Preview of the 2019 Season

"Don Quichotte" as Festspielhaus opera

Bregenz, 2.5.2018. Eleven weeks before this year's festival opens, planning for the 2019 season is already well advanced. Bregenz Festival will be staging Jules Massenet's opera Don Quichotte as the Festspielhaus production in summer 2019. The "comédie héroïque", which was first staged in Monte Carlo in 1910, will premiere at Bregenz on 18 July 2019 and have two more performances. The day before that the festival will open for its 74th season with a production of Rigoletto on the Lake Constance stage. In all, 25 performances of the opera are scheduled.

The knight of the sad countenance, as he called himself, has for centuries been one of the most fascinating figures in world literature. On the opera stage he became an passionate, ardent figure. French composer Massenet set a libretto by Henri Cain based on Jacques Le Lorrain's Le Chevalier de la longue figure (1904), itself an adaptation of Miguel de Cervantes' classic novel from the early 17th century. Don Quixote's generosity, his morality and also the imagination with which he creates worlds of his own have impressed and inspired an array of artists. His tilting against windmills – which he imagines to be fearsome giants – has become emblematic of his identity.

Bregenz debut for stage director Mariame Clément
In Don Quichotte the Vienna Symphony Orchestra will be conducted by Antonino Fogliani, who is music director of Carmen at this summer's festival. It will be the Bregenz debut of Mariame Clément, who in recent years has directed productions at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Theater an der Wien, Glyndebourne Festival and Opéra national du Rhin. The set and costume designer will be Julia Hansen, who will also be making her Bregenz Festival debut.

Press conference on 2019 programme on 15 Nov.
The complete programme of the 2019 season will be presented at a press conference on 15 November 2018. The 2019 Bregenz Festival runs from 17 July to 18 August 2019. Tickets go on sale on 21 August 2018 (premieres excepted).

Photo session on start of rehearsals
For the coming summer's festival, preparations are proceeding according to schedule. Rehearsals start for the Festspielhaus production Beatrice Cenci on 11 June, while rehearsals for Carmen, the opera on the lake stage, begin on 21 June. Bregenz Festival will send out invitations to the traditional photo session on the start of rehearsals for the lake stage production by separate mail. The provisional date of the session is 22 June.

Public viewing of the Carmen stage
Bregenz Festival will present the lake stage set for Carmen on Saturday 23 June 2018 at 2 p.m. The public will be shown what the highly sophisticated set can do and discover what Georges Bizet's opera is about. The public viewing is free of charge and will take about 20 minutes.

The 2018 Bregenz Festival runs from 18 July to 20 August. Tickets are available.

(ar)

30.04.2018

Mariame Clément

© Alain Kaiser
30.04.2018

Mariame Clément

© Pietro Spagnoli
02.05.2018

Mariame Clément

© Elisa Haberer