Jacob's Room (world premiere)

Chamber opera for four soloists, four cellos, keyboards and electronics by Morton Subotnick

A production of Art of Our Times in Co-production with soniq performing arts, Berlin and Hellerau- European Arts Centre, with funding from the Hauptstadtkulturfonds

Jacob is a survivor – and yet he cannot live because he is repressing the memories of an awful experience in his childhood. A woman appears and takes Jacob on a journey through his own mind, a journey into Jacob's Room. Here he must confront the horror of those extreme emotions that accompany his experience of a holocaust. Jacob remembers; he remembers the cries of his mother, who died for her son; he remembers his grandfather's cries of lament and his anger: anger at an unjust god, anger at all of mankind.

Morton Subotnick's opera Jacob’s Room is like a prayer, like an appeal for safe conduct, a collective cry for help. The hypnotic loops of Subotnick's music transport the audience to a musical prayer room, a place between dream and reality, a place of associations in which sounds, memories and images blend together.

Morton Subotnick's career as a composer has been subject to two major influences: his passion for combining music with other media, and his experimentation with electronic music. His new opera Jacob’s Room has been developed in close collaboration with the production team and is the result of a common artistic conception.

5 and 7 August – 8 pm

Musical director: Ari Benjamin Meyers
Production, space and costumes: Mirella Weingarten
Moving imagery: Lillevan

With: Katharina von Bülow, Ruth Rosenfeld, Florian Just and Tom Sol

Price: 26 euros. Introductory talk half an hour before the performance begins

Silver Apples of the Moon

by Morton Subotnick (laptop) and Lillevan (live visuals)

On the occasion of the world premiere of his new opera Jacob’s Room, Morton Subotnick presents the original Buchla synthesizer – the first instrument of its kind ever to be built. Subotnick and fellow composer Ramon Sender commissioned Don Buchla in the early 1960s to construct an instrument on which electronic music could be played live. Unlike the Moog synthesizer, which was built for commercial use to reproduce familiar sounds, the Buchla made possible an entirely new kind of music-making.

In his talk, Morton Subotnick will explain how the Buchla synthesizer functions and how it changed the course of music history. The composer will also take questions from the audience.

In the second part of the evening, Subotnick will perform his famous composition Silver Apples of the Moon together with the video artist Lillevan. The work contains synthetic tone colours which were utterly new at the time of composition, and a control for pitch which has defeated many a contemporary composer. Subotnick's electronic compositions are characterised by pulsating undercurrents – many of them are so rhythmic that they have been used for dance performances. Anyone expecting an evening of dry cerebral music will definitely be disappointed!

6 August, 7.30 pm

Price: 5 euros

NB: Silver Apples of the Moon will also be performed on 30 July - 7.30 pm in the ]Kunstmuseum, Liechtenstein.

Out of Context - For Pina

A co-production of Théâtre de la Ville (Paris), Le Grand Théâtre de Luxembourg, TorinoDanza, Sadler’s Wells (London), Stadsschouwburg Groningen, Tanzkongress 2009/Kulturstiftung des Bundes, Kaaitheater (Brussels), Wiener Festwochen

Supported by the Flemish municipality of Gent, East Flanders

No invisible tricks, no aces up the sleeve: in his latest production the choreographer Alain Platel goes back to the basics of dance creation – drawing on his faith in the human body as an emotional tool, as the carrier of memory, and as raw material for living, visual art.

After flirting with the boundaries of opera in VSPRS and in pitié!, Platel now offers a piece in which music is not the driving force; neither does Out of Context have a stage set or lavish costumes. The dancers instead simply wear what fits in their suitcases. Not that Out of Context is a piece born out of the crisis! It is precisely this economy which reveals the master choreographer's trademark style. Each of the dancers with whom Platel undertakes this adventure, is a masterly body artist. The piece is to be performed by nine dancers, who have experienced a great deal with their choreographer in recent years.

Out of Context arose out of the constructive dialogue which the choreographer and dancers had together on the basis of their personal obsessions. The result is surprising – familiar, inviting, moving – and in fact much less taken out of context than the title might suggest.

13 and 14 August - 8 pm

Les ballets C de la B; concept and direction: Alain Platel

With: Elie Tass, Emile Josse, Hyo Seung Ye, Kaori Ito, Mathieu Desseigne Ravel, Mélanie Lomoff, Romeu Runa, Rosalba Torres Guerrero, Ross Mc Cormack

Price: 26 euros. Introductory talk half an hour before the performance begins.

]Trailer Out of Context - For Pina

Musical director: Michael Wendeberg
Jeannine Hirzel, mezzo soprano and Roswitha Müller, contralto

In association with Lech Zürs Tourism and Kunsthaus Bregenz
A music theatre prelude to the landscape art project "Horizon Fields"
Collegium Novum Zürich

Because of bad weather the performance will take place on July 25th - 11.30 p.m., Formarinsee/Lech am Arlberg

Traumzeit und Traumdeutung ("Dream time and dream interpretation") is a symphonic action conceived for a mountain setting. The open-air concert will take place at Formarinsee, an idyllic alpine lake above the resort of Lech am Arlberg in Vorarlberg. The lake lies at the foot of the majestic Red Wall at an altitude of over 1,900 metres.

The performance is preceded by a hike up the mountain, during which the members of the audience leaves behind the sounds of civilisation more and more with every step. When they arrive at Formarin Lake, they take their places on the meadow. Orchestral groups are positioned around them at all four points of the compass a few hundred metres away. In the distance, the audience begins to hear voices, deep-pitched notes on brass instruments and percussion sounds. The orchestral sounds mingle with the sounds of nature, the wind and the water, immersing listeners in a state of meditative absorption. The music that is played and sung is overlain and interspersed with the music that arises from the countryside, giving the impression of a space-time-continuum disintegrating - a dream time.

After the performance you travel by cable car to the peak called Rüfikopf where you can admire the landscape art project "Horizon Fields" organised by the Kunsthaus Bregenz. The project displays works by Antony Gormley, one of the most important sculptors of our time. At various places on the walk one comes upon life-sized iron casts of a human figure, standing and gazing out at the breathtaking mountain panorama from an altitude of exactly 2,039 m above sea level. The exhibition explores the complex relationship between nature and human society.

Packages

Dream time (in Lech)

You spend the night in Lech. Using your Aktive Inklusive Card you can travel on the local bus to and from Lake Formarin and take the cable car up to Rüfikopf free of charge. If you prefer, you can get off the bus at Älpele and hike to Lake Formarin – we recommend you set off at 8.30 a.m. After the performance you can take the bus back to Rüfiplatz, from where you can go by cable car to Rufikopf and admire the sculptures, taking either a short or a long way round.

Dream journey (by bus)

You travel by bus from the Festspielhaus Bregenz to the alpine ski resort of Lech. On the journey you listen to an introduction to Antony Gormley's work and to Jorge E. López's music. Arriving in Lech, you can stop for refreshments before continuing on to Lake Formarin on the local bus. After the performance you take the bus back to Lech, from where you can take the cable car up to the mountain peak called Rüfikopf and admire the sculptures on a short walk. Then you are free to enjoy Lech and the surrounding area a little more before travelling home by bus.

• departure Bregenz Festspielhaus 7.30 a.m.
• departure Dornbirn railway station 7.50 a.m.
• departure Feldkirch bus station at the Katzenturm 8.10 a.m.
• departure Bludenz railway station 8.30 a.m.
• arrival Oberlech cable car station 9.15 a.m.
• return journey 5 p.m. from Oberlech cable car station

Price: 26 euros; with KAZ Pass: 8 euros

Dreamlike (for those arriving under their own steam)

You travel to Lech free of charge, since an admission ticket to a Bregenz Festival event entitles you to travel on public transport throughout the Vorarlberg region for free. Cable car rides to Rüfikopf and local buses are also free of charge on the day of the performance to which you hold an admission ticket. You travel by local bus to Lake Formarin and back. After the performance you can take the cable car to Rüfikopf and admire the sculptures and the mountain scenery around Lech, taking either a short or a long route.

Performance starts 11.30 a.m.  
Price: 15 euros; with KAZ Pass: 8 euros

In July a detailed flyer with information about the guided hikes will be posted on our website and can be downloaded from the website of Lech Zürs Tourism. You can also pick up the leaflet when you visit the Ticket Center at the Festspielhaus or the Lech Zürs Tourist Board.

Up-to-date information can be obtained from the Bregenz Festival Ticket Center on +43 (0)5574 407 6 or from Lech Zürs Tourism on +43 (0)5583 2161 0. If the outdoor concert has to be cancelled because of bad weather, the ticket price will be refunded to you by Ticket Center staff.

Test Audio Standad (EN)

Light and fire, freezing cold and a stunning mountain panorama: on the last weekend in January the idyllic winter sports resort of Lech am Arlberg will once again play host to the Bregenz Festival, as it has for the past six years. In a show entitled Viva Verdi – Aria Magic in the Alps the festival presents the famous Italian composer's most moving melodies amid the majestic setting of the Schlosskopfplatz on 28 and 31 January 2010. 

The show is subtitled Fathers and Daughters – a fateful relationship which lies at the heart of many of Verdi's operas and also inspired the composer to write some of his most magical duets: for instance the Ethiopian princess Aida and her father Amonasro, Violetta from La Traviata and her father-in-law Giorgio Germont, and the jester Rigoletto and his daughter Gilda. The duets will be performed by Elena Kelessidi (soprano) and David Stout (baritone), both artists who perform at the festival. 

Nestling between a river, a forest filled with snow, and high mountains is the outdoor location of the show, Schlosskopfplatz – a large square at the Schlosskopf ski-lift station. Here, an extraordinary stage sculpture of ice and snow will be fashioned to serve as the backdrop for a spectacle of light, fire and tragic passion. 

Ice-cold opera highlights since 2004

Every year since 2004 the Bregenz Festival has staged an open-air concert of opera highlights at Lech am Arlberg. In the last six winters, festival singers have sung a selection of best-loved arias and melodies from hit productions on the Floating Stage like West Side Story, La Bohème, Tosca and Aida. The shows in the snow regularly draw several thousand enthusiastic spectators to the centre of Lech in spite of temperatures as low as minus 25. 

 28 and 31 January 2010 - 6.15 p.m. (Lech am Arlberg, Schlosskopfplatz, admission free)

]Aida - Liebestod at Lech am Arlberg in 2009

]Movie "Puccini on Ice 2008"
]Movie of Show in the Snow 2006

Floating Stage tickets to be won! Visitors to Viva Verdi – Aria Magic in the Alps, whose appetite is whetted for a summer evening on Lake Constance, will have plenty of chances at the Lech show to win tickets for the coming season of the Bregenz Festival.

On land, in water and up in the air: We are looking for professional dancers who want to be part of Graham Vick’s (Choreographer: Ron Howell) spectacular open-air production of Verdi’s "Aida" next summer in Bregenz. 

Period: 21. June 2010 (security briefing & start of rehearsals) to 22. August 2010

Requirements: Very good modern and contemporary technique, solid classical technique, high improvisation ability and stage experience. 

Please send your application including a portrait picture & CV to audition@bregenzerfestspiele.com
Make sure you also state your email address, phone number and post address!

Application deadline: 20. January 2010

Participation in audition (beginning of February) only upon written invitation.

Contact: from 11.01.2010: Daniel Knapp, Phone: +43 5574 – 407-377

Voices from inner emigration

Totalitarianism, whether fascist or communist, forced many people into exile. For those who stayed in their homeland, a possible solution was self-imposed internal exile. Chamber music and poetry are the supreme forms of expression of artists in this sort of "inner emigration". For Weinberg, Akhmatova and Shostakovich these genres were a respite from the strictly guarded public utterances of artists living in totalitarian regimes; for others, like Beethoven and Smetana, chamber music was a voice from an inner island amid the sea of deafness surrounding them. Chamber music concerts are not normally a feature of the Bregenz Festival programme, but in the case of Weinberg, his powerful, intimate and passionate chamber music makes up an important part of his extensive oeuvre, and a festival celebrating his music simply cannot leave it out. The chamber music section of the festival has been programmed by our friends and partners, the members of the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, and it is a great opportunity to experience these excellent musicians close at hand – with music whose every note illustrates the motto of the Festival in 2010: "In foreign lands".

Ralph Dutli reads – in Russian and German – texts by four great Russian poets of the 20th century: Ossip Mandelstam, Marina Tsvetaeva, Anna Akhmatova and Joseph Brodsky, who today are regarded as classic figures of modernism. Two of them – Tsvetaeva and Brodsky – were exiles in Paris and New York, while the other two – Mandelstam and Akhmatova – were significant representatives of inner emigration. Mandelstam died in the Gulag camps, Tsvetaeva committed suicide; all four suffered political repression and a ban on publication. In their poems they created a "portable fatherland", as Heinrich Heine called it, a precarious security in language, a final possibility of freedom and a breathing-space.

25 July – 7.30 p.m., Lake Studio

EOS-Quartett Wien
Willy Büchler, violin
Christian Blasl, violin
Roman Bernhart, viola
Andreas Pokorny, cello
Doris Adam, piano
Talia Or, soprano

• Mieczysław Weinberg: Piano Quintet op. 18
• Mieczysław Weinberg: Three Palms op. 120, a setting of verses by Mikhail Lermontov for string quartet and soprano
  
• Mieczysław Weinberg: Jewish Songs op. 13 Songs

Texts by Ossip Mandelstam, read by Ralph Dutli

Ticket price: 22 euro

8 August – 11 a.m., Lake Studio

Luca Monti, piano
Kana Matsui, violin
Johannes Flieder, viola
Christoph Stradner, cello

• Mieczysław Weinberg: Trio op. 48 for Violin, Viola and Cello
• Mieczysław Weinberg: Sonata No. 2 op. 63 for Cello and Piano

Texts by Joseph Brodsky, read by Ralph Dutli

Ticket price: 22 euro

15 August – 7.30 p.m., Lake Studio

Ensemble Dolby’s Around
Claire Dolby, violin, voice
Nicolas Geremus, violin
Vera Reigersberg, viola
Luis Zorita, cello
Ernst Weissensteiner, double bass

• Mieczysław Weinberg: Chamber Symphony No. 1 op. 145
• Works by Claire Dolby and Nicolas Geremus

Texts by Marina Tsvetaeva and Anna Akhmatova, read by Ralph Dutli

Ticket price: 22 euro 

children's festival

Before the adults celebrate the premiere of Aida on the Floating Stage, our youngest friends of the festival are invited to put together their own musical and perform it in front of an audience. In a week-long festival, children aged from 6 to 11 take part in various workshops to create everything they need for a show of their own: they paint stage scenery, assemble props, practise singing and rehearse dances… At the end the excitement mounts because the first night is drawing near.

crèche

A new service for matinees – come to an orchestral matinee concert, a morning performance of the opera in the Festival Opera House or the festival breakfast and the crossculture team will look after your children if they are three years old or more. During the performance we will entertain your children with a creative cultural programme with lots of play, fun and music.

• Matinee concert of the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, 25 July – 11.00 a.m.
• Festival Opera House production Die Passagierin, 31 July – 11.00 a.m.
• Matinee concert of the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, 1 August – 11.00 a.m.
• Matinee concert of the Vorarlberg Symphony Orchestra, 15 August – 11.00 a.m.
• Festival breakfast, 25 July, 1 and 15 August – 9.30 a.m.
  

This service is free of charge | Festival Opera House

For information and registration, write to info@cross-culture.at or call +43 5574 407 296.

crossculture night

The big summer event in the open air for school-pupils and students aged from 14 to 26. The highlight is a performance of Aida on the Floating Stage, but the Festival Opera House opens its doors to participants in the afternoon. Stockkampf and Opernworkshops invite the young people to take part and try things out. Those who prefer can go on guided tours, take part in sound and stage checks and listen to introductions to the works. And everyone who likes being outside can enjoy the show on the open-air stage in front of the Festival Opera House.

crossculture week

Spontaneity, a sense of fun and passion for music. Band workshops will be offered by the musicians of Simon Kräutler & The Gang. The rehearsal room will thus become a musical workshop for young people aged from 14 to 20 who have instrumental and singing ability but would like to improve their ability to play together and to work on their stage presence. They will also learn about acoustics and lighting and get tips on song-writing. The week of music ends with an open jam session on stage and a performance on the stage in front of the Festival Opera House as part of crossculture night.

crossculture workshops

Egypt at the time of the Pharaohs. The stage set on the Nile is the backdrop for one of the greatest tales of tragic love in the entire opera repertoire: the Ethiopian princess Aida loves the Egyptian commander Radames, but in times of war and with intrigues at the Pharaoh's court, their passionate love has no chance of survival. Participants in the crossculture workshops experience the story and music of Giuseppe Verdi's Aida themselves and find solutions by acting out scenes. "Opernschlüssel" provides an insight into stage acting technique and gives facts about life in the theatre.

crossculture tours

What shoe size would fit the statue whose feet are part of the stage set for Aida? What must the crane operator, 60 metres high up, look out for during the performance? Why doesn't the Floating Stage have an orchestra pit? Artistic and technical secrets of the Floating Stage will be revealed on a tour behind the scenes (admission is free for children of 10 or younger, for school groups and young people's groups). The backstage tour can be conveniently combined with a crossculture workshop.

concessions for school children & students

For schoolchildren and students no older than 26, reduced-price tickets are available for every event at the Bregenz Festival, except for premieres and events not organized by the festival.

Ticket prices: 25 % of the regular ticket price, but not less than EUR 8.

For organizational reasons, reduced-price tickets can be ordered only by phone on +43 (0)5574 407-6 or in person at the box office.

academy of the bregenz festival and the vienna symphony orchestra

For the third season now, soloists of the Vienna Symphony Orchestra coach aspiring musicians and prepare them for a professional career in a unique atmosphere of art and nature on the shore of Lake Constance. Participants in the Academy of the Bregenz Festival attend master-classes and in addition to the tuition there is a varied programme of extracurricular events. Rehearsals and visits to Bregenz Festival performances, body awareness workshops, as well as the opening and closing concerts are also part of the Academy.

]academy blog

]Registration form academy

Opening concert with tutors from the Vienna Symphony Orchestra

Closing concert with Academy participants

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