All eyez on Salzburger Festspiele tonight as Gluck's "Orfeo ed Euridice" opens: Riccardo Muti at the helm of the production that, coming right after the crazy "Dionysos" by Wolfgang Rihm, is one of the major events of this summer season.
Besides tonight's premiere, the opera will rawk the Grosses Festpielhaus on August 3, 7, 13, 19, 21, 24. On August 15, Muti will flaunt the Wiener in a big Prokofiev concert -- his 200th apparition on the Salzburg stage since his now-famous debut as a young man conducting "Don Pasquale" on Herbie Von K.'s request.
"Orfeo" is directed by Dieter Dorn, sets and costumes by Juergen Rose. The cast: Elisabeth Kulman (Orfeo) Genia Kuehmeier (Euridice), Christiane Karg (Amore). Many more production photos after the jump...
You are making me feel very very old - I was at that first performance of Don Pasquale!
Looking forward to the broadcast. Do you know if one of the networks will be televising it?
Posted by: WILLYM | July 31, 2010 at 07:00 PM
Damn, Willym, and I heard Muti conduct the Wieners in Les Nuits d'Ete with Agnes Balta in Salzburg in days of eld. Didn't stick around for the Tchaikovsky symphony on the second half of the program (PD, who was in Salzburg for Hoffmann and hung out at the DG kiosk at intermission, did stay for the second half of Muti's concert).
I sat through Jedermann on a very hot afternoon; that the Berlioz was all I could absorb that day.
Posted by: El Cajon | July 31, 2010 at 08:15 PM
When the tickets are so expensive shouldn't the sets be equally expensive?
How could one explain the complete lack of sets and the poverty of the production in general.
Muti must be quite sad too, not only because of the dramatic subject of the opera he is conducting but mainly after recollecting the productions there some thirty years ago.
Salzburg should not sell cheap spectacles
thinking that Muti's name is the only big attraction, because in the end their opera house will be half empty.
Posted by: Chris | July 31, 2010 at 09:01 PM
I've never heard Elisabeth Kulman but my god she was remarkable. What struck me was that short recitative after the Che faro... the way she sang it and Muti conducted it... that's what its all about!
Posted by: Willy | July 31, 2010 at 09:24 PM
We ourselves heard Maestro Muti on our first trip to Salzburg in a morning concert including a Schubert Mass and featuring the redoubtable Herr Pape. Redoubtable indeed as we heard him as Sarastro that very night. The Dresdener was once again serving as the bass foundation of the Masonic edifice when we first heard Maestro conduct opera at Salzburg, in the the Anniversary year. The Pamina in that performance was the most excellent Frau Kuhmeier, Pamina to Damrau's QotN, a pairing repeated at the Met in Damrau's (supposed) last outing on that particular high wire.
Kuhmeier was most excellent in the portion we heard over the interwebs yesterday but was at least matched if not exceeded by the superb Kulman (we believe she replaced the initially scheduled La Garanca - a substitution of which we might have been first informed by OC herself). Based on our previous encounters with her in Vienna and in yesterday's broadcast she should have a most accomplished career ahead of her, a career we hope to follow very closely.
Posted by: Furst | August 01, 2010 at 01:02 PM
Can you send the link so that I can listen too, Willy? Thank you.
Posted by: C.S. | August 01, 2010 at 01:15 PM
C.S. - sorry I was listening to it live last night on ORF.at. I'm not sure if they archive their programmes for listening the way many networks do. I played around a bit on the site but couldn't see anything - my German is pretty bad. Try ORF.at and go to Radio 1. If anyone else knows the url or how to reach their archives maybe you could let us know????
Posted by: WILLYM | August 01, 2010 at 05:17 PM