New repertoire for the State Opera

Ten premieres are slated for the first season of the Vienna State Opera under the direction of Bogdan Roscic. Given the crown crisis, it is unclear whether it can start on September 6, as planned, but the program presented makes it clear that the important pillars of the repertoire will be exchanged in the first year.

Mozart, Wagner, Verdi, Puccini: in a house like the Vienna State Opera with 350 performances a year and around 130 quiver productions, they form the basis of the evening’s events. The new administration relies heavily on acquisitions from other companies and co-productions to obtain this amount.

According to the plan, the round opens with the “Butterfly” played by Anthony Minghella, who died in 2008 and the star of soprano Asmik Grigorian, who had played with great success in London and New York since 2005, followed by the iconic version by Hans Neuenfels from the “Kidnapping” of the Stuttgart Opera (1998) and the production by Dmitri Tcherniakov in Moscow from “Eugen Onegin”.

Calixto Bieito’s “Carmen” has been shown on 29 stages worldwide since 1999, Barrie Kosky originally directed “Macbeth” for Zurich. Both directors will return with new works: Bieito will develop “Tristan und Isolde” on 21/22, Kosky will start a new Da Ponte trilogy with “Don Giovanni”. The productions now brought to Vienna will be adapted to local conditions, rehearsed and transferred to the repertoire.

Large internal productions

The first new in-house production is Hans Werner Henze’s “The Betrayed Sea” (from December 13), a ring premiere, Jossi Wieler and Sergio Morabito are directing, Simone Young is directing, and Vera-Lotte Boecker introduces a new addition. to the soloist ensemble. The second major in-house production is a new “Parsifal”: under the musical direction of General Music Director Philippe Jordan, Jonas Kaufmann and Elina Garanca, who debuted as Kundry, they will sing, directed by Kirill Serebrennikov.

“La Traviata” is a co-production with the Paris Opera and Simon Stone’s first house job, his “Wozzeck” will follow next season. “Faust” directed by Frank Castorf is a co-production with the Stuttgart Opera, “L’incoronazione di Poppea” premiered in 2018 as a co-production directed by Jan Lauwers in Salzburg.

Highlights include “Elektra” in the Harry Kupfer production and with Franz Welser-Möst’s return to the director’s desk, the original French version of “Don Carlos” with Ildar Abdrazakov and Jonas Kaufmann, and “Le Nozze “in the production of Jean-Pierre Ponnelle. Otto Schenk’s “Rosenkavalier” is rehearsed musically.

With Martin Schläpfer, the State Ballet and Volksoper now have not only a new director, but also a chief choreographer. In the big house, Schläpfer is presented with a world premiere: “4” for Mahler’s fourth symphony brings together all the dancers in the company. Schläpfer also maintains the beginning of the nights in three parts, for example in “Dances Pictures Symphonies”, where the works of Balanchine and Ratmansky are together with the premiere of his own creation for the Fifth of Shostakovich.