Life in a foreign land can be a golden opportunity or a crushing penance. For Aida, the Ethiopian Princess taken into slavery, exile brings her agonisingly close to the man she loves but may not have. She and Radames are slaves to passion who can only find their freedom “in der Fremde”. As the “death boat” makes its astonishing journey into the heavens they sing “O terra addio” .

For Mieczyslaw Weinberg, whose astonishing creativity provides the main focus of our festival programme, exile was both an opportunity and a curse. As a Polish Jew it saved his life from the advancing Germans, but plunged him into the terror of Stalin’s anti-semitic purges. His father in law’s murder in 1948 was the starting pistol of this brutal pogrom, and he himself was arrested in 1953, saved only by Stalin’s timely death. His response to ever present danger was a life-long outpouring of music – music whose poignant intimacy reflects the bitter-sweet existence of one who has lost everything but can still give thanks for his survival. When the thugs of the Soviet Composers Union condemned him for “abstract humanism” (a formulation likewise employed by the Nazis!) they little realised the compliment they were paying!

We celebrate his survival and his ability through his testing life to continue to compose an unbroken stream of music. The collapse of the Soviet Union has almost buried Weinberg – but this summer we mount a resurrection – a joyous rebirth of an astounding talent.

Come and join us by the lake, in the theatre, at our concerts – experience the rainbow of music and culture that we offer our thirsty visitors!

]Download Schedule 2010 (german PDF/0,5 MB)
]Download Weinberg Flyer

]Video: David Fanning about Mieczyslaw Weinberg

Libretto by Alexander Medvedev after the short story by Nikolai Gogol
Sung in German; first performance in Austria

31 July - 7.30 pm, Theater am Kornmarkt

The Portrait, Weinberg's satirical opera based on the short story by Nikolai Gogol, paints a telling picture of a corrupt art world.

The talented but unsuccessful painter Chartkov comes into possession of a portrait that is under a curse, and becomes a celebrated high-society artist. The rich and famous are at his feet, the money rolls in, he is invited to parties and is the talk of the town. But when Chartkov realises that the portrait has caused him to betray his own art, he resorts to radical action.

The phenomenon of a financially successful artist purveying ever more shallow imitations of an empty concept as ever more expensive high art is as familiar to gallery goers in modern Vienna or London as it was in 18th century Petersburg. But for artists such as Weinberg working in the context of the Soviet Union, this story had another resonance. Death, deportation to the Gulag, professional and personal extinction lay around every corner, just as poverty dictated Chartkov's choices. Everyone, in this merciless climate, must find a compromise between survival and artistic betrayal.

Vorarlberg Symphony Orchestra

Further performances: 3 and 5 August - 7.30 p.m.

Duration: 2 1/2 hours, with break

Introductory talk one hour before the performance starts at the Theater am Kornmarkt, 6 euros.

A production of Bregenz Festival in cooperation with the ]Pfalztheater Kaiserslautern.

First performance in Austria

Guest performance of Deutsches Theater Berlin

19 August - 7.30 pm, Theater am Kornmarkt

It is not the first country that Eva and Herbert Kahmer have journeyed through in search of oil, and with it wealth and the tranquillity and security they long for. Like modern nomads they have wandered for years now from potential reservoir to potential reservoir. Herbert, infected by the dream of one day finding huge deposits of crude oil, is constantly away travelling with his business partner Edgar, while Eva waits and no longer has any idea what the sense of the endeavour, and of her life, is. Left alone in a country that scares her, with a woman-servant who is alien and inscrutable, she locks herself in her house and is prey to strange thoughts. Her marriage, her love for Herbert seems frayed and her continuing affair with Edgar is a further indication that something is wrong with her life. Finally the miracle happens and the two men strike oil, and at the same time a young woman appears who makes Eva ill at ease, raising hopes and stirring up feelings which nobody had any inkling of before.

Lukas Bärfuss, author of the prize-winning Rwanda novel Hundert Tage, returns to the subject of profit-hungry, guilt-ridden and naive Europeans who meddle in the affairs of far-off countries with disastrous consequences.

Stephan Kimmig, born in 1959, previously directed the world premieres of Lukas Bärfuss's plays Der Bus and Amygdala.

With Nina Hoss, Susanne Wolff, Felix Goeser, Ingo Hülsmann, Margit Bendokat

Further performances: 20 and 21 August - 7.30 p.m.

Duration: 1 3/4 hours, without break

First performance in Austria

Guest performance by Deutsches Theater Berlin

14 August – 7.30 pm, Theater am Kornmarkt

It begins with a dream, a child's dream. Charles Marlow has always been fascinated by maps, foreign, unknown continents and in particular by a big black river which winds into the heart of the African continent. Marlow's dream appears to come true when a Belgian trading company hires him as the captain of a steamer with the assignment of travelling up the Congo to bring an agent named Kurtz back to Europe and restore him to reason. Mr Kurtz has broken with the trading company and transformed the innermost trading station into a bizarre kingdom of his own in which the natives worship him as a god. And thus Marlow's voyage up the Congo becomes a journey into the heart of darkness on which the borders between civilisation and barbarity, good and evil, life and death become erased.

Joseph Conrad's best-known novel is one of the truly great literary studies of what is alien in us and around us, and a story of the transformation of things within themselves. Director Andreas Kriegenburg was acclaimed for his richly poetic staging of an adaptation of Kafka's The Trial at the Munich Kammerspiele. Conrad's Heart of Darkness is his first production as principal director of Deutsches Theater Berlin.

With Olivia Gräser, Natali Seelig, Elias Arens, Harald Baumgartner, Daniel Hoevels, Peter Moltzen, Markwart Müller-Elmau

Further performances: 15 and 16 August - 7.30 p.m.

Duration: 2 1/2 hours, with break

Two young women, both voyaging by ship to a new and different life, are caught up by the history that links them to one another: The Passenger by the Polish composer Mieczysław Weinberg is the Festival Opera House production in summer 2010. The opera is based on a novel with the same title by the Polish Auschwitz survivor Zofia Posmysz. Completed in 1968, the opera was first performed in 2006 in a concert performance in Moscow.

The opera is set on an ocean liner en route to Brazil in the early 1960s. Among the passengers are a German diplomat, who is on his way to South America in order to take up a new post, and his wife Lisa. To her horror Lisa recognises, among the passengers, a woman she believed to be dead. Shocked by the encounter, Lisa reveals to her husband that she had formerly worked as an SS warden at Auschwitz. From this point on, the scene of the opera switches between the ship and the concentration camp. While Lisa is preoccupied by the memory of her ambivalent relationship with the former inmate Martha, her husband tries to come to terms with a revelation which casts his wife in a totally new light.

The Passenger is regarded as a work of extraordinary originality and gigantic dimensions. Shostakovich praised it as a masterpiece and used all his influence to try and get it staged. But in spite of the fact that four Soviet opera houses expressed an interest in staging The Passenger, it was vetoed every time by the cultural authorities.

Further information about the Cast for each performance you find here.

The Festival-Lounge offers you and your guests all the privileges and comforts of an exclusive evening at the Bregenz Festival. As a lounge guest, a parking place is reserved for you. First our lounge hostesses welcome you with a glass of sparkling wine and then take you on a tour back-stage where you will learn all about the festival. Then comes the culinary highlight – the festival dinner. After this, equipped with Swarovski opera glasses and an evening programme you take your seat in the comfortable, covered viewing area of the Festival Lounge to enjoy the opera on the Floating Stage. You will receive a souvenir photo to remind you of the special event. 

The services include

• Reserved parking place
• A host for your group from arrival to start of performance
• Aperitif
  
• Backstage tour
• Four-course dinner (including table drinks)
• Text booklet and evening programme
• CD André Chénier
  
• Swarovski opera glasses (on loan)
• Upholstered seating in the covered viewing area of the exclusive Festival-Lounge
• Farewell drink

With a Premium-Ticket you and your friends benefit from special services which will make your visit to the Festival a very memorable occasion. When you arrive a place to park will have been reserved for you, and you will be received by our hosts in the lounge with its covered viewing area and upholstered seating. Swarovski opera glasses and an evening programme will be all ready for you. Your festival evening ends with a farewell drink.  

The service include

• Reserved parking place
• Upholstered seating in the covered viewing area of the exclusive Festival-Lounge.
• Swarovski opera glasses (on loan)
• Evening programme
• Farewell drink

Vienna Symphony Orchestra

Visitors to our orchestral concerts in 2010 have an extended treat in store: the discovery of music both intimate and epic by the most significant composer working in Moscow since Shostakovich, Mieczyslaw Weinberg.

Two of the concerts with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra will be conducted by a familiar face at the Bregenz Festival, the Russian conductor Vladimir Fedoseyev, who for many years was a personal friend of Weinberg's and to whom his 17th Symphony is dedicated. The 17th symphony is an epic personal reflection on the fragile life of the individual confronting the machinery of totalitarianism, and is paired with another masterwork in which personal doubt plays a powerful role: Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde.  

Weinberg, a refugee who witnessed from afar the destruction of his family, had an exceptionally sensitive ear to the voices of the threatened. In his exquisite and deeply moving 6th symphony, these voices are the voices of children – in this case the Vienna Boys' Choir, who are also the soloists in his recently discovered Requiem.

The final concert with the Vienna Symphony orchestra offers a personal choice of music from Judith Weir, a composer who will play an important an important part in our 2011 festival. Alongside works by Janacek and Rimsky Korsakov, which illustrate Judith’s passionate interest in story-telling, she will also introduce an important recent work of her own: "CONCRETE - a motet about London" – a tribute to the continual rebuilding of London, whether after the great fire of 1666 or after the "Blitz", the German air raids of 1940.

25 July - 11 a.m., Festspielhaus

Conductor: Vladimir Fedoseyev

Michelle Breedt, mezzo-soprano
Nikolai Schukoff, tenor

• Mieczysław Weinberg: Symphony No. 17 op.137 "Memory"
• Gustav Mahler: Das Lied von der Erde

1 August - 11 a.m., Festspielhaus

Conductor: Vladimir Fedoseyev

Elena Kelessidi, soprano
]Vienna Boys' Choir, chormaster: Gerald Wirth
]Prague Philharmonic Choir, chormaster: Lukáš Vasilek

• Mieczysław Weinberg : Requiem for soprano, boys' choir, choir and orchestra op.96
• Mieczysław Weinberg: Symphony No. 6 for boys' choir and orchestra op.79

9 August -7.30 p.m., Festspielhaus

Conductor: Dmitri Jurowski

]Prague Philharmonic Choir, chormaster: Lukáš Vasilek

• Leoš Janáček: Taras Bulba, rhapsody
• Judith Weir: Concrete - a motet about London for narrator, choir and orchestra
• Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov: Scheherazade Symphonic Suite op.35
  

Prices

Vorarlberg Symphony Orchestra

Another highlight of the programme is the concert of the Vorarlberg Symphony Orchestra, in which the brilliant Vorarlberg trumpeter Jürgen Ellensohn performs Weinberg's unusual Trumpet Concerto.

15 August – 11 a.m., Festspielhaus

Conductor: Gérard Korsten

Jürgen Ellensohn, trumpet

Mieczysław Weinberg: Sinfonietta No. 1 in D minor op.41
Mieczysław Weinberg: Trumpet Concerto in B flat op.94
Bedřich Smetana: Excerpts from the cycle of symphonic poems Má vlast

Prices

Chamber orchestra of Novosibirsk Opera, MusicAeterna

Musical jewels from Sibiria

From farthest Siberia come not only precious metals, but musical jewels too. MusicAeterna, under their inspirational leader Teodor Currentzis, are a hand picked group of passionately dedicated Russian musicians who have transformed the landscape of Russian music making.

Their performances, whether they be recordings of Purcell's "Dido and Aeneas" - a rare flowering of Russian baroque style - or razor sharp restorations of old masters like Beethoven's 5th have a sharpness of detail that eludes Russia's more traditional ensembles. Music making in the West also often suffers from a sense of comfortable routine: these players show how different music can sound when it is played with fire matched with absolute technical perfection.

The two concerts by MusicAeterna form part of our Weinberg Weekend (31 July to 2 August). They present some of Weinberg's more intimate pieces for chamber orchestra, paired with the thrilling interpretation of classics such as Beethoven's Fifth and Mozart's 40th Symphony.

1 August – 7.30 p.m., Theater am Kornmarkt

Conductor: Teodor Currentzis

Maria Fedotova, flute

• Mieczysław Weinberg: Flute Concerto No. 1 in D minor op.75
• Mieczysław Weinberg: Sinfonietta No. 2 op.74
• Sergei Prokofiev: Symphony No. 1 in D op.25 – Classical Symphony
• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Symphony No. 40 in G minor KV 550

Prices

2 August – 7.30 p.m., Festspielhaus

Conductor: Teodor Currentzis

Petr Belyakin, clarinet

• Mieczysław Weinberg: Rhapsody on Moldavian Themes op.47
  With participation of musicians of the Vienna Symphony Orchestra
  
• Mieczysław Weinberg: Chamber Symphony No. 4 op.153 for clarinet, triangle and string orchestra
  
• Ludwig van Beethoven: Symphony No. 5 op.67

Preise

August 1 – 7.30 p.m., Conductor: Teodor Currentzis
Kornmarkt Theatre

August 2 – 7.30 p.m., Conductor: Teodor Currentzis
Festival Theatre