needs and seeks a meaning, a 'human' basis of life. After going through some experiences of intolerance and fear, he is rediscovering a human relationship between himself and others […]. The certainty remains that 'man is now a helper to man'.”
Over the past three decades, Nono's works have repeatedly been seen in exemplary productions in Salzburg. Conductor Ingo Metzmacher, a profound connoisseur of Nono's music, emphasizes that for him Nono's "work and his legacy [...] are something like a guiding star". Jan Lauwers has recently dealt intensively with the meaning of political art; his findings will also flow into the new production: “Political art negates the aesthetics of politics. Art is always political.”

Kuvia