Britten focus at Salzburg Easter Festival(February 2005) Rattle conducts Peter Grimes and Bostridge sings song-cycles
The music of Benjamin Britten is spotlit this March at the Salzburg Easter Festival, under Simon Rattle’s artistic directorship. Rattle conducts Trevor Nunn’s production of Peter Grimes, the first time the opera has been staged in Salzburg, with the Berlin Philharmonic in the pit (19 and 28 March). The cast includes Robert Gambill in the title role, Amanda Roocroft as Ellen Orford, and John Tomlinson as Balstrode, with the other townsfolk portrayed by Christopher Maltman, Jane Henschel, John Graham Hall, Donald Maxwell and Kathryn Harries. The new staging – a restudied version of Nunn’s acclaimed Glyndebourne production – is to travel from Salzburg to the Metropolitan Opera in New York in a future season. Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic also give two concert performances of Peter Grimes with the Salzburg cast at the Philharmonie in Berlin on 6 and 8 April. The Salzburg Easter Festival has built a Britten feature around the Peter Grimes staging. Concerts by the Berlin Philharmonic under Rattle include three of the composer’s greatest orchestral song-cycles sung by Ian Bostridge: Les Illuminations (20/25 March), Nocturne (21/26 March), and the Serenade for tenor, horn and strings (22/27 March) with Radek Baborak as horn soloist. Following these concerts the performers will record the song-cycles for a future CD release by EMI. Salzburg prepared the way for these Britten concerts with a Christopher Maltman recital last October featuring the Six Hölderlin Fragments. Within the Easter Festival’s Kontrapunkte concert series, members of the Berlin Philharmonic perform three Britten chamber works, his op.1 Sinfonietta, the Metamorphoses after Ovid for oboe, and the Suite for Cello No.3 (Mozarteum, 23 March). Britten operas staged throughout Germany and Austria Britten’s operas continue to be increasingly programmed in the German-speaking world. On 19 March, as Peter Grimes makes its Salzburg debut at the Großes Festspielhaus, a new production of The Turn of the Screw is unveiled at the Landestheater, followed by 15 further performances until 11 June. This season sees Peter Grimes in a new production by Brigitte Fassbaender in Innsbruck (until 17 April) and a revival of Christine Mielitz’s Vienna State Opera staging (11/14/17/20 March). The exploration of Britten’s wider operatic output progresses, with productions over the past year of Billy Budd by Peter Mussbach in Munich and Willy Decker in Vienna, The Rape of Lucretia by Deborah Warner in Munich, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream in Dresden, Essen and Halle. The Little Sweep is currently running at the Komische Oper in Berlin, and the house hosts a new production of Albert Herring opening on 27 February, continuing Willy Decker’s survey of Britten’s operatic output. > Further information on Work: Peter Grimes Trevor Nunn's production of Peter Grimes at the 2005 Salzburg Easter Festival. Photo copyright Bernd Uhlig Salzburg Easter Festival > News Search |
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