Name: Wozzeck
Start: 2017-08-08T00:00:00.000Z
End: 2017-08-27T00:00:00.000Z
Location: Haus für Mozart

Admin

Organization

Singer

Baritone

Matthias Goerne

Wozzeck

Tenor

John Daszak

Drum Major

Mauro Peter

Andres

Gerhard Siegel

Captain

Bass

Jens Larsen

Doctor

Tobias Schabel

First apprentice

Huw Montague Rendall

Second apprentice

Heinz Göhrig

The madman

Soprano

Asmik Grigorian

Marie

Contralto

Frances Pappas

Margret

Conductor

Vladimir Jurowski

Stage director

William Kentridge

Set designer

Luc de Wit

Costume designer

Greta Goiris

Video designer

Catherine Meyburgh

Lighting designer

Urs Schönebaum

Salzburger Festspiele

Orchestra

Wiener Philharmoniker

Salzburg

Austria

Haus für Mozart

It was 1917, exactly one hundred years before this new production was performed at the Salzburg Festival, when Alban Berg decided to use Georg Büchner's fragment "Woyzeck" as a subject for his opera, which tells how a simple officer's boy, tormented by his environment, suddenly in violence breaks out. In this short drama, which spans the emotional life of his characters as a field of tension between frustration, despair, hopelessness and love, Berg recognized the conditions of his time and found the right template for the kind of music that he and his teacher Arnold Schönberg only rarely did created years ago: the new atonality, which is able to describe and express extreme emotional situations.

With the invitation of William Kentridge, internationally known for his drawings, films, theater and opera productions, to realize this new production at the Haus für Mozart, the Salzburg Festival is following the tradition of devoting a great deal of space to the fine arts. Kentridge's work oscillates between media and genres. Characterized by a dynamic between erased and freshly drawn lines, his drawings are an integral part of his animation and filmmaking practice, in which the meanings of his films emerge during the making process. The stage design is dominated by a mountain of platforms, fragments of stairs and discarded furniture, in which animated drawings are projected into spaces that move from inside to outside,

The terrific cast, excellent right down to the supporting roles, is led by Matthias Goerne, one of the leading baritones of our time, who here embodies for the last time the role he has been associated with in recent years as the shattered, the shattered , but also menacing Wozzeck. Lithuanian soprano Asmik Grigorian as Marie was "the revelation of the evening" with "her rich, bright voice that has enough steely edge to convey that pithy personality" (Bachtrack). The Vienna Philharmonic, led by Vladimir Jurowski, were "virtuosic" and acted as "catalysts and interlocutors". "The audience seemed stunned at the end, but grateful."

Großes Festspielhaus

Wozzeck Berg

Public

Approved

Production booklet

Further reading