A big draw on the lake

Bregenz, 24.7.20. Rigoletto remains a big draw for Bregenz audiences. Due to high demand the Bregenz Festival has scheduled two additional performances of the Giuseppe Verdi opera next summer. The new dates are 5 and 19 August 2021, both Thursdays. The production, as spectacular as it is moving, will therefore play 28 times on the Lake Constance stage.

Of the 203,000 tickets now available for Rigoletto, about 117,000 have already been booked. No dates are as yet sold out. The first night of the opera’s second run is on 22 July 2021. The festival opens one day earlier with a production of the opera Nero in the Festspielhaus. The final performance of Rigoletto brings the 75th season of the festival to an end on 22 August. 

As seasoned followers of the Bregenz Festival know, the lake stage production – featuring a gigantic clown’s head – offers a highly unusual interpretation of Verdi’s opera, with ingeniously engineered spaces for intimate scenes as well as the stage effects of a big show, though the elaborate stage technology is all the time at the service of the artistic idea.

The opera about the eponymous court jester was staged for the first time at Bregenz in 2019 and played to capacity audiences at a total of 27 performances. It was due to return for its second run this summer, but following the cancellation of the 2020 festival season the management decided to reschedule Rigoletto for summer 2021.

A returns policy is in operation for the tickets that were purchased for the cancelled 2020 season. A gratifying 50 percent of the tickets have so far been exchanged for tickets to the revival of Rigoletto in 2021.

Music theatre premiere and other events at the Festspielhaus
A mini-series of events – the Festtage – will be held in the Festspielhaus from 15 to 22 August. It opens in about three weeks with the concert Alles wieder gut, featuring the celebrated bass baritone Florian Boesch and the ensemble Musicbanda Franui. In all, three concerts, one evening recital and the world premiere of a new work of music theatre are on the programme in the Great Hall of the Festspielhaus. The Lake Studio will be the venue for two events in the popular Musik & Poesie section, while the Kunsthaus Bregenz (KUB) will host one of the Festtage concerts. Tickets are still available to all events, except the Musik & Poesie evening with Karl Markovics and the KUB concert which are sold out.

Orchestral concerts in 2021
As well as Rigoletto on the lake stage and Nero in the Festspielhaus, the orchestral concert programme has also been finalised. The Bregenz Festival will be celebrating its 75th birthday next summer with epoch-making works by Richard Wagner and Joseph Haydn. In Haydn’s Creation the Bregenz Festival Chorus will be joined by other regional choirs – a sign of how deeply anchored it is in the Lake Constance region. The oratorio will be conducted by Andrés Orozco-Estrada, from autumn 2020 the new chief conductor of the Vienna Symphony Orchestra. He will also conduct a concert performance of Wagner’s Das Rheingold.

Guided tours of the lake stage in July and August
Explore the fascinating Rigoletto stage set and take a look behind the scenes of the world’s largest lake stage on a 45 minute guided tour. Tours are offered from 6 July to 22 August 2020. All the details on prices, dates and public health regulations can be found on the festival’s website.

The Festtage im Festspielhaus events run from 15 to 22 August 2020. The 2021 Bregenz Festival runs from 21 July to 22 August. For tickets and information, visit www.bregenzerfestspiele.com or call 0043 5574 4076.

(ar)