Seestudio | Festspielhaus
26 July 2020 – 7.30 p.m., Seestudio
Giuseppe Verdi and Arrigo Boito didn't always see eye to eye on the subject of music drama. On the occasion of the world premiere of Franco Faccio's first opera in 1863, Boito accused Verdi of having sullied the altar of art. Yet in 1881 all three artists were at work together on the premiere production of Otello, with Boito as the librettist, Verdi as the composer and Faccio as the conductor. The multifaceted relationship of these musicians comes out clearly in their letters and texts. Accompanying them the HABE-Quartett – composed of musicians from the Vienna Symphony Orchestra – will perform Verdi's only string quartet and Faccio's probably long unheard quartet. A wide arc that spans Faccio's Hamlet, Verdi's Rigoletto and Boito's Nero.
HABE-Quartett
Violin Alexander Burggasser
Violin Ai Miwa
Viola Johannes Flieder
Cello Michael Vogt
Speaker Olaf A. Schmitt
2 August 2020 – 7.30 p.m., Seestudio
Her second opera Impresario Dotcom, based on a Carlo Goldoni comedy, will receive its world premiere this summer. Her orchestral piece with the shimmering sounds of a May fly will be performed by the Vienna Symphony Orchestra under the Rigoletto conductor Enrique Mazzola. Ľubica Čekovská is as a matter of fact an exceptionally versatile composer. As a child she improvised on folk songs from her native Slovakia; while studying in London she earned money as a pianist in a bar playing jazz classics with fellow musicians. Today she composes equally for the stage and the cinema. She will give a sample of her versatility in this concert with her musical partners. On her excursion through her musical world she will take in George Gershwin, Fats Waller as well as Mary Lou Williams, who wrote for Duke Ellington and Benny Goodman among others.
Piano Ľubica Čekovská
Trumpet | Cornet Juraj Bartoš
Violin István Reiter, Štefan Reiter
Viola Martin Mierny
Cello Boris Boho
22 August 2020 - 7.30 p.m., Seestudio
Tenor Julian Prégardien is as highly acclaimed in lieder singing as he is in opera and Johann Sebastian Bach's oratorios, having performed for instance at the Schubertiade and the Salzburg Festival. He was the first singer to perform Thomas Larcher's fascinating Padmore Cycle after the dedicatee, Mark Padmore. Here, together with the pianist and harpsichordist Tamar Halperin, he presents a sweeping musical canvas, commencing with the early days of opera, in which Giulio Caccini recounted small stories with arias and songs, also in cyclical form. The versatile harpsichordist then performs Johann Sebastian Bach's music, thus linking up with the German repertoire, where finally Hans Aschenwald's and Alois Hotschnig's inimitable poetry is heard in Larcher's sometimes extremely pared-down settings.
Tenor Julian Prégardien
Harpsichord | Piano Tamar Halperin