Space For Dreams

Bregenz, 29.11.19. Around one hundred people attended the fifth Einblick, or “insight”, session at the Kunsthaus Bregenz on the invitation of the Bregenz Festival. The new work of music theatre composed by Alexander Moosbrugger, Wind, will receive its world premiere at the festival in summer 2020. Before then a number of other events will give people an opportunity to experience how a work of music theatre is created.

“Embracing the audience”
“It’s not only the musical capabilities of an organ than inspire me in this composition, but also music between the Renaissance and the Baroque,” Moosbrugger explained.

Performances by baritone and countertenor Hagen Matzeit, who is to sing the role of Poliphilo in Wind, and theorbo player Johannes Ötzbrugger helped give an increasingly clear sense of what the opera will sound like when finished.

An exclusive insight into what the theatre space may look like was provided by a discussion between dramaturge Olaf Schmitt and artist Flaka Haliti. She said she was intrigued by the idea of incorporating an organ in the designs. For the organist Moosbrugger, the ethereal tones of the organ have a special role to play in his compositions. In cooperation with the organ building workshop Rieger-Orgelbau, a Vorarlberg firm that exports worldwide, the plan is to hang organ pipes from the ceiling of the Workshop Theatre and thus “embrace the audience”. Haliti pointed out that this idea might still be changed.

The festival’s artistic director Elisabeth Sobotka and the Kunsthaus Bregenz director Thomas Trummer said at the beginning of the session: “We feel like mother and father of the Opera Studio. We’re now looking forward very much to finding out what the design of the theatre space will be.” As technical director of the production Christian Steinschaden noted, “Never before has a stage set – in this case a theatre space – consisted of an organ.”

The next insight session is planned for spring 2020.

Enchanted gardens and fascinating buildings
The book on which the opera Wind is based is the enigmatic Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, which was first printed in Venice in 1499 and tells of dreams and their often extraordinary visions. Poliphilo’s search for his beloved Polia leads him into enchanted gardens and fascinating buildings, which are evoked in the book in 172 woodcuts. These images as well as the descriptions of dreams have served as a rich source of inspiration for Flaka Haliti in her stage designs for the Workshop Theatre.

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