Preview of the 2023 Season

Bregenz, 18.5.22. In a month, rehearsals begin for this year's Bregenz Festival. Meanwhile planning for next year's festival programme is well under way. In summer 2023 the opera at the Festspielhaus will be Giuseppe Verdi's Ernani. The opera, which was first staged in Venice in 1844, will in premiere at Bregenz on 19 July 2023. There will be two further performances. The opera will be directed by Lotte de Beer, with designs by Christof Hetzer. The music director of the production will be Enrique Mazzola.

The opera about love and revenge has been on the playbill at the Bregenz Festival once before, in 1987, when it was enthusiastically received in a staging by Brian Michaels conducted by Pinchas Steinberg.

Six years before Giuseppe Verdi achieved international fame with the incomparably melodic Rigoletto – a work about a jester's revenge on the ruler he serves, controversial for its social implications – he had composed another thrilling opera about and revenge, Ernani. That, too, was based on a play by the French author Victor Hugo. Its combination of the sublime and the grotesque inspired Verdi to a style uniquely his own, with moving arias, stirring choruses and scenes of high drama. Ernani was Verdi's breakthrough as a composer and became one of his most performed operas in the 19th century.

Return visit by Lotte de Beer
A fictional tale with references to historical figures of the 16th century, Ernani is being directed by Lotte de Beer with sets and costumes designed by Christof Hetzer. They displayed their richly imaginative approach to historical subject matter in Rossini's Moses in Egypt, which was staged at the Bregenz Festival in 2017. Once again they will be working with conductor Enrique Mazzola, who demonstrated his great affinity with Verdi's music in the lake stage production of Rigoletto in 2019.

Press conference on the 2023 programme on 16 November
The complete programme of the 2023 season will be presented at a Bregenz Festival press conference on 16 November 2023. The 2023 Bregenz Festival runs from 19 July to 20 August 2023. Madame Butterfly – the opera on the lake stage – returns for its second season next year, premiering on 20 July 2023.

Tickets available for the 2022 season
This year's Bregenz Festival opens on 20 July 2022 with a performance of Madame Butterfly, followed the next day by the opera Siberia at the Festspielhaus. Tickets are available: tel. 0043 5574 4076 and www.bregenzerfestspiele.com.

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