Opera by Mieczyslaw Weinberg, libretto by Alexander Medwedew based on Zofia Posmysz‘s novella with the same title. Sung in German and Russian with German surtitles.

Premiere on 21 July 2009 - 7.30 p.m., Festspielhaus

Mieczyslaw Weinberg’s opera The Passenger/Die Passagierin will be staged at the Festival Opera House in 2010. This opera by the Polish composer is based on a novel with the same title by the Polish Holocaust survivor Zofia Posmysz. Completed in 1968, the opera was first performed in 2006 in a semi-staged concert in Moscow. 

The Passenger is set partly on an ocean liner en route from Europe to South America in the late 1950s, and partly in the concentration camp Auschwitz in 1943 and 1944. One of the passengers on board is Lisa, the wife of a German diplomat who is on his way to Brazil in order to take up a new post. It turns out that Lisa was formerly an SS warden in Auschwitz. To her horror one of her fellow passengers is the spitting image of Marta, a Polish prisoner at the camp whom Lisa had tried to befriend while she was a warden there.

Mieczyslaw Weinberg, who was born into Jewish family in Warsaw in 1919 and died in Moscow in 1996, is regarded as the most independent-minded and important of all of Shostakovich’s followers. In 1939 he fled from the Nazis from Warsaw to Minsk; his parents and his sister were killed. In 1943 Weinberg moved to Moscow, where he worked as a composer and pianist, completing a vast quantity of music including scores for some of the Soviet Union’s most famous films and beloved children’s cartoons.

Further performances
26 July - 7.30 p.m.
28 July - 7.30 p.m.
31 July - 11.00 a.m.

Introductory talk in the Festspielhaus will be start one hour before performance

A supplement of EUR 25 is to be paid on July 21 (category 1-3)

Libretto by Antonio Ghislanzoni
Sung in Italian with German surtitles

Premiere on 22 July 2009 - 9.15 p.m., Seebühne

Duration: 2 ¼ hours without break

Opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi, libretto by Antonio Ghislanzoni based on a scenario by Auguste Mariette Bey. Sung in Italian with German surtitles.

Aida is one of the most performed operas in the repertoire – a tale of a legendary love stronger than death, and a very modern parable about nationalism, belligerence and hatred of the enemy. Giuseppe Verdi’s monumental opera Aida is returning to the spectacular Seebühne at Bregenz in summer 2010.

The story of the tragic love between the Ethiopian princess Aida – once brought to the Nile as a slave – and the Egyptian commander Radames was a triumph at its premiere in Cairo in 1871. Since then it has become one of the most popular and most performed works in the entire opera repertoire.

Verdi conceived Aida as an opera that would have no equal. It has grandiose choral scenes and rousing rhythmic marches, gorgeous arias and romantic duets all brought harmoniously together, and their effect is further enhanced by the exotic flavour of the music. The famous triumphal march with its blaring fanfares and stirring choruses is one of the musical and dramatic highpoints of "grand Italian opera".

Director Graham Vick and stage designer Paul Brown were keen to make use of Lake Constance in Aida, not just as a grand backdrop but as an integral part of the production. With ships and platforms, parts of the stage set that emerge from under the water, and entry points for the performers which are both on and under the water – the stage set for Aida will come into being during the performance itself before the eyes of the audience.

Verdi and the Seebühne

"Aida is not a desert opera at all: it takes place on the banks of the Nile, and its beautiful 3rd Act evokes in a magical way the Egyptian night beside the great river. All Verdi operas are located in the imagination, not in real spaces. That’s what gives them such theatrical power. And the power of our designs for Aida is that they plunge you straight away into a thrilling work of the imagination." David Pountney, artistic director

David Pountney's own thrilling and highly acclaimed production of Nabucco in the summer of 1993 and 1994 launched what has become a remarkable series of operas by Giuseppe Verdi on the Bregenz Festival's Floating Stage. It has been clear at least since 1999 with the opera A Masked Ball, whose stage sculpture of a giant skeleton leafing through a book attracted attention all over the world, that the Bregenz Floating Stage and Giuseppe Verdi are a perfect match.

The Seebühne would seem indeed to be the ideal venue for Verdi operas. With their huge choruses, moving mass scenes and dramatic duets, it is as though they were written specifically with the open-air stage in mind, with its great possibilities for imposing sets.

So Aida will be the opera on the Seebühne for the first time. David Pountney is not the least perturbed by the fact that the Seebühne stands in a lake and not in a desert. "It's the first time in the Festival's history that this magnificent 'desert opera' has been staged on the shore of Lake Constance, and of course its poses a considerable challenge. But we think we have found a really exciting production concept."

Diving into the water, falling down the stairs, flying through the air – whatever spectacular feats the production team requires of them, the eight stunt men and women of VIPstuntcam carry them out in complete control and with full safety precautions.

Vigilantes: Matthias Schendel (Coordinator), Cornelia Dworak, Dori Horvath, Sandra Kier, Kristina Papadopoulou, Christian Gneißl, Bernhard Häfner, Falko Kleinert, Sigi Polap.

In Aida, extras and members of the Bregenz Festival Choir become actors, too. They meet the high demands of the production team with utmost precision in the way they perform – whether they're playing priests, slaves or ministers. The actors of the Bregenz Festival also support the "invisible" choir in the Festival Opera House from the Floating Stage. 

Twenty-four dancers from ten countries link the plot of Aida with the central element of the production – water. The dancers won't only be performing on the stage, as they normally do, but also in the water.

Vigilantes: Mikiko Arai, Jozefien Debaillie, Tina Essl, Josefine Häggblad, Daniela Heissl, Flavie Hennion, Isabella Kraus, Marta Lastowska, Anna Lis, Nadja Musil, Francesca Poglie, Silke Woschnjak, Alec Agalarov, Ivano Chiaravalloti, Hannes Diehl, Wallace Jones, Fabrice Jucquois, Jonas Kägi, David Laera, Lebogang Elliot Mohlamme, Marek Ranic, Adriano Sanzo, Michael Seidel, Ruben Jonathan Wiethüchter.

The tenor Philip Webb is attracting ever greater critical acclaim for his performances both in concert and on the opera stage. Before appearing at the Bregenz Festival in the role of Radames in Aida, he made his debut as Manrico in Il trovatore at the New York Metropolitan Opera. In the 2008/09 season he also appeared as Enzo in La Gioconda, Maurizion in Adriana Lecouvreur and Froh in The Rhinegold, and he performed in Verdi's Requiem with musicians from the University of Denver, gave a master class at the Southern Theological Seminary, Kentucky, and took part in a charity gala at Düsseldorf Opera. Last season he sang Calaf in a new production of Turandot at Atlanta Opera, Pollione in Norma at the Opera Company of Philadelphia, Radames in Aida at Portland Opera, Rodolfo in Luisa Miller at the Gran Teatre del Liceu, and Rodolfo in La Bohème and Pinkerton in Madame Butterfly at the Vienna State Opera. He has also appeared in the roles of Macduff in Macbeth and Pollione in Norma at the Metropolitan Opera as well as Don Alvaro in La forza del destino at the Vienna State Opera. Highlights of previous seasons include leading roles at the New York City Opera, Seattle Opera, the Vienna State Opera, Colorado Opera, Atlanta Opera, Utah Opera and San Francisco Opera as well as concert performances with the Louisville Symphony Orchestra, the Nashville Symphony, Toledo Symphony, Milwaukee Symphony and the Minnesota Orchestra among others.

The American tenor Arnold Rawls is celebrated for his "powerful, clear tenor voice", as a "firm, pliant lyric tenor with ringing high notes" and for his "flair for acting". Last season his Radames was rapturously received since he was able to sing the famous romanza Celeste Aida "with a gentle tone and a wonderful sense of Italian lyricism. He sang a dazzling high C which seemed to go on for eternity" (Omaha World Herald). In the 2008/09 season Arnold Rawls sang Canio in Pagliacci at the Lyric Opera of Chicago, Pinkerton in Madame Butterfly at the Madison Opera, Manrico in Il trovatore at the Indianapolis Opera, and performed in Verdi's Requiem with the Madison Symphony Orchestra, the Washington Chorus (Kennedy Center), the Oberlin Conservatory and the Cologne Philharmonic. In future seasons he will appear as Verdi's Otello with the Opera Company of Philadelphia, as Manrico in Il trovatore and Forresto in Attila, both at Seattle Opera, as Ernani at the Lyric Opera of Chicago, as Bacchus in Ariadne auf Naxos at Indianapolis Opera and as Erik in The Flying Dutchman at Madison Opera. In recent seasons Arnold Rawls has been seen as Radames in Aida at Florida Grand Opera, Omaha Opera, the Lyric Opera of Kansas City and Arkansas Symphony, in the leading role of Standing Bear in the world premiere of Anthony Davis's Wakonda’s Dream at Omaha Opera, as Cavaradossi in Tosca at Florida Grand Opera and Bridgeport Symphony, Gustavo in Un ballo in maschera at Des Moines Metro Opera, and Sam in Susannah at Opera Pacific, where his performance was praised by The Orange County Register for "its pure power, powerful diction and his focus on the acting". In addition he has recently appeared in the role of Des Grieux in Manon Lescaut at the Metropolitan Opera and as Manrico in Il trovatore at the Bregenz Festival. Rawls lives in Chicago with his wife and two children. He is the recipient of a grant from the Olga Forrai Foundation in New York City.

Rubens Pelizarri is a top Italian tenor of the younger generation and his lyric-heroic tenor voice is considered one of the most exciting discoveries especially in the Italian repertoire. He has already sung a number of roles in operas by Verdi, Puccini, Cherubini, Bizet and others, with Verdi operas and works occupying a central place, e.g. Aida, La forza del destino, Ernani, Messa di Requiem, Il trovatore, Macbeth, Attila, Il Corsaro and I Masnadieri. He has appeared at many opera houses, among them the Carlo Felice opera house in Genoa, at the open-air stage Sferisterio in Macerata, in Modena, Piacenza, Ravenna, Ferrara, Savona, the Teatro Massimo in Palermo, the Teatro Regio in Turin and in the Teatro Verdi in Triest, singing under the direction of Bartoletti, Callegari, Ranzani and Di Stefano. He has sung roles in Puccini's Tosca, Madame Butterfly, Il tabarro, La fanciulla del West, Edgar (Tel Aviv, Daniel Oren, De Ana Modena, Piacenza, Festival of Avenches, Livorno), in Cherubini's Medea (Evelino Pidò, Teatro Massimo in Palermo and Teatro Massimo Bellini in Catania) as well as in Bizet's Carmen (Lausanne, Tokyo, Modena and Piacenza).

Indra Thomas is becoming established as one of the most important sopranos in the world. Of her performance as Imogene in Bellini's Il pirata at the Caramoor Festival the New York Times wrote: "The mad scene was a triumph [...] the audience awarded her a tremendous ovation." Thomas has already appeared in many of the world's major opera houses, including the New York Met, the Lyric Opera Boston, the Lyric Opera Chicago, Teatro Carlo Felice Genua, Hamburg State Opera, New National Theatre Tokyo, Teatro Real Madrid, Michigan Opera Theatre and Gran Teatre del Liceu; and at the festivals Choregies d`Orange, the BBC Proms and the Festival de Saint Denis Radio France. She has performed with orchestras such as the Boston Symphony, the London Symphony Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic, the Malaysian Philharmonic, Accademia di Santa Cecilia, Orchestre National de Lyon, the Philadelphia Orchestra and Baltimore Symphony. Among the conductors Indra Thomas has worked with are R. Chailly, C. Davis, R. Norrington, J. L. Cobos, Y. Temirkanov, L. Maazel, M. Plasson and V. Spivakov. Among forthcoming engagements Indra Thomas sings the leading role in Aida at the Opéra Théâtre d'Avignon and at the Bregenz Festival and performs in concerts of Beethoven's 9th Symphony with the Rotterdam Philharmonic, in Tippet's A Child Of Our Time with the Netherlands Radio Chamber Orchestra, and in the War Requiem with the Orchestre de Paris. Among her recordings is a CD with songs of Strauss, Duparc and John Duke for National Public Radio, and she can also be heard on a Naxos CD entitled A Night at the Opera.

1) You will be singing Aida on the Bregenz Floating Stage this summer. What do you think about this role – what is special, what is challenging?

Aida is a powerful role.  This role takes you through a roller coaster of emotions… fear, love, hate, hope, despair.  Bringing out all of these emotions is what makes this role both special and challenging.  

2) If you would not have become a singer, what else would you have been?

There is not another job I would rather be doing than singing.  I would have somehow found my way to a career in music even if it was in another genre.

3) Do you have a favourite role? And if yes, which is it and why?

My favourite role has to be Puccini’s Suor Angelica.  This is the first Italian opera I heard in it’s entirety.  It is also the opera that convinced me to pursue a career in opera.

4) What’s on your favourite IPod playlist?

Songs that are far away from classical music!

5) What is your „secret weapon“ against stage fright?

My secret weapon against stage fright is Practice! Practice! Practice!

6) Is there anything special you always take with you when travelling?

When I go away for long periods of time I take pictures of my family and friends and I always take my bible along with me.

7) What do you miss most when you far away from home?

My boyfriend, my family, my friends and my cute little teddy bear I have had since college.

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